Joy is all around you and there are so many ways that you can find it in order to feed your spirit.
Your body is an incredible gift, it’s a temple and sadly, most of us fail to honor it correctly. Our bodies bring us pleasure, they bring us joy, and when we don’t honor our bodies, we don’t feed our spirits either. Finding joy that feeds your spirit doesn’t need to be a complicated process. Believe it not, your spiritual self needs you to also treat your physical self well in order to thrive.
Your spirit is an energy that extends beyond your body. Some people may use the word soul to describe the spirit, regardless of what you call it, it requires your physical body to develop, grow, and experience life. Your spirit absorbs both negative and positive energies and your body also resonates with energies.
You can feel as though you’re on a high or low, based on which energy is weightier. Your spirit is constantly being eroded by the human experience. It’s important to find joy that feeds your spirit, but that’s incredibly difficult to do in this modern world that we live in. Everywhere you turn there are problems, it’s no wonder your spirit is struggling.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re in a giant crisis or a mini one, the problems that the world throws at you is more than likely to lower your spirit’s positive energy levels. Now add in the unpredictable weather patterns, negative news cycle, politics, natural disasters, work stress, and you have a recipe for spiritual disaster.
What you may not realize is that you’re equipped with an inner guidance system that can lead you to more appropriate activities and actions. It listens to your intuition, your gut feelings, and your background thoughts to ask – is this what you really want?
The problem is when you’re not actively feeding your spirit, your guidance system will have a hard time getting through to you. So, it’s up to you to actively ask whether something feeds your spirit or not, whether it’s a movie date, a meal or meeting up with friends.
You are free to choose what you will but wrapping yourself up in the constant stream of negativity like you have been is going to keep you focused on negative energy. The more negative energy you tune into, the more it will drain your spirit and leave you feeling sad and empty.
5 Simple Ways YOU can Find Joy:
1. Awareness
A bit of awareness goes a long way. You should be conscious of what you’re experiencing and what you’re doing in every moment, to allow you to fully appreciate the present. Don’t rush everything, unaware of what’s going on. You can be mindful of your actions and thoughts. Really, everything in life can be precious. So, take advantage of every opportunity to find the enjoyment, the beauty, the wonderment, and the joy in it. Allow all your senses to get involved with everything that you experience, this opens the door to happiness, laughter, and most importantly, true joy.
2. Self-Compassion and Nurturing
You shouldn’t need permission to put your needs before the needs of others, yet here we are. You absolutely must permit yourself to place your needs ahead of others. You want to spread your love, right? Well, how on earth can you do that if you can’t fulfill your own needs?
You will do better at loving others when you first love yourself. So, start showering yourself with compassion, nurturing, kindness, love, forgiveness, and patience just as you do everyone else in your life. You deserve it. You are a powerful person and you are capable of amazing things, but you must put more into yourself if you want to give more.
If you want love to flow from you, then you must let it flow in and within you. So, the first step to extending self-compassion is to recognize that personal struggles are just part of the human experience. Secondly, holding onto those feelings and thoughts should only be done in a state of mindful awareness before letting them go.
Through self-compassion you can learn how to positively respond to your thoughts. Rather than being yourself up over negative thoughts, you must observe them from a point of non-judgment.
3. New Scenery
As great as routine can be, sometimes it’s important to get out of your rut and catch some new scenery. How about a museum in the next town over? Or, hop in the car and head to a city you’ve never visited before. Just stimulate your senses by exposing yourself to fresh stimuli.
4. Forgiveness
Do you know what will repress your spirit and steal your joy? An inability to forgive. When a lot of people talk about forgiveness, they encourage you to forgive someone who has wronged you. Forgiveness is not for the benefit of the other person, though they do benefit from it. The point of forgiveness is to release your own burden.
5. Dreams
We all have dreams, and those dreams often fuel our actions. Sometimes our dreams don’t come to fruition, and while that’s frustrating it’s important that we continue to dream. Your dreams nourish your spirit, they feel your soul, and they bring you joy. There’s a lot of joy in achieving those dreams, too. Your spirit will wither and die if you don’t provide it with dreams to dream.
So, part of finding joy that feeds your spirit is learning how to discern what is good and right for you and what is moving you away from your path. Finding joy isn’t as difficult as you first imagined it would be, is it?