Fake Joy?

7/7/10

I'd be lying if I said that I couldn't connect with my joy today but to be honest, at least on a superficial level, today my joy is definitely being jump-started by (if not directly linked to) a huge, 4-shot-mint-kiss-latte at my coffee shop/office.

Which brings me to the question: does fake/artificially-induced joy count?

When I google "benefits to faking happiness," I get titles like: "Sparkle and Glitter," "Happiness May Help Protect Against Heart Disease," and "Fake It Til You Make It." One article explains that "even faking it has its benefits as the prolonged practice is habit forming and you start eliciting positive vibes from people (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life/health-fitness/health/Make-happiness-a-habit/articleshow/5913122.cms) --in other words, make it a habit even if you feel it's not genuine, because your brain adapts to repetitive behavior and thought patterns, and will actually begin to respond to your happy behavior as if it were coming naturally, and not being worked at. In addition, whether you believe in the power of energy attraction (whereby the positive energy you put out will be reflected back to you by others around you), acting happy around others will have a positive affect on their mood, thus affecting you.

In addition, there's some proof that just our expressions alone can have an affect on your physical well-being. From Berkeley.edu we learn that "facial expression alone, without first feeling the corresponding emotion, is enough to create discernible changes in your autonomic nervous system." So we're learning that if one makes an angry expression, the body can begin to release adrenaline and your heart rate may speed up as if you were actually angry. Conversely, fake a smile (even by simply holding a pencil between your teeth) and your body will begin to release a small stream of feel-good chemicals into your system.This alone can be enough to produce a calm feeling, and a general sense of well being.

So, what to do if you're having a day where you are finding it hard to connect with any joy? Here are some tips that I go to when I want to shake off a funk and reconnect with the bounty of happiness and blessings in my life.

1. Reconnect with myself

I do this in a variety of ways, depending on where I am and what's available to me. My favorite is to stand barefoot on the earth, hug a tree (yes, even in front of people), lie in the grass, and if it's available to me, swim in salt water. Other ways include deep breathing exercises in front of our alter at home (including meditation, repeating affirmations, burning sage, etc), Or simply closing my eyes wherever I am, breathing deeply a few times and exhaling through my mouth, and imagining myself standing barefoot on the earth.

2. Laugh

Any way you can. Look up animal bloopers on youtube, read a favorite comic, call a funny friend. If you have a dog, try tying a balloon to their collar and watch them have a blast trying to jump up and bop the balloon. :-) That always works for me, but not with my dog, sadly.

3. Make a list

Sounds simple and I'm sure you've heard it before, but one of the easiest ways I connect with my joy is to acknowledge the ways in which I feel blessed (and it takes me two seconds to make at ten-item list) and offer a silent little prayer of gratitude for the items on it. Some of us forget how blessed our lives can be, at least until we hear a sad story from someone and think, "At least that isn't happening to me."

4. Extend myself to someone else

Again, simple, but feels really good. I've gotten a lot of internal grinning from offering an arm to an elderly person crossing the street, writing a supportive letter to someone in a grave situation, giving something away to someone, being an anonymous angel to someone in need.

5. Last but not least: check how I'm nourishing myself

Often when I'm unhappy, something is missing -- there's some self-care that I'm neglecting. Am I feeling lonely or touch-deprived? Single people need to pay attention to this. I have a work-trade with a masseuse friend to keep my touch-needs met. Am I feeding myself healthy food? Drinking enough water? Taking time to ground and center myself? Paying attention to my visions and intuitions? Feeling heard by friends? Giving myself enough down/play time? Often one or more of these things are missing when I'm feeling disconnected from my joy, because when I really stop to think about it, joy is my true state of being. So to lose touch with it generally signifies some disconnect with my SELF.

I'd love to hear from you. Do you fake joy? How do you fake it? How does it work for you?

Thanks for reading. And may you connect with your joy in more ways than one today. For more information about how to connect with the joy in YOUR life, call (917) 971 5347 for your FREE 40-minute "Intention: Connection" session. This taste of life coaching with me will bring you clarity about where your needs for more joy are. Life coaching is a great way to be fully supported and guided in finding your way to the life you LOVE to live. You can also check www.InArmsCoaching.com for more info...

