Joy to You and Your Family

Definition of Joy:

Noun

A feeling of great pleasure and happiness

Verb

Rejoice

Joy is the best marketing scheme we see always when the holiday season begins and before it even starts. I love seeing the commercials that try to embody the holiday spirit of joy, peace, family, and love. But everyone doesn’t always feel the holiday spirit and the holidays can be a rough time for some families. Though we like to spread joy and love, the person on the other end has to be ready to receive it.

I still remember my first holiday after my assault. I didn’t want to celebrate any part of the holidays, didn’t want to be around family and my grandfather was very sick now. It was the first time I felt my depression get a lot stronger than it had been. To be honest, I was probably more comfortable feeling depressed than experiencing any type of joy. At the moment in my life, I didn’t think joy, peace, or love was going to ever be in my life let alone my vocabulary ever again.

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Joy has to come from within you to stay alive.

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As I was a little further into my healing journey, and looking for what does joy looks like, I was discovering the actions and items that were giving me temporary joy. I would feel that joy for seconds, sometimes minutes but I couldn’t figure out to keep the joy inside of me. Though I could find plenty of material items that would bring me joy, I realized I had to mentally find something within myself that brought me joy. This is when I realized I had to learn to find joy and love about myself and the life I was living.

So for those who are looking to spark that joy again to change it from temporary to consistent joyfulness, here are some things to try.

1. Find some items or activites that bring you true happiness or joy, even if it is just for a few seconds or minutes. This will help you get use to the feeling. Sometimes, if you haven’t felt happiness or joy in a while, it can feel quite foreign.
2. Once you start to get use to the joyful feeling, start to find the things about your self that make your happy. For example, it can be as simple as my eyes always shine no matter the weather. I love that about my eyes. It will start to shift your thoughts into a positive energy
3. After you find those joyful things, activities and self love, you will learn how to find the joy in the little things around your environment no matter where you are. Use those as your inspiration to find continous joy in your life

Take this time off during the holiday season and start your journey to finding and keeping joy. I promise you won’t regret it.