As coaches, it is important for us to nurture our own experience of joy so that we can help clients facilitate theirs. In day-to-day adult life, joy can be elusive. Modern capitalist society does not prioritize joy, so it has become easy for us to put our individual experience of joy on the back-burner.
If adulthood does not explicitly require joy for execution of tasks and advancement, perhaps we can explore the notion of leaving our ‘adult selves,’ or our analytical and efficiency-driven mindset, to the side. For just a few minutes, instead of interpreting from the ‘doing’ mind that many operate from most of the time, can you connect with ‘being’? While engaging with this article I invite you to consider the idea of cultivating more joy from a place of curiosity and play, rather than judging your own perceived lack of joy.
What is joy?
The etymology of the word ‘joy’ comes from the latin ‘gaudium’ meaning ‘rejoice.’ Therefore, joy is a celebration of life. There is liberation in asking: How can I celebrate my life? Wherever I am, exactly as I am, in this very moment?
Our inability to access joy is largely due to mindset. Approaching joy from a place of curiosity and introspection may reveal the very thing you need to accept that is blocking you from your joy. Consider:
- What does experiencing joy mean to me?
- Am I committed to embracing more joy in my life?
Joy is a choice. Are you willing to give yourself permission to add joy to your experience?
Joy can be seen as a current that connects us to childhood. Filling our lives with joy is a gift we give to ourselves. The things that bring us joy and curiosity are our greatest clues to the person we can become, if only we are brave enough to let ourselves experience happiness.
We often think of happiness as an endured state of being we are constantly pursuing. But we may consider it out of reach and achievement is difficult to quantify. This leads us to perpetually ask ourselves: Am I happy? Will I be happy? How can I be happier? We think that ‘once I am this, or have that thing, then I’ll be happy.’
These are loaded, heavy questions that are accompanied by guilt and judgment as we aim to define our own identity. But if we shift our attention to cultivating joy, there is a lightness that follows. How can I add more joy to my life? It doesn’t seem as daunting. Joy is attainable. Joy is one action, maybe once a day, or once a week, instead of an enduring pursuit.
Cultivating Presence
Above all else, joy is accessible to anyone. It is inherent in us as human beings.
Renowned meditation teacher and clinical psychologist, Tara Brach, shares that joy can be found through presence. It is important to find the space to be present with yourself and think critically about your intention around joy. If you are committed to increasing your joy, what is currently blocking more joy from filling your life? Perhaps you are missing opportunities for joy that are already there. Consider this: maybe you love to drink coffee. You have a cup every morning, but it has become a part of your routine, just something you do as you start the day. You are not experiencing the joy that the process of making and drinking coffee once gave you. Or your mind is preoccupied with other events of the day, and you are not present with yourself and your experience to notice how much drinking coffee brings you joy. You are missing out on joy potential.
Tools to shift clients’ mindset into a broader sense of curiosity and play can be used to uncover their innate sense of joy.
Seeing the Possibility
Bringing clients to a sense of excitement and expansion when they envision their future will allow them to fill their lives with joy. At the beginning of a coaching relationship, I have clients imagine how good their life could possibly be, if they were to achieve what they really want. I invite the client to imagine a grounded, sensory image of the future. Inviting this sense of expansion, vision, and possibility allows clients to see where they can add and cultivate joy as they imagine a greater future through our work together. Creating a vision map of all the beautiful things they want to create for themselves, will instill a sense of joy into the conversation, the coaching container, and their implementation of their vision for the future. This shifts the focus of the work from problem to possibility.
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