by Joy Resor - Joy On Your Shoulders · 2011-11-01 · in your mind, gaze upon cracked mounds of earth, dream of water sprites. Some dreams before yours and mine died in silence,

by Joy Resor

Seven Ways to Jumpstart Your Joy

Joy Resor

Joy on Your Shoulders ™

Book cover and layout design by Blue Sun Studio, Inc.

© Copyright 2011 Joy On Your Shoulders ™ All Rights Reserved

P.O. Box 949, Brevard, NC 28712

Table of Contents

Preface .................................................................................. IV

Introduction ...........................................................................V

1) The Joy of Silence .............................................................. 1

2) The Joy of Healing ...........................................................2

3) The Joy of the Natural World .........................................3

4) The Joy of Balance .......................................................... 4

5) The Joy of Creativity ........................................................5

6) The Joy of Presence ...........................................................6

7) Joy on Your Shoulders ™ .................................................7

Congratulations!

You’ve chosen to step forward into a life of greater joy. My wish for you, and for the whole world, is that we can heal our wounds, lay down our weapons, and dance our joy in the streets — old and young, spry and tentative, every shade of skin color, Jew and Muslim, Republican and Democrat...

After all, labels are for canned goods, and

JOY IS FOR ALL.

PrefaceOf DreamsRain drenches a yard, rivers run bankschasing lives to higher ground,and you do a rain dancein your mind, gaze upon cracked mounds of earth,dream of water sprites.

Some dreams before yours and minedied in silence, some spent timebehind bars, some took flight.

Awake or sleeping, we choose a path.

Wake up, my friend.Come dream with me.

“Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me....”

As a skinny little girl in second grade, I sang that anthem with every fiber in my being.

In the intervening years of wars across the earth, I battled my unique internal wars to peace. I also felt a call to joy, figuring my given name made it non-negotiable.

It’s been a wild and wonderful journey to this place of feeling a peace that begins with me, and to a joy that overflows.

May Seven Ways to Jump Start Your Joy offer you tips or a deeper map to finding more peace and joy in your heart.

IntroductionIf Only

What if our worldof grief-wrought tears

flowed with reverenceon futures seeded over

evaporated like dewfrom sanguine spring shoots

showered a wounded globeas peace?

© Copyright 2011 Joy On Your Shoulders ™ All Rights Reserved l P.O. Box 949, Brevard, NC 287121

Do you feel a distance between you and your center, or between you and Spirit? Is your life running at high volume and high speed all of the time? When you’re finally home from work, do you crash in front of the television? When’s the last time you looked at your schedule to build in the silent time you crave?

When it was my turn to present in a recent networking meeting, the leader asked if I had any requests. Without thinking, I heard myself say, “I’d like us all to be silent for a minute.”

With closed eyes, I took a few deep breaths, gathering myself in from earlier chatter.

Later, two women thanked me for requesting silence; the pause helped them receive more value from our gathering.

Silence.

Sometimes, it’s not so easy to discover. You won’t find it in too many waiting rooms where televisions are the norm. And how about ringing cell phones in church services, meetings, and grocery lines? Sometimes silence is evasive in our homes, as well.

For more joy, I suggest making time for silence before you fully enter your day. (You may need to gently guide your partner or children to claim this space for yourself.) Sit in the same spot each day, close your eyes, and breathe in and out. Journal first thing upon waking. Lie in bed after the alarm goes off to connect with your center and Spirit. Eat a meal in silence. Invite silent breaks into your days to grow your peace and joy.

1) The Joy of SilenceSleep writing If I write, if I shuffle straight from sleepto my sacred room and close the door,don’t worry that I’m staying away from you. It’s just that morning thoughts are difficultto capture—they disappear in an instantlike bubbles blown through brittle wandsor late spring snow meandering down. I write upon waking to pick words fresh from their nocturnal vineand to commune with heavenbetween the lines.


Do you chastise yourself for misplacing your keys? Do you avoid calling your sister who you fought with two years ago? Do you grind your teeth at night? Do you lash out at your spouse for small infractions?

For joy, I recommend working through your challenges relating to relationships, self-acceptance, forgiveness, food, alcohol, work...

Did you catch a bit of playfulness there?

We’re all works in progress, and each journey towards growth and health is a unique recipe. What’s a growing edge in your life?

I suggest you do your best to name what’s blocking your joy today...then consider how you can begin to heal that area, so more joy will enter. Is it time for you to speak hon-estly to your spouse? Is it time to make the appointment you’ve been putting off? Heal-ing can be swift or a longer process, and getting started is key. Denial...not good.

In my own case, I’ve been led to heal through avenues including prayer, the guidance of a spiritual director, in circles of women, by reading just the right book, through writing poems, honoring intuition, and energy healing.

This singular healing path has expanded my feelings of peace and joy by offering more forgiveness, compassion, and self love than ever before—along with deep gratitude. This allows me to offer these gifts to you and the wider world...loving our neighbors as we love ourselves.

2) The Joy of Healingout of step

how fragile now our dance of love

where once before we fell in stepgrace and ease across the floor

it didn’t seem to matterthat we held a different view

your logic and my dreamingspun as onethough we were two

can we learn the steps againto dance the love we knew?


Do you longingly gaze out windows, telling yourself you’ll take walks on the weekend? When the weekend comes, are you able to fit them in? Did you miss a close encounter with the tulips again this year? Have you visited the new nature reserve in your area?

The list is MILES LONG of all the ways to be refreshed by the incredible world outside!