And please become our friend on Facebook for more Joy writings, workshop announcements, and more!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/New-York-NY/In-Arms-Coaching/116206166423?ref=ts

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Choose Joy

"There are two vibrational streams around us. We can choose the lower one of struggling...or the higher one of joy. Joy is our natural state of being. It is what we are when we act in accordance with what is natural and truthful in us.

Some people object to feeling or expressing joy in the face of such conditional as war, crime, child abuse...is it right to feel joy when our brothers and sisters are suffering? The best way we can serve the world is to be in touch with our inner joy...when we are connected to this inner teacher, we know exactly what we must do. When we act from our center of joy, we serve humankind in the highest way possible.

We choose joy when we feel good about ourselves even though another puts us down. We expand our capacity for joy when we recognize the need for love in those who criticize us, when we let go of our self-doubt and self-criticism, when we accept new ideas, things, and people; when we let go of all expectation...."

-Peggy Jenkins, "The Joyful Child"

Community

Dear Friends,

I'm having community-withdrawal. It's leaving me sad and off-balance.

We spent the last week immersed in our Portland, Maine community, and every time I leave to come back to NYC I'm sadder than the last time I left. It's led me to think a lot about the different kinds of community in our lives, and the meaning of community.

In NYC I have community. I have physical community -- the people I see everyday, some of whom I've known since I was a child, some of whom I know from the restaurant I work at, some of whom I know through my 4 year old's connections. Some from the coffee shop where I sit and work most mornings. Some just from the shops and parks we visit and the streets we walk. But they are people with whom I share very little other than geographical location.

There are also friends, some of them really GOOD friends. But in NYC everyone is so busy struggling to make a living, get the rent paid, get ahead a little for some breathing room, that even my best friends and I sometimes go for two weeks or more without spending time together. And I'm the same way -- most of the time every hour is scheduled - I'm running somewhere, trying to get something done, working all morning and most nights. Very little time for a social life, for quality time spent with people I love, etc.

In Portland, everything is different in beautiful ways. Most of our friends are what in NYC would be called "poor" -- but none seem to be really struggling. Most of them do work they love, have roommates or communal households, spend lots of time involved in activism, community work, thinking outside the box, raising kids together, having potlucks, spending evenings playing music, talking, meeting, communing, being outdoors. Everywhere I go in Portland I meet people I know, friends, doing things they love -- holding skill-sharing workshops, having clothing swaps, pitching in to build something for someone, creating open-mike nights at local cafes, sitting in the sun, teaching neighborhood kids to hula hoop in someone's yard, planting stuff, having cooking-together nights.

The more I get to know myself, the more I realize that one of my biggest joys is the creation of and existence within community. Joy to me includes authentic communication and interaction with like-minded people. Sharing of ideas and values and passions. Feeling included in something beautiful. Feeling heard and understood. Being a part of something I believe in.

Here's an example of a beautiful way to be in community:

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/help-sustainable-farmers-join-a-crop-mob.html

How do you create community where you live? How important is it for you to feel included in a community?

I would love to hear about your joy. I lovingly encourage you to leave comments. :-)

Please email Spirithouse@gmail.com to get on our mailing list, and check out www.InArmsCoaching.com for more ways to celebrate your joy and build a life you LOVE to live!!

Wisdom From the Heart

Dear Friends,

I learned something really neat yesterday. Rather, I had something scientifically confirmed that I knew all along. :-) Even before our brain gets information, our HEART registers new info and experiences, and actually processes them BEFORE sending them to our brain. (http://www.care2.com/greenliving/your-heart-monkey-brain-connection.html)

I think that part of the happiness of this Daily Joy experiment comes from the fact that by following my joy, I'm actually coming from my heart in the everyday, instead of my head. I'm honoring the innate wisdom that told me that everything comes from the heart, and my intention to connect with my Daily Joy has actually supported a shift within that allows me to live first from my heart, and THEN from my head. And now there's science to back this all up. :-)

How are you tuning in to your heart wisdom today?

Check out www.InArmsCoaching.com for even MORE possibilities for tuning in to your heart....

It's that simple?

