🌿 How To Find Joy Every Day
How can you make joy a daily practice?
Hello, lovely! I’m Nospheratt and this is Joy Every Week - a weekly quest to find joy in everyday things. Enjoy! :)
Today the day woke up gray and dark.
Everything is quiet and still, hushed for the rain that is coming. The trees are waiting for spring, bare branches patient, strong, steadfast.
My heart is inspired by their resilience. I believe we’re like them — standing among the darkness, bare but steadfast. Holding promise of a colorful and alive future.
But right now, we are entering a harsh winter that’s going to last years. Even as spring comes, even as the light of summer burns bright, even as the leaves turn again with the arrival of fall.
It’s not going to be easy.
We’re going to need fuel, rest, replenishment. Motivation and courage.
Joy is all of those things.
Joy doesn’t replace any emotion; it holds them all and keeps them from swallowing us whole. Society has failed to understand this. When it tells us to find joy in suffering, it is telling us to let it go, to move on, to smile through it. But joy says, Hold on to your sorrow. It can rest safely here.”
― Cole Arthur Riley, This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
Joy can hold all that we are, all that we feel.
It’s the place where we can take refuge, take a break, find some solace.
It’s also a conduit for community—shared joy is one of the strongest things that I know.
And it’s a source of energy and inspiration. The deep breath you didn’t realize you needed.
Joy will get you through.
You can’t feel joy all the time; it’s not a constant state, something you achieve or acquire and are done.
But you can find joy every day.
It’s not even particularly hard, most days. (There will be horrible days when joy feels impossible. That’s true, and that’s okay. Joy will always be there, nearby, waiting for you to return to it.)
Most days, you just need to make space for it.
Look for it, even for a moment. Open the door or close your eyes.
Joy is there, in colorful pencils and short poems. In a new leaf, an old photo, the daily coffee.
🌿 Joy is also a practice.
Like any other practice, you get better at it with time and… practice. 😁
What does a daily practice of joy looks like?
⭐ Paying attention.
Little things hold so much joy. Like the sparrows jumping from naked branch to naked branch, tittering and looking for early seeds. The perfect cup of tea. Wearing your favorite rainbow socks.
⭐ Looking for it.
It’s a bit like bird watching, I imagine. At first, you only recognize the most common, flashier birds. But with time, you start to perceive differences in their songs, you spot elusive species while you’re out and about.
You’re attuned to them, so you can spot a little joy from miles away. At any moment, you can stop, look around and find some joy. Right at this moment.
🌿 Try it! What small joy is available to you, right now? 🌿
Scribble a silly poem or make a doodle.
Write a quote on your journal.
Look out the window and name some clouds.
Watch a funny video. Listen to a favorite song.
Anything counts. 😊
⭐ Keeping a log.
I’m always banging about making lists and writing things down, because that’s how we make things last in time and anchor joy in our being.
We are hardwired to remember bad things and forget good experiences. It’s a survival thing. But once you start keeping a log of the joy you find in your life, you’ll be surprised of how much of it there is. Big things, of course; but mostly the small, everyday things.
It also helps with the practice — once your brain learns that you’ll be writing about it (or taking pictures, drawing, making collages; your log can take any form or shape you like) — you’ll be more likely to notice and look for joy everywhere, in the smallest, easiest things.
⭐ Planning
Making time for joy is probably the hardest thing.
But making space, even allowing yourself to feel and share joy can be hard, feel impossible. “How can you be joyful while the world is burning?!”
That’s precisely why! We’re looking for joy, making space for it, sharing and calling others to find their own because the world is burning. Because we need it to keep going, to live instead of only surviving.
To be able to make time and space for joy, you need to plan for it.
📅 Add it to your fucking calendar.
Yes, I’m serious. Yes, it’s necessary. Yes, it works!
Even if it feels silly, go and add “Find joy” to your calendar, right now. You can always delete it later, if you want. But try it. Add a daily reminder to look for joy and record it.
This Week’s Quest - The Practice of Joy
Ideas & inspiration to find your joy.
1 - Frame it in a way that feels helpful and fun.
Name your practice of joy. What type of thing appeals to you, fits well with your personality, your hobbies, your life?
Some ideas:
Adventurer - you’re an explorer, setting out to discover undiscovered joy!
Scientific method - come up with hypothesis for things that will give you joy, and test your assumptions. Record your findings.
Creative practice - what are the most creative ways to find joy in your day? Make art about it or inspired by it.
Archivist - you’re in charge of recording the history of joy in your life.
Journalist - investigating the most important personal stories about joy.
Museum curator - responsible for curating the best collection of joy you’ve ever seen, complete with fun facts and dates.
2 - Add it to your calendar. 📅
Add a daily reminder somewhere, until you don’t need it anymore.
If a daily reminder feels like too much, add a weekly reminder to record the joys of the week, and make some plans for joy the next week.
I’m not necessarily talking about scheduled events like meeting with friends or going to the movies, even though those obviously qualify. But add things like “coloring book session”, “a cup of my especial tea” and “listen to the birds during lunch break”.
Yes, schedule those too, so you’ll have a little sparkling reminder of all the joy that is available to you, of the small things that add joy to your life.
It can be also a question on your journal: what joy did you find today? What joy are you discovering tomorrow?
3 - Set up your log. 🪴
If you haven’t already, set up the place where you’re going to keep track of your joys.
Want more ideas? Check out The Quest For Joy. I suggested some cool stuff you can use to keep a log of your joy.
Another one packed with ideas and how-to: How To Create a Personal Archive of Joy — Collect joy & stock up for bad times.
And if you think this is silly, try it for a month. Or even a week.
Then go back and browse through your notes / photos / journal / art.
And come back and tell me how it feels, having that collection of good things to access any time you need or want to. 😉
📚Reads
I have created a section with my favorite posts - the best things I’ve written.
Take a look, I’m sure you’ll find something you missed or would like to revisit: Best of Joy Every Week.
🎥 Watch
I got so much inspiration from Susannah’s video about her journaling. Each of those journals is a collection of joy. 😊
📕 My Journaling Reset - Creative Joy Club
—How I got my journaling groove back (and a personal message from me)
🎙️Listen
I’ve finished watching Derry Girls this week (if you haven’t, get on it ASAP - it’s weird, hilarious, poignant and smart), and the final episode starts with Orla dancing to this song. It’s one of the best, most joyful things I’ve ever seen.
I had forgotten about the song, but now it’s back on my rotation, adding joy and hope to my morning. 💛
That’s It For Today!
I’m trying this thing of sending the newsletter on Mondays - I’m hoping to help you set up your week for joy, and start with a smile. Let me know what you think! 😊
And then go schedule your time for joy!!!!! 😉💫
Until next time. —Nospheratt