Since I launched my new podcast Let It Shine last week with an incredible room full of women sharing their “joy” stories – I’ve had one very specific thing on my mind.

JOY.

What it is. What it’s not. How to experience more of it. What it means to us. Whether we can have it all the time. Whether it mattes if we’re not experiencing it right now.

I’ve spoken a lot before about how busy and stress can wreak havoc in our lives. How the more we hold tight on to that feeling of busy and always having to be in “control”, the more we actually lose control.

Because we position ourselves in limbo land. By holding tight to busy, we’re really stopping ourselves from feeling any of it. Any of the stress, but also any of the joy.

The more I think about joy the more I know for sure it’s not really something you can think too much about.

It has to be experienced. Felt into deeply.

Something that you recognise enough so that you actually notice it when it comes tapping on your shoulder. Something that you can smell in the air and choose to follow. Something that you can hear whisper your name and you choose in that moment to crank up the volume.

Pure joy – it can catch us by surprise.

It can topple us over in laugther. Or tears.

It can make us question if we’re “allowed” to feel it even as it washes over us.

It can make our cheeks burn.

But it doesn’t have to be or do any of that.

Pure joy – simply is.

And your pure joy is only how you define it. And what you know to be true about you.

These may be three of my most favourite ways to experience joy, but know this – if they don’t resonate for you, then that’s okay. They’re not meant to. They’re here to spur you into thinking and feeling differently about joy. To trusting your own instincts and your own body’s response.

To knowing that joy already exists all around us, but it will continue to be unnoticed unless we stop every now and then and take notice of it.

So take these as curiosity capers, as amplifiers of your own joys, as inspiration to get you to take notice of your own joys in your life.

1. Bring On Broadway Baby – The stage. The music. The high kicks all in a row. The ballads. The joy on the performers’ faces. Give me all of that, any day of the week. It’s pure joy for me to be in the presence of performers. To see and experience them working their magic. I LOVE it.
2. Coffee Dates – I know I know, I harp on about this a lot. But there’s a really big reason for that. Not only do I just love the feeling of sipping on a perfectly brewed and poured flat white, it’s the tranquillity I get from spending time alone, with my own thoughts. My own feelings. My own notebooks. No agenda. No right or wrong. Simply spaciousness to be. That is pure joy for me.
3. Scent Me Up – Honestly, it doesn’t take too much to fill me with joy, especially now that I’m more tuned into what makes me feel good inside. Like the simple sniff of a new essential oil (I’m loving my bergamot and clary sage combo at the moment) that I keep in my handbag. Or lighting a candle as I tap away at my keyboard. Or popping on my diffuser after the house has been cleaned so scents of lemongrass and orange float through my home. Mmm. Pure joy. It really can be the most simple things in our lives. ?

This week I’m inviting you to tune into your joy. Notice what makes you come more alive. Notice what brings a gentle smile to your face. Or that stirs a little something in your belly. Or that makes you feel just that teeny bit calmer.

They’re all fragments of joy wanting to burst through into your life. And the more you pay attention to them, the more you get to experience them in your life.