Wednesday, March 24th

I lost a little of the joy this past weekend. A little traveling, a little franticness, and no time to myself knocked me off balance a little. I've realized that when I'm around a lot of people in a constant sort of way, with no time to ground, to return to center, to quiet my mind and re-focus, I get knocked off balance. Some of the ways I know I'm knocked out of the center of my joy are:

-fatigue/drinking too much coffee

-feeling overly sensitive to the people around me

-feeling overwhelmed, breathless

-feeling scattered, making a lot of mistakes

-feeling very externally focused, which also goes with being overly sensitive

So Monday morning, I re-focused on my joy. It turned out to be amazingly simple.

First of all, while Bella was eating her oatmeal, before we left for school, I sat in front of my altar. And the reason that I felt called to sit in front of it was that while visiting family this weekend in Pennsylvania I made a real effort to visit the town of Media, which is America's FIRST declared fair-trade town. Most of the stores has committed to carrying only items which are certified to be fair-trade.

I always visit two stores there: Ten Thousand Villages (http://www.tenthousandvillages.com/) which carries stuff from all over the world (most of it supporting women in small cooperatives in other countries) and my all-time favorite store, Earth and State (http://earthandstate.com/aboutus/aboutus.htm) which is FILLED with art, pottery, and other items hand-made by local and non-local American artists. For real: I spend MONEY in this store, and there are things all over my room that come from that store that I've had for YEARS and still make me smile whenever my eyes pass over them. It's a heaven for people who are easily amused by bright, sparkly things, as I am.

Anyway, at Earth and State I treated myself and Bella to two hand-made circle pillows just for sitting in front of our altar with, and that's what caught my eye Monday morning as Bella was eating breakfast. The new, beautiful pillows reminded me that one way of connecting with my joy is sitting in front of my altar. So I spent just 5 minutes meditating on a few things there, chanting a few repetitions of two different affirmations I'm working with, and doing some hand mudras from the book "Healing Mudras" (http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Mudras-Yoga-Your-Hands/dp/0345437586/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269449377&sr=1-3).

After I dropped Bella at school, I took the laptop to "my" coffee shop and sat to re-write a letter to my friends and family about In Arms Coaching and my visions for it that I had been struggling to write for two weeks. It had become a real bang-my-head-against-the-wall exercise, and I had hit so many dead ends so far -- in a way that is really unfamiliar to me.

But that day, being back in my coffee shop with at least two hours just for me, with a cup of hot coffee, the rain coming down outside, my laptop, and the connection to myself that I had nurtured just half an hour ago, all of a sudden the letter just wrote itself. Effortlessly. And it was perfect -- it was JUST what I had been trying to say for two weeks.

Finding my joy this week is about making 5 minutes to connect with myself in front of my altar (or outside somewhere in the sun, up against a tree or sitting in the grass) and WRITING. More specifically, writing as a means to communicating with others about my joy. Writing as a way of CONNECTING with others about my joy.

How are you finding joy this week? I can't wait to hear.....

Monday Morning 3/15

(Intro Note: This post talks about New Moon circles. Some of you might not be familiar with them. The new moon (the dark of the moon each month) is traditionally a time of introspection and planning for the new month ahead. Each new moon is in a different sign of the zodiac, with different characteristics and strengths. We use the characteristics of each new moon to form an intention for some piece of work we want to do on ourselves in the coming two weeks. We do this in a sacred space we create as a small circle of women. There are candles, and sparkly things, and we laugh and make art and sing and listen to each other tell our stories. We support each other and sometimes cry. We meditate and visualize and dream together. Women's New Moon Circles happen in all different ways all over the world. )

So here's what happened.

Yesterday I facilitated a New Moon Circle for women. I've been doing them every month since I first facilitated one at Burdock Gathering in Maine last August (http://sites.google.com/site/burdockgatheringmaine/). It was so magical and it made me long for the women's circles that I used to attend. For about 3 years I attended the most amazing, powerful sister circles (miss them, Dawn and Joanna!), and then they stopped. For over a year I had no spiritual community that I saw regularly and although I tried to make an effort to celebrate and observe the new moon each month, it just wasn't the same.

