This past month I dove deep into some much-needed healing work. Healing work that I believed “wasn't for me” and “wasn't ready for.” 

 

Spoiler alert: healing is for everyone and you're never truly ready. 😅

 

But as my 39th birthday quickly approached something came over me and I just knew it was time to do the work. It felt like one of those “if not now, then when?” situations. 

 

As I dove deeper and deeper in, one thing kept nagging me: the absence of joy. 

 

I kept looking around asking, where's my joy? Where'd it go? How can I feel more joy? Can't I have both, healing and joy? Why'd my joy completely disappear? 

 

The truth is, you can have both. 

 

But here's the real question: are you available for both? Are you allowing both? I was so close to abandoning the possibility for joy and healing coexisting when I happened to glance out my office window mid-sob session and notice a plump gray and white bird sitting right on my windowsill curiously exploring the contents of my office.  

 

My sorrow (and armor) dissolved almost immediately. This small moment woke me back up to my joy and I noticed the world around me again. No, no - I remembered. 

 

Have you forgotten joy still exists even among the healing and the horror and the pain? Here are 4 rememberings if you have: 

1. Things do not make us happy.

THE TRUTH: Things (cars, houses, money, vacations) can only encourage temporary happiness. True joy, the kind that can surprise you (like a fat bird perched on your windowsill) connects you back with the joy that already exists within you.

2. There isn't a magic formula for happiness.

THE TRUTH: Happiness is unique to each of us. There are, however, techniques we can practice to steadily increase our happiness threshold. One being → Savoring moments, hugs, a bite of food, a laugh. Two being → Gratitude will systematically increase your happiness threshold over time by training that beautiful brain of yours to actively look for the good.

3. Happiness is not a destination.

You've most likely heard this before, but so many of us still behave in ways that perpetuate it as truth. We go searching for it or we withhold happiness for a time in the future we don't even know exists (think the fine china you never use, or that new shirt you're saving for a special occasion). THE TRUTH: Happiness is right here, right now, not later, not when. It's now.

4. Happiness lies in our experiences.

THE TRUTH: It's not what happens in our lives that matters the most when it comes to happiness, it's the meaning you make of the experience. You can take a perfectly mundane day and make it mean boredom and apathy, or you can take a mundane day and make it mean calm and spaciousness. You can take a vacation and make it mean the only break you’ll have this year so you better enjoy it, or you can make it mean an opportunity to be seeped in gratitude and presence. You can actively choose happiness in this way. 

What remembering did you need to hear today? Let me know your thoughts below.