Joy Triggers

Trigger Warning: JOY

American culture has an obsession with hurt, pain, sadness, depression, and drama. At every turn we’re hearing bad news, we’re getting warnings and amber alerts. There is an almost constant stream of negativity and fear mongering messaging directed at us. And as a collective society we are often left to process those messages and traumatic experiences without support, or common language we can use to share how we're being impacted on the individual level. The experience of peace, happiness, and joy on a daily basis seems like a luxury only afforded to our favorite reality stars (and even those experiences are short lived).

I don’t like this frame of the world. Lately, I find myself feeling suffocated by the never ending noise that doesn’t make me feel good. I feel myself carrying the stress of the world, it's in the nights that I toss and turn all night, or the days when I feel like I’m in a never ending brain fog. The impact of all of this is feeling EXHAUSTED and just plain over it! And as a result, I struggle to show up as the best version of myself. Nor is this how I want to experience life. Instead I want to experience joy! I want to feel like I have spaces in the world that are peaceful, safe and HAPPY! I want the people who are on this life journey with me to be a part of this joyful, peaceful, safe experience. So to remedy that, I’ve decided to be intentional about identifying the things in my life that trigger joy for me.

For me, this looks like an exercise of pausing in moments when things feel good (like deep down in my soul, inexplicable, genuinely putting a smile on my face, GOOD) and paying attention to what it is about that moment that is triggering joy for me. For example, I feel joy being triggered in the time I take to walk my child into school in the morning or when there's sweet or funny moments in the romance novel I’m reading. I hope to continue to add to this list of joy triggers over the next several weeks. My goal is that I am so filled with these daily occurrences of joy that I begin to feel lighter and more present in the moment. I also want to share with everyone around me trigger warnings for how something they did or said brought me joy.

So I’m hoping you will join me on this journey! What are some of your joy triggers? If you can’t think of any, how are you going about finding your joy? 

Want support to help you find joy? Schedule a free 30-minute Strategy Session to discover how to find your joy triggers.