Where does your compass lead you? Does it point to struggle, doubt and ill health with sporadic spurts of happiness and clinging to hope? Or does it point to ease, health, wealth and a state of joy that is sustainable? In the film “Pirates of the Caribbeans”, Captain Jack Sparrow seeks and finds a magical compass that appears faulty as it does not point to nautical True North. What it actually directs the bearer to is their deepest desire of the moment. Once this desire is accomplished, the compass awaits a new desire to fulfill and then shows the way. In much the same way your values, both conscious and subconscious, will impact on the direction in which your compass turns. However, when you are conscious of your value system and the beliefs they fuel, you can prepare for your journey and set your priorities to have the best results. Depending on what it is you are planning on achieving, some values will shuffle around at times as priorities shift. Just like the tides.
About three and a half years ago my life hit rock bottom. I found myself penniless, barely recovered from yet another failed relationship, my business was not flourishing and in spite of a bone-weary day job, I found myself living in poverty. I was unable to pay my bills or buy food to eat and things got that bad that I was facing possible eviction. Since the age of 17 I had been independent and earning my own money and taking care of myself. So to find myself decades later in such a predicament was terrifying, shaming and utterly overwhelming. Everything I knew to try and that had worked before, no longer seemed to work or enough to get me through. My life seemingly came to a horrifying standstill. And I had run out of options! How did I turn my finances around fast, rebuild my life and regain my self-trust?
It was at this moment, in my darkest moments of despair, that in response to this question I was surprised by the simplicity of the answer, which came through loud and clear. The answer was not about money or a better job or success in my business. What I wanted and what my compass was directing me to was to have joy in my life. Period. In that moment my life shifted forever as an intense wave of joy filled every cell in my body. There was no overthinking or analyzing. I just knew what Joy was and what it felt like.
As with everything in life, it is about free will, as in choices. Once you make joy your priority, if you so choose, it will show up each time without fail, even whilst life continues to have its ups and downs. And so, I want to share at least 10 reasons for adding joy to your life.
1. Joy feels good
This may seem quite obvious, but some things can seem so obvious that they need to be said. If you have been having a hard time in life, you may feel that joy is so far away and beyond your horizon. What’s so great about feeling good – in your body, mind and soul – is that it simply feels good! You feel complete and fulfilled and successful. And joy can get you there.
2. Joy makes you laugh more
How often do you see someone who is serious or sad laugh? Not often, right? Unless it’s a bit hysterically. When you feel filled with joy you tend to laugh more. And laughter is contagious. So you and often those around you laugh more. As the saying goes, laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone. Admittedly there are those moments too, when you laugh so much that you do have tears running down your face. Tears of joy.
Laughter that is deep belly laughing is really good for your body as it creates a massage effect which is really beneficial and endorphins are released into your bloodstream. These are the body’s natural pain relief and stress release. Your body is rigged for joy!
And you feel better and good things show up easier in your life, because your vibration is more expansive and energized.
3. Joy attracts Money
Money follows Joy. Joy does not follow money. I really got this when I was penniless. The minute I connected with the feeling and state of joy, within 10 days I had shifted my situation. New prospects showed up and my finances started to increase. There are so many intertwined and associated beliefs floating around out there about money and very few of them are linked to joy. Hold a joy party or do something fun and then money and other great things begin to flow in, with ease.
Feeling good, having a raised vibration and laughing a lot means that money cannot be far away, because that’s how energy moves. Energy will always expand. And joy is expansive. If you don’t believe me, just think of how much energy it takes to remain grumpy. Then observe what happens with your money flow!
4. Joy is healthy
The effects of stress on the human body are becoming more and more evident. For so long, and still, stress is not ‘officially’ recognized. The symptoms however cannot be ignored. So many people live with bad health and mostly they are miserable for it. Your health is your wealth and wealth means joy. When you are wealthy you are able to do as you please and well hopefully enjoy yourself. There is an ease to life that may not be there minus wealth. You only have to catch a simple cold or flu to understand the impact of not being healthy. Your body is amazingly resilient and strong and yet it can also be extremely fragile. Joy can turn health into wealth just like that!
Dr. Patch Adams worked on helping terminally ill patients and others to laugh and although many in the medical sector squashed his work, there is no doubt that it had a huge impact in shifting a lot of the pain and suffering of the people he came into contact with. Laughter everyday keeps the doctor away. And it raises the quality of your health.
