We are up to the letter J in our jaunt through the alphabet! According to Wikipedia, it is the fourth least frequently used letter in words, being more frequent only than ⟨z⟩, ⟨q⟩, and ⟨x⟩. It is, however, common in proper nouns, especially personal names. Coincidentally, I was talking to my friend Joanne Lauro this morning of Community Growth Network, because i’ll be doing a talk there entitled, “Decluttering Your Mind with Modern Meditation” on December 1. I asked her if she could give me a word starting with J. She replied, “What about that word Joy’? So here we are!
Joy from Without
We are very used to saying, “I’m joyful”, and that’s a wonderful thing to feel. Mostly when we talk about feeling joyful, the tendency is to have that sense of joy for a specific reason. In other words, the sun is shining today so I’m joyful. Or I got a new job and I’m joyful. Someone told me they loved me, and I feel so joyful about that. Therefore, we tend to think of being joyful from the perspective of something wonderful happening to me and i am feeling extremely happy. So, ‘joyful’ takes on this expression of gladness as a result of an event occurring to me which i perceive as good.
A Different Perspective
Now, I would like to look at it in a different way, as I tend to do! As A Course in Miracles student, i learned that all expressions of emotion come from within me and then i experience them in relation to people and things around me. This is not what the world teaches! We are taught that something happens and then we react to it. So, i get the job and now i’m joyful, or i have a car accident and now i’m upset.
Joy from Within
But I want to suggest that you can allow yourself to experience inner joy not for any reason that’s external, that you see with your eyes, hear with your ears, or using any of your senses, but simply because you are… because you are the creation of a loving Creator, as i like to say. That alone is reason to feel joyful! When you do that, when you take that feeling of joyfulness that is part of your being and share that in the world, you will see situations and people in one of two ways:
1. As a sharing of love, where both you and those you are with, are contented with each other.
2. As a call for love, where the person you see or the situation you are in, have some element of fear. In this case you have the inherent ability to bring love to heal the current condition.
Spreading Joy Everywhere!
Thus, in either case, you remain in a state of love. Joy is the releasing of love for all to share. As a bringer of joy, you will look out and see delightful things happening. You will have happy experiences and meaningful relationships. When you go walking around your day with joy emanating from you, your tread is light and your lips turn upward at the corners. Joy is like a boomerang– it goes out from you, travels around and comes right back!
Peace and Love Always,
MarciaGrace
If you are interested in finding out more about MarciaGrace’s ‘Sitting” training program, email her at welcome@marciagrace.com
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