How do you choose your emotions? Have you found joy lately? This past weekend my husband and I had a delightful time of being with our grown children and grandchildren, three, two and 9 months at “Cows on the Concourse” around the Capitol Square in Madison, WI. What brought joy to the event was seeing it through their eyes. Noticing the cows, climbing up and down, and up and down the steps, having to have strawberry milk, getting honey sticks for the first time. All the wonder and excitement that a child-like wonder brings to a new event is catching! It was a beautiful day and lots of children running everywhere. My daughter overhead a little two year old say as she ran past, “I love running!” Joy in action!
According to research by Barbara Fredrickson of the University of Michigan, choosing joy and other positive emotions has the potential to improve not only our emotions at the moment, but our well-being over time. Fredrickson’s broaden and build theory reminds us that as we practice joy, for example, we broaden our ability to play, push our limits and be creative. What happens when you experience joy, especially over time? What do you notice?
In addition to building our positive emotions, Fredrickson’s research also noted that by focusing on our positive emotions we have the capacity to negate many of our negative emotions. That’s another plus over time in the broaden and build theory. Other powerful positive emotions include gratitude, love, contentment and interest which we will be exploring over the course of this year.
Practicing Joy!
This month of June we will be practicing and noticing joy and the effect it has on our daily lives. What better month than to practice and choose joy? Start small by keeping a running list of your “joy” moments – a lovely summer breeze, a child’s laugh, time at the beach…whatever is bringing joy to your heart. How does noticing joy linger?
Share those on our Nancy Booth Coaching Facebook page. We all might like trying your ideas as well!
The other blogs this month will focus on additional resources and ways to practice joy.
I can’t wait to hear how you find your joy this month!
Nancy Booth is a certified life coach and certified brain-based coach. She loves creating safe spaces for women going through life’s transitions to discover and support their visions for health and well-being in an overwhelming world, explore possibilities for next steps and find hope. She writes about taming the overwhelm and reducing stress, looking for ways to motivate, energize and inspire you! You can sign up to receive her weekly blog or contact her to find out ways you can begin to shed overwhelm and stress. It’s time to explore possibilities of new relationships, better life pacing and gain hope and peace.