Making Room for Joy

In this Design Circle, our colleague Rhoda Deon will lead us through a workshop on Making Room for Joy. Rhoda describes her Joy Solution as a "life-proof" plan for experiencing joy that automagically makes gratitude a part of your journey. After we analyze what lights us up, Rhoda will help us expand our personal definition of joy so that is robust enough to be a daily practice - regardless of our circumstances.

From Rhoda:

Joy is your birthright. Once something delights you, no one can stop you from smiling. It just happens - without your conscious direction. But a curious thing happens when we don’t have joy.

People start giving us research studies or woo-woo mantras claiming that a daily gratitude practice will elevate our mood. It might. But if you don’t have enough joy in your life to start a gratitude journal, you might experience what I did - more sadness and a loss of autonomy.

Autonomy, like joy, is also your birthright. You were born with the capacity to lead your life according to your own values. However, if the only thing going your way is the curveballs life keeps throwing at you, feeling like you have options can become a thing of the past. After all, it’s difficult to be thankful when you have more problems than solutions.

Call me crazy, but I believe the solution to a loss of joy is to put it back in your life and more specifically, to put it in your future. Rather than ruminate on the good stuff that has happened in the past, make an action plan for joy and put it on your calendar.