What Is Joy?

What is Joy?

I will admit I was flumouxed when orginally asked this question.  But a few asked, so I realised this was a concept that needs explaining, and I took the question as an invitation to more deeply connect with, and explore, my own understanding of what is joy.

So I sat with the question, I contemplated what it meant to me; I looked in some of my books to find a simple answer.  I came across words like beauty, light, love, compassion, kindness, gratitude.  I let the words and their meanings swirl around and settle in me. To me these are all concepts that help facilitate joy, but I was still wrestling with the question, what does joy really mean?

I came up with this – it’s a way of life; it’s settled deep within – cultivate it and it becomes part of your DNA, part of the way in which you live your life, the way in which you respond to the challenges life gives you.  

It is said that sorrow is the flip side of joy, and that we cannot have one with out the other.  This is true – like we cannot have light without having dark; a yin without yang; movement without stillness.  For me, experiencing sorrow deepens the feelings of joy – because if we have truly lost something and felt the loss, then we have the capacity to more deeply connect with that which makes us joyful.

So for me, Joy comes from the same source of Sorrow.  It comes from the place of deep connection: a place of connection to ourselves, and from here we are able to connect to the world around us, to that which is important to us.   

When we recognise that this is the most important thing for us to do in life – to connect – joy follows, because we simply live our life, in our way, and just by being, create joy around us.  We create joy by being.  By being in the present in the presence of those we love; by being connected to that which brings us joy; by sharing our passions and talents with others.

In this space there is no need for judgement and criticism of the self or the other because we allow ourselves to be, and we allow others to be.  Judgement and criticism are the goalers of joy – they lock it up and smother it with darkness.  They are the original killjoy.  They dampen moods and atmospheres, and can extinguish even the brightest flame of delight.

So joy is not just for Christmas.  Joy is for all year round.  The Christian tradition has obscured many Westerns’ understandings of joy.  Our job is to create joy, beauty and peace on a daily basis.  Creation is not complete as the Christian religions promote. (and even if we profess not be religious, most people in the West have been brought up and shaped by Christian values). 

It is up to us to continue to co-create our world, and in doing so to spread our joy with every footstep, with every word, with every thought and with every action we take.