Every Woman Deserves Joy! (Positive Thought No. 1)

"Everybody wants a happy life. But sometimes people, in order to achieve a happy and successful life, rely entirely on external means like money and power. I think this is a mistake. Ultimately, the source of happiness and joyfulness is within ourselves. And once our mind is more calm and joyful, then our activities can be more effective." Dali Lama (thank you, Sue)

Every Woman Deserves Joy - (yep, this includes you, too)

We're beginning a joy journey here; the destination, a more joy-filled life.  In a series of posts, I'm going to give you "31 Positive Thoughts, for a Positively Joy-filled Life" beginning with this post. We may even have a guest or two sharing their joyful thoughts. Through journal writing (learn how you could win one of my new botanical journals below) collage, creative visualization and actual bubble blowing, we will

(1) look at and learn how to change some basic attitudes about ourselves,

(2) discover and define our inner power, personal joy source

(3) become empowered by giving ourselves permission to let our personal joy bubble to the service on a daily basis, and

(4) create some pretty joyful reminders

You will also have an opportunity to share some of your creative expressions here on my blog.

Just One Chapter From My Life (oh there's more sistah)

I recall having conversation with my friend, and then neighbor, Tracy Klehn, about what the word success means to both of us. Tracy was on her journey to becoming a published author and I was preparing for a career in art licensing. Little did I know during this conversation what would soon follow for me would be the flooding of my just remodeled home (seriously, it was 3 days later!), a divorce, the sale of my beautiful family home, a move to a rental home, a house fire rendering my children and me homeless, remarriage to my husband, the purchase of a real fixer-upper, the rebuilding of our family and financial life, another flood, loss of my husband's employment, and only two years in to my licensing career deep betrayal by my first  licensee. . .okay, I'm feeling anxious and there's a tightening of my heart as I write this - I think you get the picture, so I'll leave it at that. Suffice it to say, I felt completely overcome with stress from these external circumstances and deeply unfulfilled. Where was the joy, MY joy?

To create a new life for myself and my family, and get my career back on track, I had to get clear about who I was, what I believed and what I thought was important. I desperately needed a place to retreat to, to renew my strength, and refresh my soul so I could face another day and not just survive these dire circumstances, but thrive. My success needed a new source of measurement, a different measuring stick. I needed to redefine what authentic success meant for me. Do you know what I discovered?  Having joy is authentic success. But to experience joy, I had to first learn what brought me joy—that deeply felt contentment that comes from recognizing my own worth, my purpose, and my joy-point - regardless of any external circumstances! Then I had to align every part of my life with what brought me joy.

Here's what I know:

Every woman deserves joy.

Every woman owes it to herself to recognize & embrace  her self worth.

Every woman has a unique beauty, beloved spirit and unlimited possibilities.

Joy vs. Happiness

Joy is not the same as pleasure or happiness. An unkind, unscrupulous person may experience pleasure but be incapable of knowing joy, and any ordinary person is capable of being happy. While pleasure generally comes from things, and is experienced through our senses; happiness is derived from humans through relationship. Pleasure and happiness are mostly contingent upon external sources.

Joy is independent of my happiness and pleasure. For me, joy comes from a good conscience, knowing & loving God and believing I am His beloved. For me, my joy-point (my steady and abiding star) is my relationship with God. What is your joy point?

ProAction

Give yourself 20-30 minutes, open your journal and write down at least five things that bring you joy. Please feel free to share  your comments here and on my facebook page as we travel our joy journey together. Who knows, you just may inspire or encourage some one else in the process.

Positive Thought No. 1 - I Deserve to Live with Joy (write that in your journal too!)

"Joy is steady and abiding, fixed, like a star."

Creative Expression No. 1

3 Dimension Star

It's a journey  - the destination an authentically JOY FILLED life. Join me here and on my facebook page to begin creating a bounty of JOY FILLED hearts together. Next time, we'll take a look at where we look for joy, where it resides (it's pretty close to you), our basic attitude toward joy, and how NOT to compare ourselves to others so we find more joy right where we're at and with what we have. 

May we each be blessed, and bless one another as we declare "Joyful, joyful I will be!"

xoxo

Terri

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Want to win one of my brand new journals? 

 

(1) leave me a comment here declaring "joyful, joyful I will be"

(2) join my facebook page

(3) post about our Joy Journey on your blog, include my blog link and  invite your readers to come along

p.s.

if you wish to purchase one of my paper crafting kits or journals you may do so for the time being on my etsy site.  My new web site will be completed and the shop open once again very soon.

Comments

[Terri Conrad]

Wonderful Bella! Delighted you'll be on the joy journey with us.

[Bella]

I really love this idea. It comes at a perfect time for me - I really need to do this. Thanks so much for sharing. And I'd love to win one of your journals, so "joyful, joyful I will be."