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Joy

I was teaching this week and we went outside to play Ladder Ball.  This is the game with balls tethered together by a short string that you toss at a short ladder like structure.  As I watched them playing the game together I was struck by how easy it was for them to feel 100% pure joy in that moment.  
 
Their whole face would light up when something amazing happened in the game.  They would cheer and jump about at the chance of earning one more point.  They laughed and laughed and laughed at all of the silly mistakes they and their team mates made through the course of their tosses.

They were not thinking of the chores they would have to do when they got home that night.  Nor were they worrying about if they were playing well enough or what their team mates might be thinking about them.  They were not getting angry if they did not get more points in a round.  They were just playing with joy.

  It was just a 10 minute game, but it was giving them feelings of 100% joy.  That is something to think about.  What was it about these middle school students that allowed them to feel so good over something so small?  Did the game make space for this to come out so easily?  Was it being outside and moving?  Did the supportive learning environment make it easier to feel joyful?

In the instant I saw this I knew it was something many of us adults were missing.  To our own detriments, we have lost this ability to just be in the moment and feel 100% joy about something so simple.  Sometimes we will force the feeling of joy to show up on our faces for our children or our friends and family, but how often to you really feel that free release of 100% joy?

For many adults joy gets crushed by the realities of adult life.  You cannot feel 100% joy when you are feeling the time management pressures that so many of us carry around with  us every day.  You cannot feel 100% joy when you are worried about what other people think of you.  You cannot feel 100% joy when you are judging another person.  And it is hard to find space for even a sliver of joy when you are carrying a load of anger, anxiety or depression.

We adults need to find our way back to joy.  It is a gift we can give to ourselves to clear away all of the noise in our brains for just 10 minutes and be joyful with no care in the world.  Per The Mayo Clinic, laughter is a great stress reliever.  It can also help to improve our immune system, relieve pain and elevate our mood.  

So take a lesson from the children around you and watch how they are able to jump into play filled with laughter and joy, not all the time, but often.  Notice they way they engage with the activity and people around them with this sense of joy.  See if just watching that kind of pure joy can remind you a little bit of how it felt to be that free and happy.  

Then start maximizing your opportuniites for 100% joy moments.  You cannot schedule them like you can many other things in your life, but you can encourage them and you can also add some things to you life that you know are great options for that 100% joy feeling.  

Some ideas to get you started:
– Play something you love with the children in your life
– Don’t hold back when something funny happens, laugh it up, as long as it is not at the expense of another person.
– Listen to some comedy routines
– Play a game that can build humor, such as Telestrations
– Find a funny movie or TV show

Just being conscious of the freedom that joy can give you is a great start.  Then you can start to find bits of it everywhere you go, giving yourself a 5 or 10 minute break from the challenges of adult life and couple of moments of 100% joy.