At Burdock, ideally, everyone who attends offers something that they'd like to teach or share with others in the form of a workshop. I offered a new moon circle for everyone there. And it was just so wonderful, and so grounding for me, and so fulfilling. As a wonderful bonus, people loved it. And wanted to join my mailing list. And there was talk about my doing one at another time in Portland. And I was full.

When we got back to the city, my best Mama-friend/wise witch (http://riseupbaking.com/), Alex (who was in Maine with us) and I were with the kids at a playground. I was talking about how joyful it was for me to facilitate the New Moon Circle, and how badly I missed having New Moon Circle here, in my daily life.

In her infinate wisdom she said, "So start them here!" And I started to get warm and light filled. "Hmmmmm." I said. "The next new moon is ____," she said, thumbing through her datebook. "What night around that could you do it?" "Ummm, ____?" I said. "YEA!" she said, and immediately texted the date and invite to 5 of her friends. "Now you can't back out," she said, laughing. And the In Arms New Moon Sister Circles were born.

That was last September, and I've done them almost every month since. There have been between 3 and 10 women at each one, and they've been so wonderful for me and I've been so touched by the response of the women.

So for this last one, on the evite only two women RSVPed. And I went back and forth about whether or not to do it, especially since I now rent a little room to hold it in and with only two women donating I'd be paying out of pocket for it. But then one of the women emailed me and said, "Since there are only two of us who responded, are we still going to have Circle?" and I thought, we're worth having Circle for! Who cares if there isn't a whole crowd. It will be a lovely, intimate Circle, and every one of us deserves to have this time. I also thought one or two women might show up unexpectedly.

I spent Sunday morning working on the Circle and came up with a plan that made me feel really good and that I thought the women would love. I lugged three heavy bags through the rain and picked up a few fun art supplies for one of the exercises. I arrived, got upstairs, and set up Circle with 15 minutes to spare.

And sat.

And sat.

At just before three pm one of the two women texted me to tell me that she was running about 20 minutes late and that the other confirmed woman (who was a friend of hers) had food poisoning and wouldn’t be coming.

So there I sat in this rented room that I had set up carefully and lovingly for our Circle, with the altar in front of me, candles lit and flickering, alone. With one person coming, 20 minutes late. Nothing to “do” for the next 30 minutes but wait. And I tried to connect with how I felt.

Part of me felt like I wanted to pack up and go home, and then frustration that I couldn’t because of the one person coming. Then there was the level of emotion that wondered if no one was coming because the circle I had been doing wasn’t good enough, wasn’t fun enough, wasn’t meaningful enough. There was the frustration that I had put out money that I wasn’t going to get back. There was the loneliness. There was the fear that what I was doing wasn’t of value, wasn’t supported, wasn’t of service in any significant way.

And I sat with all those feelings. I didn't try to make them go away, and I didn't try to rationalize them, or make myself feel better, or brush over them.

And then something happened. I flashed back on the frustration that I used to feel that I wasn’t making the time to observe new moon. That I wasn’t working towards creating a spiritual community for myself. And then I remembered the joy I felt when I made the commitment to begin honoring new moon by CREATING that space, that circle: FOR ME. And that was the key – that’s what shifted the energy. I connected with the memory and realization that at the basis of my creating this space for new moon circles for women, was simply MY JOY at observing new moon. At creating a beautiful, meaningful altar that reflected each new moon. At designing activities and exercises to help me connect with each new moon’s unique gifts.

And all these things were at the root of MY joy. It was such a bonus when other women joined me and benefitted, but look what planning this circle had given me? 30 minutes to connect with the new moon in this beautiful space, with candles flickering. Silence in which to focus. 3 different divination stations that I had set up around the room with various tarot decks and other divination tools to sit in front of and work with. Other stations with blank paper and art supplies to vision with. And I had 30 minutes to concentrate and dream ALL TO MYSELF, without having to lead other women, or focus on anyone but myself. My Self.

What a gift!

I realized my ego gets in the way of my joy. When I have a thought along the “what if I throw a party and no one comes” line, I become detached from the reason I threw the party in the first place. It’s my fear speaking, my insecurity, my self doubt. My inner critic. All those things come from a place of fear….not a place of joy. But if I connect with something that I joyfully want to celebrate, I win even if I wind up celebrating it with myself. Other people are a bonus.

