New Understandings in Finding Joy

Why is it so difficult to follow our joy? I keep circling back to this question a lot because while it may sound frivolous, I’ve come to believe it’s hugely important. Our entire ability to not only be happy, but to thrive and honor our soul’s callings depends on our ability to follow the breadcrumbs of joy.

It all boils down to energy and vibration – being able to detect it and lean towards it. But like the yellow bird on the right, we feel trapped. We can point to the bars in life that make us feel this way — our jobs, finances, body type, circumstances or lack of opportunities. Somehow we landed in this cage and we don’t know how we got here.

The cage is called cultural conditioning. Most of this conditioning occurred when we were young and is buried in our psyche. We only become aware it when we start to feel hemmed in, when life around us suddenly feels too tight.

While we may feel trapped, there is a way out. In fact, the cage door has always been open.

We can’t see the open door because we’re looking the other way. Culturally, most of us have been raised to believe that our parents, friends, teachers, and religious leaders have all the answers, that they know better than us. But how can they? How can they really know what’s best for us? How can they know our soul’s calling? The answer is, they can’t. 

We’ve heard it ad nauseum, ‘All the answers are inside you.’ And, honest to God, it’s true. You and me, we’ve got the most reliable, amazing GPS inside us and it’s always calling us home. Back to ourselves. Back to what’s best for us as an individual, and back to what our soul came here to do and experience. 

Breaking free of the belief that someone else knows better is a sticky thing to break. Sticky like Duck tape, tar paper, and Superglue all rolled into one. It won’t be easy because all of the voices and the “shoulds” don’t disappear immediately. In fact, at first, they might get louder before they eventually pipe down. If you keep following your own inner compass, those annoying voices eventually get so quiet, it’s like hearing a mosquito through a screen door. It’s annoying but it can’t get to you.

I’m a prime example of how ingrained earlier conditioning can be. As a young woman, when I was exploring college options, my parents, wanting what was best for me, encouraged me to get a degree that would help me get a real job because they assumed writing and art couldn’t pay the bills. The whole starving artist myth was and is culturally pervasive, and like my parents, I too assumed it was true. It’s taken a lifetime and years of peeling back layers of limiting beliefs, plus concrete research, to realize just how totally false this is. Thankfully, despite all that, my soul left me endless breadcrumbs to follow, eventually leading me here, where I am following my creative passions, painting everyday, writing and sharing what lights me up.

So if the answers are inside of us, how do we unearth them? 

Anything that helps you become more mindful and aware will help you get to the heart of the true you – practices like meditation, journaling, counseling and coaching as well as self-discovery workshops (like my Clues To You workshop) and attending retreats. As you explore your own inner terrain, it will be your inner GPS that will help you detect and decipher which experiences, people and opportunities are best for you. In other words, it will help you find your own path to joy. 

Our inner GPS helps us navigate the world around us via intuition and vibration. Although many of us are awakening to our intuition, it can take some time to strengthen that “muscle” and learn to trust it. Luckily, there is another tool that is more readily accessible. In the next post, I’ll share a concrete exercise that will quickly and easily reacquaint you with how your inner GPS works, so you can get back on your own path to joy.

Much love,