Cultivating and Experiencing Joy
By: Susan Brumbaugh
Tags: Meditation, Joy, Intentions, Mindfulness, Mindfulness Meditation

Feeling joyful when you aren’t necessarily being joyful

Photo by Lisa Wall on Unsplash

Life has its ups and downs, and we tend to pay more attention to the downs than the ups. Through mindfulness meditation, we can explore how facial expressions of joy can actually cultivate thoughts and feelings of joy. We can bring joyful aspects of our lives to mind and notice the physical sensations that result.

I’m a licensed mental health counselor, and I know it can be challenging to think about joy and meditate on joy if we’re experiencing difficulty. But in this meditation, I give you several strategies for bringing joy to you and then noticing what happens when you are experiencing joy.

Below is a transcript of a meditation I led on this topic, and at the end of the article, you’ll find a link to the meditation video. Let’s get started.

Meditation Transcript

I’ll begin by inviting you to become present to the extent that you can. A lot of times when we sit down to meditate we are coming from activity and going back to activity and our brains like to keep us in those spots. But for now, let’s be together virtually.

If you are comfortable closing your eyes I’ll invite you to do that. Take some breaths.

Since the topic of today’s meditation is joy, let’s spend a little time with facial expressions. As you meditate, let’s see if we can bring just a gentle smile to the lips.

Even with the eyes closed imagining a smile does something to the eyes as well. It doesn’t have to be a huge smile it’s just a gentle facial posture to kind of help us be in the mood of focusing on joy.

It may be difficult for you to cultivate joy in this very moment. Some of us are experiencing great difficulty, and it may be challenging to even come up with something to be joyful about. So if that is difficult you could start with gratitude.

It’s not like we’re denying the difficulties of our lives — the circumstances that we’re in — we’re just allowing those to shift to the background while we focus on one specific aspect of emotion.

I’ll invite you to bring to mind something that you can be joyful about. It might be an accomplishment. It might be the season of life that you’re in. There might be a particular person who embodies joyfulness and when you imagine that person it just lights you up and brings a smile to your face. It might be a favorite animal who plays or is attentive to you. It might be the memory or anticipation of a wonderful meal.

As you bring these ideas to mind, see if you can get your body in on the cognitive action. See if you can express that joy on your face through your posture — a sense of alertness or uprightness.

As you begin to think about joy, notice whether you’re actually experiencing joy. Notice what it feels like in the body to be joyful.

Now I’m going to invite you to return to your breath. Focusing on your breath with just a regular pace of breathing — there’s no need to breathe more deeply at this moment but just noticing the flow of breath in and out of the body.

As you breathe in I would invite you to silently say the word “joy” with each in-breath. That you’re actually taking in joy, breathing in joy. Noticing how the breath and the joy fill the body.

And likewise, you can say “joy” on the out-breath as well — that you send joy, that you share joy with the world, with those around you.

I don’t know about you, but for me, as I breathe in joy, I find this urge to hold on to it just a little bit to almost hold the breath and really appreciate and soak in that joy before I breathe it out and share it.

Checking in with the body one more time to notice how this focus on joy is being felt within you.

If your eyes have been closed you can open them and take in the joyful sights that surround you and prepare to reflect on the experience.

Reflection

I always like to invite you to take a moment to consider what you noticed in the meditation. What was challenging, what was comforting, what was enjoyable, what were the physical sensations that came up for you? I’d love to hear in the comments anything that you would like to share about your experience. Feel free to visit the comments and see what other people have to share as well.

About me: I am a licensed mental health counselor in the state of New Mexico and offer video meditations on YouTube.