The Joy Journals

Can I ask you to stretch a little further?

I’m often asked why living in the state of joy is so important.  Other than the obvious – you feel better – living joyfully raises your vibrational frequency.  So why is that so important? You see, everything is energy.  People and environments are alive, connected and changing. Every atom in the universe has a specific vibratory or periodic motion.  And each periodic motion has a frequency (the number of oscillations per second) that can be measured in Hertz. So when someone says they want to "raise their vibrational frequency", that means they wish to elevate their frequency to such a level that allows them to improve their physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing. Because joy, love, and gratitude are the highest vibrational frequencies there are, living in those states offers you the opportunity to transcend the ordinary and live the extraordinary.
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Expand your job bubble even further

My rampage of expressing generosity of spirit continues with this week’s assignment.  If you’ve done the first and second activities, hopefully you’re feeling an energetic shift from “woe is me” to “wow is me”. You see, I’ve always felt that the best way to banish worry and doubt is through service to someone or something else. It’s always worked for me.  And as St. Francis of Assisi said in his famous Peace Prayer, “For it is in giving that we receive.”   Now it’s time to expand your joy bubble even further. Your assignment this week is to think of a friend in need.  Someone who has been struggling. They may have lost their job because of the pandemic.  Or perhaps they are dealing with an illness of their own or someone in their family. COVID has been hard on many families.  Your friend could be one of those people who has been suffering in silence – dealing with depression and afraid to tell anyone. But you know. This is your joy assignment for the week.
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Share Your Joy Bubble

If you read last week’s blog, you know I’m on a rampage of expressing generosity of spirit this month.  And your first assignment was to write a love letter to yourself and mail it.  Did you do it?  How did it feel?  Now what? Hopefully, you’re feeling “wow is me” instead of “woe is me”.  Maybe you’ve even received your letter in the mail.  Powerful isn’t it?  Now it’s time to expand your joy bubble. Here’s this week’s assignment. These past few months have been pretty tough for most folks.  Parents worried about sending children back to school.  College kids concerned about their future.  Families stressed about mounting debt and an uncertain economy.  Yup – lots of things to take a person away from their joy.  That’s where you come in.
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How to move from “woe is me” to “wow is me”

Gotta love a bold “dame” who knows her worth like May West did! So today, I’m going to start you on a fabulous journey that will help shift your energy from “woe is me”, to “wow is me!”  And I can’t wait to share the very first assignment! Over the next five Wednesdays that I’ve dedicated to the Being Joy™ theme of generosity, I will give you five assignments – one for each week. I call them “The Five Letters of Generosity”. So let’s get started on the first one.
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Do you feel like something is missing in your life?

The last few weeks Joy Journals have taken you on a journey of clearing and connecting with your inner spirit as a way to better hear its messages. Hopefully, your intuition has sharpened and your joy centre has been awakened.  So now what? It’s one thing to live a joyful life of self-discovery and self-empowerment, but if you are only looking inside and not outside, in my opinion you have only accomplished about half of what you signed up for in this lifetime.  Joy without action can make you passive and myopic.  And I don’t believe that at this perilous time in our history, you can afford to sit back without fulfilling your mission. That’s why learning how to tune into your spirit can help you remember living in the fullness of your joy so that you can express your purpose through every intentional action that you take. Let me tell you my story.
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Are you a tree hugger?

Something else I love when wandering through or near the forest, is the sound of the wind rustling the leaves and branches.  In Denise Linn’s guidebook for her Native Spirit Oracle Cards, she talks about receiving messages through the Air Spirit. Denise explains that many indigenous people believe that the winds carry information from the sacred realms.  And that when you’re outdoors, you should stop and take a moment to notice the feel of the wind on your skin. To me, that is Spirit trying to get my attention.  And when I take time to listen with my ears and my heart, I am “in spirit”.  That’s when my intuition is heightened, and my clarity of purpose is strengthened.
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The spiritual gift of weight loss

A remarkable thing happened on my wellness journey to losing 85 pounds.  Not only did my body return to its natural self, but my intuition sharpened when my spirit gradually became liberated from the internal and external clutter I had been carrying for decades. You see for me, losing weight wasn’t simply about esthetics.  It was about a complete wellness detox - mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  I knew it had to encompass the whole package or it couldn’t be sustainable.  So why am I telling you all this? Because I believe that when you rid yourself of the layers of attachments – be they body fat, emotional habits, addictive behaviors, protective fortresses, or even toxic relationships, we allow our true spirit to be exposed where it can finally see the light that points the way.  That’s where the real joy lives.  And it’s all about the joy.
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What is spirit?

Because this month’s Being Joy™ habit is to Be in Spirit, I thought you might wonder what the difference is between the word “spirit” and “Spirit”.     When I talk about the upper-case word “Spirit”, I am referring to the Great Spirit, the Creator, the Divine, the Universe, God, or whatever term you use to explain the origin of all that is.  I will often say “Spirit guided me to this opportunity.” Or “I love it how the Universe conspires on my behalf.”  Or simply “Thank you God”. But when I talk about the lower case “spirit” I am referring to the inner you – your authentic self, the part of your being that is uniquely you, your life-force.  Sometimes the word spirit and soul are used interchangeably.
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What do you appreciate?

A few years ago, while busy preparing to make a huge Easter dinner for my family, my kitchen faucet broke.  So that meant I wouldn’t have water in my kitchen to finish preparing the meal and for clean up.  What to do? Thankfully, I had been raised to believe there was always a way. You just need to get creative! We had to MacGyver it by attaching a garden hose with duct tape to the bathroom faucet which was right off the kitchen and then ran it into the kitchen sink so I could finish the rest of the meal prep.  The clean up was the messy bit – it took hours with all the running back forth between the bathroom and the kitchen.
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Are you a perfectionist?

I was watching one of those baking competitions on TV the other night, and while being interviewed during the episode, one of the contestants boasted about being a perfectionist.  She claimed that because she had such high standards and that nothing would do unless it was perfect, that made her a great baker. As it turned out, she got so flustered when things didn’t go her way that she barely finished and ended up presenting a dessert that was not something she could be proud of. She was eliminated from the competition.  You see, perfection is never attainable.  There will always be something you can pick apart if you really want to.  And as the quote above so beautiful illustrates, this poor contestant became so demoralized, that she was not even able to do her best, let alone get anywhere close to the standard she had set for herself.
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