From your soul to your senses, joy is accepted, rejected, noticed, ignored, savored, severed, shared, withheld, increased, denied, or multiplied. You choose when and how to have joy in life. Your choice is influenced by the beliefs that are deep in your soul, planted in childhood and affirmed through the use of your senses and emotions as you became an adult.
What you believe is what you see—until you learn differently.
Think about how you grew up. Think about your home life, schooling, religious beliefs, and friendships. In all areas, well-intentioned people told you what they believed to be true. They all did what they could as parents and mentors to influence you, protect you, and teach you what they thought was best for you.
Did you hear statements such as the following?
Money doesn’t grow on trees.
Being rich doesn’t make you happy.
We each have a cross to bear.
Beware the hand of God.
Children should be seen and not heard.
Stop daydreaming—you’re wasting time.
With grades like that you’ll never amount to much.
It’s better to give than to receive.
You can’t do that.
It can’t be done.
It’s a hard-knock life.
Don’t rock the boat.
Don’t go against the grain.
Only in your dreams.
Only the good die young.
Life isn’t a fairy tale.
Boys like him are nothing but trouble.
We all have to pay our dues.
It’s always darkest before the dawn.
It’s a weight you’ll have to bear.
There’s a price to pay for happiness.
What other statements did you grow up with in your home, church, and school?
Joy Replacement Therapy
You can decide to change the negative beliefs you knowingly or unknowingly carry with you. You can unload those ideas that hold you back from accepting joy and abundance in your life. Joy Replacement TherapyTM is the way you jump-start your joy from a clean slate. This technique helps you change worn out thoughts or beliefs, one at a time. Move past an old belief by replacing it with a new one. Consider the new mantras below, or create your own, to replace ones that are not working for you anymore.
Money doesn’t grow on trees. Money grows in my IRA.
Beware the hand of God. God’s gifts of mercy and grace await us.
Children should be seen and not heard. Children should be seen and heard.
Stop daydreaming—you’re wasting time. Daydreaming is a good use of time.
You can’t do that. You can do anything.
Don’t go against the grain. Be your own person.
It can’t be done. Anything is possible.
It’s always darkest before the dawn. This too shall pass.
There’s a price to pay for happiness. Abundance is your birthright.
Put Joy Replacement Therapy to work for you right now. What other thoughts or beliefs would you change? Write down the worn out belief and then a fresh, new version. When your beliefs are what you want to believe, then you’ll begin to create your own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to generate more joy in your life.
To take it a step further, what you focus on in life, you get back in multiples, and what you focus on directly affects the flow of joy into your life each day. When you focus on some thought or feeling that negatively affects you in some way, you need to replace that thought or feeling. If you are looking straight ahead, you see one thing; if you turn around, you see something different. The picture changes. In the same way you need to pivot in your mind from thoughts or feelings that close off joy to those thoughts or feelings that bring joy into focus for you. Joy Replacement Therapy will help you turn a joyless perspective or situation into one of joyful abundance.
You generate joy in your life by seeing the joy in life. It then naturally multiplies over and over again. Joy Replacement Therapy is one quick way to shift your focus to joy. It’s like a bubble bath for your soul. It simply feels good.
Deliberate Joy
If you live with deliberate joy, you reach the point where your life is full, but full of what you want. Living with deliberate joy gives you the ability to experience life around you on your terms. It is having good things in life flow to you. It is living guilt-free and feeling satisfied and confident about the choices you make. It is letting go of obligation and acting from an innate point of desire. It is a new level of self-discovery that brings you back to the point of being able to dream again, to recognize the miracles around you. Living with deliberate joy fills your soul with the warmth and love of all that is intended for you by your Creator.
Your life is what it is because of the choices you have made so far. As you already know, these choices will take you to either the pits or the possibilities in life. You have the power to make choices and changes that will give you the life you are intended to live—a life filled with joy. Everyone deserves joy in life. You deserve joy in life. Start today.
** This article is one of 101 great articles that were published in 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life. To get complete details on “101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life”, visit http://www.selfgrowth.com/greatways2.html.
Anne Nelson, author of Find Your Joy Zone: How to See What Makes You Happy and Love What Makes You Real, is an expert in the joy of daily living. Anne has studied her own and other people’s lives, both to tackle what’s missing and to openly celebrate what makes us thrive. Like night vision goggles for those dark corners of life, Anne’s practical solutions bring out the Aha! in all of us. She is a speaker, direct sales entrepreneur, and the founder of http://www.YourJoyZone.com, designed to help you bring out the best in yourself—personally and professionally.