Copyright © 2022 Lee Spirit

Last weekend I had the most pleasurable and joyful experience skiing along the Spray River West loop and Goat Creek in Banff! What made this day so special was the glorious sunshine beaming through the tall Evergreens! It creates a warm glow in my spirit! The snow conditions were perfect, and the scenery so grande! Not only that, but being with a dear friend brings a warmth to my heart. Joyful living in this day and age can be difficult when the world is turned upside down. That’s why it’s so important to learn how to find pleasurable moments amongst the difficulties we are faced with.

The great thing too about my lovely weekend is that my feelings of pure elation from being out in nature with a good friend lasted the entire week long! I was in a happier, more relaxed mood. I felt more in a state of present-moment awareness, and less stressed about my regular work week. The things that normally bother me bothered me less. I felt a lightness of being!

The Importance of Joyful Living

It seems obvious that we all want to feel this lightness of spirit, being happy and living joyfully. However, it’s so easy to get caught up in our work life, or our home life, our relationships, and our responsibilities.

When we are all caught up in, and focused on our tasks at hand, we forget to live in the present moment. Many people value hard work, making money, and putting great effort into the goals they want to achieve. We live in a doing-society, where accomplishing and succeeding is valued. So is climbing the ladder of success and status, and making the most money possible. Certainly in my own family hard work and status seemed important.

While there’s nothing wrong with this if it’s what you desire, it needs to be balanced with a calmness of spirit, and a lasting inner joy and peace. We want to move more towards an authentic state of being and wellbeing, rather than doing and achieving, or at least having a good balance of these.

When we forget about joyful living, we tend to turn towards temporary fixes, like alcohol, drugs, bad habits, and addictions. These make us feel better, but only temporarily. We need lasting joy to lift our spirits. Otherwise, we fall back into old patterns, habits, and routines that don’t really serve our souls.

Joyful Living Practices That Create Pleasure

We all want to feel pleasure in living but none of us are happy all the time, and that’s okay! The goal is not to be inauthentic about our happiness. That’s a mask that everyone will see through. True inner bliss starts with having a purpose.

Finding Your Purpose in Life

When we don’t have a purpose, our lives may feel habitual, routine, boring, or lack-lustre. Keep in mind that your purpose is not something you do. Again, it’s a state of being. If you don’t know what your purpose is, turn to what it is that lights you up, gets you really excited, and brings you joy. What makes you smile, laugh, feel energized, and full of life?

This may not turn out to be what you expected! Go with the flow of your heart and soul to uncover what really brings you joy. Maybe it’s writing, singing, artwork, playing a musical instrument, dancing, making others laugh, being kind, or spending time in nature. These all seem like things you do, but it’s not what you do that’s important, it’s how you feel about what you’re doing that matters. This is the core of who you really are.

Singing Yourself into a State of Joy in Community

This weekend, I decided to join an online choir! I haven’t been in a choir since I was a child, but I love to sing in the car to my favourite tunes. It’s very uplifting, especially listening to soulful, spiritual tunes by my favourite artists. I didn’t think I had time for this, but it made my heart sing to realize that I can fit this into my busy schedule! Suddenly I was full of joy and renewed energy at the thought that I’ll get to spend weekly time in a community with other soulful singers! Yay!

Meditating To Find Pleasure & Peace Within

I’m not one to normally use my voice, but there have been studies on the health benefits of joining a choir, and also on the benefits of regular meditation. Delivering my meditation videos allows me to exercise my somewhat blocked throat chakra! I’ve even noticed my throat chakra opening and my voice becoming stronger the more meditation videos I deliver! If you haven’t checked these out, you can Click Here Now to Meditate With Me In Nature!

Nature Is a Healer

Singing, meditation, and nature – All activities that can bring on the endorphins! Endorphins boost feelings of pleasure and well-being, and decrease pain and discomfort. The more pleasure we feel in the present moments of our lives, the happier we will be. Nature is a great place to find balance, inner peace, grounding, harmony, and stability. I’ve explained often how this makes me feel so elated, and so I naturally gravitate towards activities in the outdoors that boost my feelings of joy.

Radiating Love

Love is who we are at the core! When we are born, we are pure consciousness. Nothing in the outside world has affected us, changed us, or moulded us. We are pure love, pure bliss. If we can come back to this from our upbringings that have shifted our world views and made us forget about who we really are, then we radiate love energy. Radiating love brings us blissful feelings of pleasure. Giving and receiving love increases our joyfulness in life. Just being with a good friend over the weekend improved my spirits for the whole week! Sharing the love with others can give us so much pleasure, and attracts more of it to us.

What If You’ve Tried All That But You Still Lack Joy?

Again, joy and pleasure come less from what we do, and more from who and how we are being on the daily. If you feel stuck in a rut, there are a few things to keep in mind…

No One Can Walk Your Journey For You

You have to walk your own journey, no one else can do that for you! Your joy, happiness, and pleasure in life has to start with you! You are in the driver’s seat, and it’s your responsibility. If you don’t feel happy, it’s up to you to start making some changes. No one else is going to make you happy. Happiness comes from deep within your soul. You rediscover your innate joy that’s lying dormant underneath by feeling what you feel. Acknowledge your thoughts and feelings, no matter how grey they may seem. Allow them, and integrate them. Let them pass through you, and you will blossom again from the tiny seed of potential that you are.

