Find Your Bliss And Joy is a continuation or part 2 of a post I receintly wrote on Finding Happiness. Joy is the next step, or the next emotion you would feel when you allow yourself to be happy. If you haven’t Read the first post, click here to go straight to it and read it now.
Just saying the word JOY can put a smile on your face. Still, you have to wonder what it means to find joy. It’s uncommon to take the time to consider what joy would personally mean. After all, most of us are not normally introspective enough to sit and ponder. However, If you decide to be reflective and consider what joy means to you, then answer the three question below. Your answers can help with your journey.
What is joy?
Do I feel joyful?
If I felt joy, how would I know?
Is there a difference between finding your bliss or joy and happiness? We do usually view them as the same, but are they? If happiness is present, does it mean joy is also?
Let’s compare and understand joy and happiness
In order to answer the above questions, it requires a better understanding of what joy is and its relation to happiness. We’ve already mention the meaning of happiness in the previous post, but for clarity we’ll outline it below again.
- According to Webster, happiness is a state of being, of having good fortune, pleasure, contentment and joy (we’ll get to the mention of joy in the meaning in a second).
- According to Webster, joy is the emotion of great delight or happiness, cause by something exceptionally satisfying, a keen pleasure . . . elating…
A few things to notice in the two meanings above
First, did you notice that one definition mention joy and the other happiness? Does this mean happiness and joy is interchangeability? Or is it safe to conclude that happiness leads to joy.
Second, the mention of happiness in both meaning. It’s the words “State of being” That proceed the word happiness in the happiness definition, and the word “Emotion” That proceed happiness in the joy definition that’s worth paying attention to.
State of being is a feeling, and there is a fundamental difference between what you feel and emotions. Feelings are what you experience consciously, and emotions are unambiguous because it reveals itself reflectively or suppressively. For some, it takes decades to understand and embrace emotions. If happiness leads to joy and happiness is a state being, then Joy is the emotional consequence of happiness.
In my post on happiness, I mention that it’s up to you to experience happiness. My thoughts about happiness have not changed. In fact, I am more convinced than ever that happiness is really up to you. If you don’t want to be happy, then joy would be absent from your life – you simply cannot experience joy if you are not happy. Happiness is the doorway to joy.
Even though feeling joy depends on finding happiness, how you choose to approach life is just as relevant. One approach is from a spiritual perspective. There is no shortage of information online on joy and its relation to religion and verses in the bible. While the references to joy in the bible are noteworthy, joy is not just a spiritual journey. It’s also an emotional one, a personal one, a state of being.
To connect with the personal nature of joy, consider the words of these prominent individuals; as they define what joy means.
Marianne Williamson:
“Joy is what happens when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.”
Author Henri J.M. Nouwen:
“Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it.”
Gloria Vanderbilt
“To be happy, one must find one’s bliss.”
To find your bliss is a personal journey that can only happen when you are experiencing happiness, and it’s up to you to decide that it is attainable. I’m sure for many, the religious connection that joy evokes are profound and deserve recognition. However, in this post, finding joy is to allow ourselves to be happy, and in order to find happiness we must connect with what we feel and allow ourselves to find our bliss.
More On Achieving Joy
The personal nature of achieving happiness, then joy, need not be exhaustive. Connect to your inner-self and the moment or events in your life that can lead to happiness. Nurture your spirit, think positive thoughts, find your path to achieving hapiness then joy.
You and you alone will know when you are experiencing happiness. It’s a personal journey only you can define. For you and others, it may be a combination and more of these words that represent what finding your bliss or joy is.
Joy is . . .
Strength
Compassion
Giving
Sustaining
Inner peace
Well-being
Do your best to connect with your inner-self and appreciate the better part of who you are. Grow each day by being confident about yourself and your life. When you accept yourself, you can find happiness, and find your bliss.
