Are you allowing space for joy into your life? I recently heard Kris Carr, author of Crazy Sexy Kitchen, speak in an interview and she said something that struck me as simply profound. She said, “the purpose of life is JOY”. According to Robert Holden, “Joy is your spiritual DNA. It is woven into the fabric of your being. It is more than just positive thinking; it exists whether or not you are in a positive frame of mind.”
I couldn’t agree more, and apparently I am not the only one. I put together the following list of 26 quotes that offer some pretty amazing thoughts on the power of JOY.
1) Find out where joy resides, and give it a voice for beyond singing. For to miss the joy is to miss all. -Robert Louis Stevenson
2) Beneath the rust and grime which dulls the shine of our weathered hearts, joy patiently waits to be rediscovered. -John Mark Green
3) The present moment is filled with joy and happiness if you are attentive to see it. -Thich Nhat Hanh
4) Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are. -Marianne Williamson
5) A thing of beauty is a joy forever. -English proverb
6) Practice seeing joy in the natural world, rather than seeking fulfillment in ownership. -Wayne Dyer
7) There is no joy without gratitude. -Brene Brown
8) Joy is the most magnetic force in the universe. -Danielle LaPorte
9) If we try hard to bring happiness to others, we cannot stop it from coming to us also. To get joy, we must give it, and to keep joy, we must scatter it. -John Templeton
10) Joy is the net of love by which you can catch souls. -Mother Teresa
11) Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy. -Mahatma Gandhi
12) When we share joy and happiness, we give two of the most powerful healing medicines in the world. -Unknown
13) The healthiest response to life is joy. -Deepak Chopra
14) Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy. -Thich Nhat Hanh
16) The joy of the mind is the measure of it’s strength. -Unknown
17) Happiness is not in our circumstance but in ourselves. It is not something we see, like a rainbow, or feel, like the heat of a fire. Happiness is something we are. -John B. Sheerin
18) Remember that your natural state is joy. -Wayne Dyer
19) Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. -Henri Nouwen
20) There is a world of difference between searching for happiness and following your joy. -Robert Holden
21) Not to decide is to decide. Letting something go until it “decides itself” is Life by Default. You don’t want to live that way. So choose. Choose right now. Stop worrying about what you can “lose” or how you can “win” and just follow your joy. Where does your joy say you should go? -Neale Donald Walsch
22) Just follow your joy. Always. I think that if you do that, life will take you on the course that it’s meant to take you. -Jonathan Groff
23) When you follow your bliss a kind of track opens up, that’s always been there, waiting for you. And the life that you should be living, is the one that you will be living. -Joseph Campbell
24) If you follow your dreams and spend your life doing what brings you joy, you are more likely to find success. -Richard Branson
25) Nobody else knows your reason for being. You do. Your bliss guides you to it. When you follow your bliss, when you follow your path to joy, your conversation is of joy, your feelings are of joy – you’re right on the path of that which you intended when you came forth into this physical body. -Esther Hicks
26) If you cannot find joy in the path you are on and what you are working on now, how do you expect to find joy when you get there? -Unknown
What does joy mean to you? Joy is defined as a feeling of great pleasure and happiness. Synonymous with delight, great pleasure, joyfulness, jubilation, triumph, exultation, rejoicing, happiness, gladness, glee, exhilaration, exuberance, elation, euphoria, bliss, ecstasy, rapture, enjoyment, felicity, treat, thrill.
Take the time to find out what brings you joy. Ask yourself…… if I can do anything, what would it be? Then LISTEN. The answer may not come right away but stay open. It’s there and just may need some time to surface.
Once you connect with your joy, find a way to do it. Now! Not when some condition exists. Not after you land that new job, or find your soulmate, or lose 20 lbs., or when you get back to the gym, or when your house is clean, or your bills are paid, or when pigs fly. Joy, joyful, enjoy, joyfully. Choose joy, now! Don’t keep waiting to live. Decide now to let joy be your guiding force on the Journey Of Your Life!
