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As someone who has a natural bent towards pessimism, and has lived with anxiety for many years, I never thought I’d be writing about joy. Much less talking about how I think you might be able to get more of it!

But recently I had an experience.

I’d love to put a descriptive in front of ‘experience’, but I’ve tried a few out and nothing fits quite right.

Weird? Yep, a bit. Spiritual? Most likely. Mystical? Absolutely. Life changing? YES.

Here’s what happened.

It was mid-week and I’d just dropped the kids at school. Our dog, Bella and I stopped on the way home at our local beach. It was a beautiful day, the sun was out but there were still a few animal-shaped clouds in the sky. The air smeled like the end of spring. The hot sun was beating down on all the new growth and it filled the air with a spectacular aroma that made me want to breathe, long and deep.

I had barely started along our well trodden path when something bizarre happened. I smiled. Ok, smiling isn’t that bizarre, but this smile came out of nowhere. And the smile wasn’t going anywhere fast. I kept walking, smile plastered on my face.

In a matter of seconds I went from taking a fairly normal walk with my dog to being completely and utterly overcome with joy.

Let’s stop here for a minute to note the difference between joy and happiness. Because, in case you didn’t know, they aren’t the same.

The difference between joy and happiness

The difference between the two, is that happiness is tied to something concrete and is entirely time-dependent. It comes, and then it goes. Joy however, is a stable constant ‘state’ that lives deep within all of us, albeit often buried under a substantial amount of ‘life baggage’.

I love Danielle LaPorte’s description of the difference.

“Happiness is like rising bubbles — delightful and inevitably fleeting. Joy is the oxygen — ever present.”

I walked for another 5 or so minutes in this bubble of joy. It was bizzare for a couple of reasons. Firstly, nothing specific had happened to make me feel joyful. I hadn’t won the lottery (yet I somehow felt as though I had), and I didn’t even have the endorphins from my exercise yet.

And secondly, the joy was the deepest, most all-encompassing joy I’ve felt for a very long time. The kind of joy that I felt when I gave birth or when I fell in love with my husband. The kind of joy that smacks you in the face, and makes everything around you almost non-existent. And it felt strangely familiar. Like an old friend who had been waiting quietly in the wings.

The feeling – this old friend feeling – reminded me of a poem I heard by Juan Ramon Jimenez.

This weird joy bubble didn’t last long, in fact not even the entire walk. And the day continued as normal. But it’s a day i’ll never forget.

A couple of weeks later, as I was reading Eat, Pray, Love, I came across a passage where Elizabeth Gilbert describes the concept of the turiya state in Buddhism.

She describes this state as the fourth level of consciousness (with waking, dreaming, or deep dreamless sleep being the other three). The fourth state – turiya, is pure consciousness. This is the part of us that watches over the other parts, the silent witness (the ‘I’ in Juan’s poem).

“Here’s how you can tell if you’ve reached the turiya state – if you’re in a state of constant bliss. One who is living within turiya is not affected by swinging moods of the mind, nor fearful of time or harmed by less. Most of us, even if for only two minutes in our lives, have experienced at some time or another an inexplicable and random sense of complete bliss, unrelated to anything that was happening in the outside world. One instant, you’re just a regular Joe, schlepping through your mundane life, and then suddenly, – what is this? – nothing has changed, yet you feel stirred by grace, swollen with wonder, overflowing with bliss.”  – Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray, Love, pg 206.

There it was, in black and white. An explanation for my experience!

So then I began to think about how to get back to this place.

Being present

Walking my dog, particularly in this area of the beach has become a sacred space for me. Not just the physical area, or the time spent with my canine companion. The whole package, along with the memories of the first time I discovered the beautiful walk.

The one common denominator? Presence.

On this day, and most other days walking here, I feel grounded in the present moment. There’s something about this sacred space that pulls me inward and allows me to discard the past and future, even if only for a few minutes.

In this place, the present moment, I find a joy I don’t get anywhere else.

An awareness of the bigger picture

I think one of the key elements of finding this joy place again is the natural world. Being immersed in nature helps us take our eyes of the tiny world we live in day-to-day and puts us smack in the middle of the big wide world.

Realising that we are part of something much larger, grander and downright amazing is helpful in subduing worry, sadness and anger.

I know now that if I want to find that old friend joy again, I probably need to head into the forest, or look up at the stars.

Letting go

My key word for 2018 was FOCUS. And it carried me beautifully through the last 11 months. I’ve smashed most of my goals out of the park and feel satisfied with the things I’ve achieved.

But as the year drew to a close, and I celebrated 40 years on the planet, I experienced a period of regret and disquiet for the things I hadn’t ticked off. The book that remains unwritten, the ultramarathon that hasn’t been run, and all the little bitty things that remain undone. But despite this in this last few weeks, I’ve felt a strong pull towards letting go.

And I felt it that day, as I basked in the turiya state. A blissful joy. I felt the peaceful gentle lull of contentment.

So as I head into a new year, I’ve chosen a phrase, instead of a word.

Let it go

(I feel like we are far enough past Frozen for this NOT to be an offensive phrase – at least i hope so!).

And, a theme song, if you please.

“Que sera sera, whatever will be, will be

The future’s not ours to see,

Que sera sera”

This year I will choose to let go of perfection (again, and again).

I’ll pick up contentment instead.

This year I’m going to let go of dogged perseverance and pick up more gentle self care.

This year I’m going to let go of a little more of my ego and pick up a little more of my true self.

And this year, I will continue to seek more moments of joy. That deep all-consuming joy that comes with being present and knowing my place in the universe.