5. Joy makes joy
When you consciously choose to add joy to your life, you just enjoy life more and guess what. More joyous things show up. Everything in the Universe is made up of vibration so to have a particular quality show up in your life, for example success, abundance, health, you have to vibrate as that quality, so that success, abundance, health can match that consciousness. Joy raises your vibration and you begin to feel good.
Joy is expansive and feels like you are in love, all of the time and with everything, not just one person. It is a warm thrumming and sense of excitement at the beginning of each day and falling asleep with gratitude and appreciation as your last feelings of the day. For so many, living life this way may seem like a fantasy because we are so far removed from these emotion of lightness and vibrancy. Joy knows no bounds. There are simply variations in intensity.
6. Joy motivates
Often the opposite of fear is thought of as love. I found that joy is a more powerful opposite. Fear inhibits and this is often felt as a heaviness or uncomfortable feeling. Some people say that fear motivates them. Perhaps yes, but where is the vibration around fear – high or low? Fear is more about moving away from a situation or other, rather than a movement towards.
Joy is a motivator. Joy is a sense of energized excitement and also a constant certainty. That everything is simply wonderful and okay as it is. For me, joy embraces and embodies love and peace at the same time. It’s excitingly whole and very comforting. And I feel inspired and motivated to have and do bigger and better, to see what other possibilities lie beyond this joy.
7. Joy inspires interest
Have you ever noticed how you are naturally drawn to happier people? There are just some people who are really pleasant to be around. They make you feel that everything in life is okay and that you are special. When you are living in joy, this is what you appear like to others. People want to be with you and they want to know what it is you have or are doing that makes you so wonderful to be around. The amazing part is that you are so filled with joy that this is really not important to you because you feel fulfilled and find everything interesting in your own right.
8. Joy creates connection
Joy expands and creates connection. The more you choose to have and be joyful, the more shows up. And very quickly. Even when not so great things show up in life, as soon as you think, where is the joy? Ta da, it is there. There is also a very strong physical sensation afforded by joy. Joy is actually a strong physical feeling. It really grounds you in your body and your body responds instantly with more energy and awareness. You are connected to higher vibrational fields.
9. Joy is freedom
When you get to the point of living each moment of your life with joy, regardless of the nature of what is going on in your life, then you are free from control. Your own and others. Joy is extremely powerful and resilient in a very flexible sort of way. It sweeps up everything that it comes across and transforms it. There is very little that stands up against joy – not for very long anyway.
10. Joy is your natural state
What this means is, you are meant to feel joy most of the time. My experience has show me how natural joy is. I have never had to work at being joyful. It’s not like happiness, hope, being positive. That takes work. Joy doesn’t, because it’s natural and organic. Once you choose to make feeling joy your priority, you will be amazed at how easily it starts to show up. When I was in that space years ago, this is what I experienced. As soon as I thought of joy, voila! The feeling was there. My mind and my body knew what it was! Isn’t that amazing? Things like happiness seem so hard to connect to and yet there I was at the worst part in my life and I felt joy.
Since that moment, whenever life is a bit tough or there is a situation that I wish to shift to another level, I ask myself, where is my joy? What shows up is immediate and unmistakable. Just like that magical compass. Joy makes whatever the situation seem easy and organic. And it makes me wonder what life would like if more people experience this daily and on an amplified level.
When enough people experience and live in a state of joy more and more, there will be sufficient critical mass to create a pivotal point and shift for everyone. And then there will be a new foundation that stems from joy on which to build a new and exciting future. And then, you can begin to live the life you were born to live. A joyful experience better than anything you can imagine.
Once you begin to look for ways in which to add more joy into your life and to pay attention to the places where it shows up naturally, you will see and experience life through different eyes. Don’t take my word for it! Use these points as guidelines and ask joy to show up in your life and then be open to how it shows up.
I found that my compass was set for Joy and I didn’t even know it until that moment when I had been stripped of my false beliefs. My adventure has been exhilarating and most rewarding. I have personally experienced these 10 benefits and that is how I know they are real. Wherever you find yourself in your life, allow yourself to open up to the possibility and invitation of joy. You owe it to yourself.
Here’s to your unlimited supply of joy.
In Light.
Trilby
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Trilby Johnson is an Emotional Breakthrough Mentor, Author and Speaker whose clients hire her to go from emotional zero to emotional hero, as they heal, alleviate stress and cultivate emotional freedom in their lives, relationships, finances, emotions, health and mindset. She shares her knowledge of how to create inner harmony and outer balance with those seeking to deepen their self-knowing and expand their consciousness.
Contact Trilby for a Breakthrough Alchemy Assessment if you are ready for go from zero to hero now!
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