Release Your Self-Animosity

Self-animosity is another way of saying you lack self-love, self-compassion, and tenderness. You’re hard on yourself, and beat yourself up for saying, doing, or feeling this or that. You may be cruel to yourself by saying things to yourself like, “I’m not good enough”, “I can’t do this”, or “She doesn’t like me”. Self-animosity will block your ability to feel the love, joy, and consciousness that you are.

How about reframing your negative self-talk? Remember the elastic-around-the-wrist trick. Whenever a negative thought like this pops into your head, start noticing right way. Snap an elastic on your wrist to snap out of this thought, and reframe your thought into something more positive. Tell yourself, “I’m good enough to train these staff”, “I am beautiful and loved”, “I am well connected with nature and others”. Train your brain to be the love that you are at your core.

Joyful Living Through Seeking Pleasurable Moments

When you start being the love that you are, you automatically start having more pleasurable moments in your days. You are more in tune with the present moment, not worrying about the future, or obsessing over the past. It’s too easy to get lost in our thoughts, anger, grief, or fears. When we let go and go with the flow of life, and the natural rhythms of the universe, pleasure flows to us.

What is pleasurable to you? Here are a few things I enjoy for joyful living:

Dark Roast Coffee

A good, dark roast coffee in the mornings…and sometimes the afternoons after an adventure in nature. Have you seen that meme on social media that says, “If you replace your coffee with green tea in the mornings, you can lose up to 87% of what little joy you have left in this life?” Ha! It’s true, green tea has many health benefits, but it just ain’t gonna cut it for this girl! Enjoy the little things that bring you joy!

Good, Spiritual Books

Reading a good spiritual, uplifting book…Currently I’m reading Michael Brown’s book, “Alchemy of the Heart”. It reminds me that I am not my past conditioning, how stuck we get on our past programming, and how we try to control and sedate our fear, grief, and anger by changing our physical circumstances. Again, we are in control of our own happiness, and we can change this through proper integration of our stuck feelings of the past. A good book goes a long way to uplifting the spirit!

Sunshine in Nature

Sunshine in nature…There’s nothing that brings a smile to my face and a warmth to my heart more than being under the beautiful sunshine in nature. Just being amongst tall Evergreens makes me breathe a little easier and feel at peace inside. Get out there as often as you can! Even if it’s in your own backyard!

Singing and Laughing With Friends

Singing and laughing with friends…During the pandemic I’ve been really limiting my contacts with others, so it’s been a while since I went out for some live music and enjoyed a group of friends, singing and having a good laugh. It’s great to remember your sense of humour through it all, and keep things light, and funny as often as possible. Look for the humour in every situation, and have a good belly laugh every once in a while. Enjoy the company of friends, even if right now it’s just one at a time.

Joyful Living By Being Grateful

Gratitude for what we already have rather than what we don’t have is a key to feeling joy and pleasure in this life. When we remember to take note of all the things we are blessed with in our daily lives, we fill our cups with love until it’s overflowing and we can’t help but share that love with others. Being grateful manifests more of what we truly desire.

You could try to keep a gratitude journal or jar to see just how many blessings you really have. When you need to be reminded, you can pull some gratitude from the jar, or re-read your journal entries for inspiration.

Nothing Anyone Says or Does Is Personal

What people say and do that may come across as harmful is never personal, so remember not to take anything personally. How someone treats you says nothing about you – It speaks volumes of the internal suffering of another. When we can have compassion for the internal suffering of another, then it’s much easier to not take things personally, and realize they are dealing with their own pain and lashing out on you.

Find Your Tribe of Uplifting Souls

If you genuinely don’t feel happy, joyful, and pleasurable on the regular, maybe it’s who you are surrounding yourself with. If your friends are dragging you down, maybe it’s time to meet some new ones. Surrounding yourself with a positive community of like-minded souls can do wonders for the spirit. We are all meant to connect, so if you’re not feeling true connection, reach out in communities that bring light to your soul. Be with people who lift you up rather than tearing you down.

All of these ideas are really self-care methods for joyful living. If you’re having trouble getting un-stuck from your negative thoughts, Click Here Now To Move From Stuck To Joyful! Remember there is so much pleasure for you to experience in this life! I hope this helps guide you to finding your bliss!

Lee Spirit is an avid outdoors adventurer with a love for nature, photography, health & fitness, wellness, and spirituality. She helps those who suffer from anxiety & negative thinking to become healthier in mind-body-spirit. Her own personal journey has led her to the  study and practice of mindfulness, health, wellness, yoga, spirituality, sound healing, meditation, and personal development for over 20 years. Get mindfulness, meditation, and personal development tips in her Free Natural Mind Healing Report.