What are you doing in your life that is more for other people than you? Can you connect with the joy it holds for you? If not, you might want to examine why you’re doing it. It completely SHIFTS your energy to look for the joy in anything you have committed to doing.

I would love to hear about your joy. I lovingly encourage you to leave comments. :-)

Please email Spirithouse@gmail.com to get on our mailing list, and check out www.InArmsCoaching.com for more ways to celebrate your joy and build a life you LOVE to live!!

Sunday morning 3/14

Dear Followers of Joy,

*What's the difference between following our joy, and mindless self-indulgence?*

Here's what I'm thinking about this morning, and hang in with me if it takes a minute for me to articulate. I'm being harsh with myself this morning, because last night was a night of satisfying my craving for instant gratification, which, I'm realizing, distances me from truly following my joy. It leaves me with the question of how to take care of myself in the minute without giving in to unhealthy comforting, which last night took the form of more than one serving of french fries and a chocolate lava cake at work. Both of which made me feel euphoric in the moment and horrible about 5 minutes after.

I think where this brings me is to the importance of following SUSTAINABLE joy -- not just joy-in-the-moment, which can lead you to actually feeling worse about yourself in the long run. It's the difference between a tempting one night stand (and then beating yourself up for days) and a fun night with a new person with no physical action....yet. :-) The difference between smoking or drinking (or eating) when you're bored or lonely and going to the gym or calling a friend and going for a walk. And yes, the difference between a plate of fries (ok, ok, with CHEESE on them no less) and a chocolate cake versus feeding my body small amounts of good food because I'm hungry, not because I'm bored.

So not only is it seeing the big picture, but I realize there's also a piece about tuning into ourselves in the moment and finding where we are and what we need. Last night my body wasn't craving french fries and cake -- it was feeling a little lonely, a little burnt out, and a LOT tired. How can I nurture myself in that place and REALLY get in touch with what I need to feel joyful, instead of throwing a band-aid over the wound for the moment and then feeling bloated and heavy (and still lonely, tired and burnt out) the next morning?

Today I plan on finding joy by:
*connecting with my circle sisters during the circle I'm leading this afternoon
*putting my face in the sun when Bella and I leave the house this morning
* getting a 20 minute foot massage after Circle on my way home

much love and light,

Britt

Check out www.InArmsCoaching.com for more ways to find joy in your life....

Rainy Saturday Morning Joy

3/13/10

Dear Followers of Joy,

Welcome to my new blog. My first blog, really, and the motivation behind it is two-fold. First of all, I want to commit to a joyful path. Secondly, I want to reach out to others to show the possibility. Also, more honestly, I want to explore why sometimes it's so hard to live from a place of joy, and I want a little back-up in doing so. If I'm chronicling it I hold myself accountable for writing this to you, and that serves to connect me to my goal.

This all started with me in a funk. I've been working really hard lately at exploring the ways I enter into relationship with others, and the ways I seem to call people into my life who are totally inappropriate for the kinds of relationships my heart REALLY desires. So I've spent the last 3 or 4 months really exploring the parts of my brain and heart that enter into relationship with people. I've unpacked a lot of old bags, sorted through the contents, dusted things off, thrown a LOT away, refurbished some old pieces.

But even with all this work, I realized, a few weeks ago, that there's still more to do and it kind of threw me into a dark funk. I'm feeling like I'm in a state of transition with things ending and me not quite seeing the new beginnings yet, and that's scary.

All this resulted in the kinds of mornings where I'd wake up with a knot already in my stomach. No energy. No motivation. Emotional exhaustion. You've probably been there before -- like you're trying to move through your day with 3 soaking wet, woolen blankets over your head.

I think the first thing that happened was that my magical friend Hilary told me about the book, "Mama Gena's School of Womanly Arts." Mama Gena teaches women that when they connect with and FOLLOW what they love, what gives them joy, everything follows: romantic partners, meaningful work, wonderful life opportunities. Because this is so close to my own philosophy, I bought the book.

The first three chapters: "The Case for Pleasure", "The Womanly Art of Whetting Your Own Appetite," and "The Womanly Art of Having Fun, No Matter What," inspired me to start doing a few different things differently.

