Five steps to a joyful life

We could all get more out of day-to-day life by learning how to cultivate joy. Here are my five steps that offer for you to develop a greater sense of wellbeing.

1. Focus on the beauty in the world

In some Native American cultures, the concept hózhó is used to describe both beauty and good health. To benefit from the beauty around you, first you need to absorb it. Instead of seeing ugliness, resolve to see beauty. Choosing your environment carefully is crucial to this, and perhaps the best place to be is in nature – as long as you don’t feel the need to accomplish anything in particular. Just be and absorb the light and beauty. If you can’t get out into the countryside, you can still create a beautiful environment for yourself at home with colours and pictures and artwork you like and by avoiding ugly TV shows.

Art yoga is a good way of accessing the beautiful space that exists inside all of us. You can achieve this by practicing a relations technique call yoga-nidra. Do a visualization exercise where you imagine yourself in a beautiful setting. For example, you might imagine yourself in a shady patch of lawn under an oak tree – it’s just as good as being there in person. The next task is to turn this image into a painting. Perhaps you’d make some sweeping marks in yellow with red splashes here and there. When we create the image, we get a feeling of wellbeing alongside the visualization. Hanging the picture at home or in the office and looking at it regularly and closely will allow you to recapture that initial pleasure.

2. Slow down

Doing everything in a rush means that we have little time to enjoy the pleasures of the everyday. We’re always running on a wheel that’s moving faster and faster. We can all feel it, and we all struggle with the anxiety that goes with the unspoken competition to do even more. Slowing down can be a huge relief. And we can do this without necessarily having to practice formal meditation.

You could, for example, make use of the time spent commuting to slow down your movements, be attentive to what’s happening in you r body and observe others. Walk more slowly, look around you, then focus in on some detail that you’d like to observe. Actively slowing down like this can bring on a sort of meditative state and can make you feel good. You might find you can recapture that feeling you had as a child, when you could spend hours studying a blade of grass without feeling that life was passing you by.

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“Carried away by our worries, we’re unable to live fully and happily in the present. Deep down, we believe we can’t really be happy just yet – that we still have a few more boxes to check off before we can really enjoy life.”

Thich Nhat Hanh – Zen Buddhist monk, poet and peace activist.

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3. Develop your sense of humour and new perspective.

Having a sense of humour about life, and not taking anything too seriously, is a very good way of reducing anxiety and having fun. Cracking jokes isn’t necessarily a shallow pursuit – it can require us to use critical judgement, and it can push the boundaries of our thinking. Making jokes can also make us see the work from a new perspective and bring out hidden truths. You might think that many issues concerning life and death are too serious to joke about. And you could be right. But there is usually good joke to be made in most situations – such as the twink at the end of the bar who is trying to find the courage to ask the daddy next to him to dance – you just have to find it.

Do get into the habit of looking for the joke, no matter what is happening. Find the thing that doesn’t quite gel, that detail that is hard to grasp or seems absurd to you. And dare to make yourself the butt of the joke sometimes as a way of connecting with other guys.

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“Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.”

Henri Nouwen, author.

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4. Awaken dormant feelings

Take just five minutes to feel consciously sensual and you’ll realise how our daily modern lives can make us forget the power of the simplest gestures. Something as fleeting as giving a light caress to your partner can be surprisingly powerful. Try brushing your fingertips over the back of their hand, neck or shoulder. But do it slowly, silently, fully aware of what you are doing, paying attention to the sensations you feel in the present moment – that is, without second-guessing anything or expecting anything in return. You might awaken feelings that have lain dormant for a long time; you’ll feel completely like yourself, and very sensual.

Tantra isn’t just about how to have great sex, as some people think. It’s about amazing new ways of learning about your partner and getting back in touch with your own sensuality. This is important, because sensuality between a couple can all too easily be snuffed out by the daily routine, and each sensual exchange is charged with the couple’s history, each person’s individual history and any personal and family problems that exist. In my couple coaching I ask participants to imagine they are meeting each other for the first time and to try to forget their relationship. They start with a blank page, in the present moment, and they meet each other, person-to-person, on a new level. At that moment, they feel centred. And each moment is now completely new to them and they are in a space to awaken dormant feelings.

5. Keep a photo diary

Photography is all about paying attention. Now we have cameraphones, we can take photos at any time. You can use the camera to pause and consider that you ‘re looking at. What do you see that you lie? What pleases you? It could be a caramel latté at your local coffee shop, or a piece of graffiti when travelling to another city. It could be old man sitting on a bench in the park, the hot guy getting out of a car, a couple holding hands as they walk down the pavement.

I encourage all of you to take the time to do that as well – it reconnects you wot what bring you pleasure in your life. Also, by keeping a visual diary of your life, you are doing something just for yourself – there is no purpose in it beyond feasting your eyes and learning to appreciate what’s around you.

Loving Blessings

James