DAY 44

things that evoke my joy 

If I could choose my definition of joy, it wouldn´t be maybe a great feeling of happiness, it would rather be the sense of being fully lively and cheerful

This sort of joy doesn´t come from great events or achievements, it comes from everyday things, from being deeply present in our lives and not from a very analytic or intricate thought. In a sense, is a feeling that takes us by surprise

Something that happens when we go through an ordinary day and suddenly, after noticing something unique we realize how extraordinary is everything around us

According to this, and according to my own experience, joy is a kind of chain reaction: when something awakes this feeling, we start to sense new reasons to be joyful and so on

However, joy can be also elusive... maybe because it´s easy to lose the sense of connection required, the lack of thought and devotion which are indispensable. When this happens, we tend to see only those things which bother us and we move on to bitterness and resentment.

So we have to train, we have to develop a personal inner practice on daily basis to keep joy.       I´ve been trying to do so for a while now and of course, I´ve attempted different ways to do it. Perfectionist as I am, I´ve started complex practices that were hard to keep and were frustrating, and against what I was looking for. At the end, I´ve discovered that, if we talk about our inner work, it´s better to be constant than overambitious

My inner work regarding to joy is all about noticing simple, beautiful things around me. It can be a shape, a smell, a color... a sound, a taste... and quite often this is only the beginning. This simple, beautiful, thing triggers a new perception of reality which brings me back to a place where my joy freely flows from inside (where it always resides) to outside