1. Find one way to do something joyful for myself each day, no matter what.

This wasn't that hard, because there are lots of things I enjoy (and if you don't know what brings you joy, Mama Gena coaches you to start by making a list of what simple things bring you joy: sitting on a bench with a good book and a cup of tea? Having lunch with a friend? Taking long walks with your dog? Candle-lit bubble baths at the end of the day? Browsing in a bookstore during your lunch break?)

So, the first day after I started reading the book I made space in the sunny, pre-spring day to go rollerblading for 40 minutes down by the river. Then I sat in the grass by the river, with my back up against a tree and called a friend to discuss fabulous possibilities of ways to move my life forward.

Day two I got an hour-long massage from my amazing mama-friend Nina, in return for a life coaching session for her. Heavenly.

Day three I took the time to make some healthy food for myself.

Day four I worked all morning at my favorite coffee shop birthing new things for In Arms Coaching (check them out at: www.InArmsCoaching.com), made time to go for a walk in the rain with a friend who made me laugh, and came home from a long night at work to take a candle-lit bubble bath.

2. Find joy in WHATEVER I'm doing.

This is kind of wonderful for two reasons: first of all, it's such a neat thing to practice. Yes, I'm stuck at work and it's so slow and I'm so bored. So I put on some dark lipstick, flirted with the guys in the kitchen, made my co-workers laugh, got a small glass of wine, and turned the evening around. I had FUN with it. And in doing so, I made others have a slightly better time too, because when I'm having fun it spreads to the people around me.

What I've noticed so far:

I feel LIGHTER, and definitely happier. Also, things in my life that felt kind of stuck, have, since I started this project, opened up a little. In amazing, wonderful ways. Interestingly enough, in the last 4 nights of work I've noticed something new -- people are reacting to me differently. The first night of the experiment a restaurant owner I was waiting on asked me out. The second night a really nice guy came in to have dinner with his father and wrote notes to me all over his paper tablecloth (with the crayons we put out) saying how wonderful I was, how beautiful he thought my tattoos were, and to please call him, with an arrow to his card stuck to the tablecloth. Last night, a striking lesbian I waited on wrote a note on her bill about how beautiful I was, and how amazing I was. :-)

By intending to have joy in my life and by making it a priority, it seems to call even more joy and joyful things (and people, and experiences) my way. In addition, now that I'm spending time thinking so much about joy, I'm noticing joy in places and ways that I hasn't before. How good it feels to share a laugh with someone -- how connected to the other person I feel when we laugh at something together. How nurturing it feels to turn my face towards a warm ray of sunshine. How supported I feel by my friends, and how much joy they bring me. When my two old, beloved friends Steven and Joe sat with me last week when I was sad, and heard me out and told me how much they care for me and how they supported me, my heart felt joy.

Another way this project is affecting me is by bringing the control back to me -- I get to decide how I feel, and how I look at the world, my relationships, my work, my day. When I wake up each morning and connect with how I wan't to follow my joy that day, in what ways I want to bring pleasure and joy to myself, it starts things off on a whole new foot.

Viktor Frankl, a concentration-camp survivor, wrote a book that my mother, Jamie (check out her books on Amazon: Jamie Pastor Bolnick - she's written two wonderful memoirs about women who worked against all odds to overcome challenging obstacles and find their own joy) gave me to read in my early teens, and I have since given as a gift to countless people. "Man's Search For Meaning" (buy it for a dollar or so on www.half.com -- and buy 3 copies so you can keep one and give two away) includes his discovery that even though you cannot alway control what HAPPENS to you, or the situations you find yourself in, you always get to control HOW YOU REACT to the situation.

That's my new goal: to find joy in my every day. To reclaim the power that I have to make MYSELF feel good. To examine the barriers that stand in the way of my ability and desire to nurture and love myself. And to share this with YOU, and to hear some of the work that you're doing to find joy in your own lives.

I'm working a muscle that I didn't even know I had, and it feels so good. I'm connected to my own power to create good things in my life. And I want my joyfulness to ripple outwards to find YOU.

This is just an introduction. I would love for you to subscribe to join me in my intention to connect to My Daily Joy.

much love and light,

Britt