Though my home is closed now to contain coolness until evening, I’m serenaded...ahhh...and someday I hope to identify each tweet.

Upon waking, I look forward to setting birdseed on the decaying stump seven steps from my side door; within moments, a pecking order of critters arrives to compete for seating and seed.

Though it’s new for me as an adult to spend much time outdoors, I like realizing I can scoot outside to pick up sticks or pull a few weeds, to walk without headphones, and to hike by the river with friends.

A couple weeks ago, I ventured out the door barefoot to hula hoop beneath a morning sun peeking through Dogwood leaves...a sweet experience, and writing about it reminds me to do it again.

Wishing you the joy of communing with nature in all the ways you can—gardening, wading into the ocean, hiking a mountain trail, smelling pine needles, watching Cardinal at the feeder, stepping out to see the moon, catching a firefly and releasing him to blink again, taking a walk at dusk, catching a soul-bending sunset, musing at shifting cloud dragons, collecting walnuts to shell, cutting flowers for your table...

3) The Joy of the Natural WorldImpromptu guest

Magnolia, your wedding party of whitecalls me forward to witness a moment,wind joining April’s petalworks this sun-pledged day.

Leaning in, I invite fragrant blossomsto waltz upon the dance floor of my cheeks.


Do you find yourself saying “yes” to things you later regret saying “yes” to? Is the tele-vision running long with the same dark images of a natural disaster or war? Do you find yourself running from appointment to appointment with no time for lunch or to catch your breath? Have you given up on yourself when it comes to nurturing healthy habits?

Balance. See saws. Scales. Balance Beam. Tightrope. High - Low. Dark - Light. Fast - Slow. Yin - Yang. Rushed - Relaxed.

There was a time in my life I was a Type A, career-focused woman on the move. Finding a memo from that period years later, I barely recognized the tone or the person who’d written it, because I’d journeyed so far to the opposite side. I was in a candle-lit, poetry writing phase of life, a time when almost any task could be done the same day or an-other day soon.

Now I treasure the awareness to seek balance when I can—to honor my needs for activ-ity and peace; for socializing and alone time; for valuable work time and rich downtime.

As my path becomes clearer to offer my voice of joy into the mix, it’s interesting to watch myself say “no” more easily to activities I used to attend. And as sleep becomes less consistent at night, I welcome afternoon naps.

May you experience the joys of removing something from your day or adding something in that will increase the amount of balance you live into.

4) The Joy of BalanceLesson PlanAsk your heart to leadfrom merry go rounds of actionto the grounding rhythmsit knows in the dark.

There, wisdom lingerson the edges of each beat,sending messages on intuition.

And you, wise soulwho spins fragments into balance,listen.


Are your art supplies tucked into a corner of the basement? Do you dream about that novel you want to write? Has it been a long time since you tried to cook something new? Is it time to learn to knit? Speak Italian? Play a game of kickball?

Writing Morning Pages (daily morning writing Julia Cameron recommends in The Artist’s Way and her other books) can seriously kick start creativity. Buying easel-sized post-it notes gives big ideas a place to rest. And what about putting a craft table in your living room?

Early January, I wanted to create a new Joy on Your Shoulders ™ product, but I was feel-ing creatively stuck. Over lunch, a friend suggested I call another girlfriend to set a date for them to visit. Voila. Two artistic, dear friends + a sacred opening with candlelight, a feather, and more = one impromptu, perfectionism intervention for me, tears and all. Perfect!

After they left, I took down the Christmas tree, moved an antique desk across the living room (not far in this cottage-sized home), and set up a folding table for art play—oil pastels, watercolors, and all.

Daily practices didn’t start overnight. But I’m using the table more often now, as layers of perfectionism peel away, like dried glue from fingertips, allowing creative sparks to ignite my days.

For the joy of creativity, may you find your way to resurrect a childhood love, learn an instrument, start a blog, try a new recipe, give a mixed bouquet to a stranger, sleep on the other side of the bed...

5) The Joy of CreativityPlay the Part of a PoetLive between dream lightning, rise at dawn.Write until your fingers tingle, notice green promises out your window.Let a vacation bloom in your heart. Write waterfalls, add children dancing.

Listen when chocolate whispers, Lick the knife.Sit quietly. Press your ear to white wicker.Rock to Bora Bora. Sip bug juice. Countmosquito bites. Scratch a lottery ticket. Give a mixed bouquet to a stranger.

Blast Springsteen. Meditate. Wearpurple socks. Make Popsicles in Dixie cups.List words that rhyme with bliss. Make a fist. Kiss your knuckles.Pray for peace.


Do you find yourself at work but don’t remember the drive there? When you’re on the phone, are you also folding laundry or sweeping the floor? Can you still your mind to hear what whispers? Do you know what it means to be grounded in your body?

In journaling class, the facilitator told us to break our lives into 10-year increments, writ-ing beneath each one - what we achieved, what mattered, what we longed for...

When she said, “what you longed for,” I knew; my whole life I’d longed for a particular person to pay attention to me, to see me.

Continuing at home, a poem arose, along with two realizations:

1) that it was time to stop living in my head with longings for life to be other than it is, and 2) that I needed to write a letter to the individual who’d occupied a lot of space in my head and heart.

I released other fantasies that people would be what I wanted them to be, beginning a journey to heal layers of control, and I began to live into new states of consciousness, of presence to the now.

Lately, after more years of coming home to myself with fewer blocks to the present, it feels as if my life has just begun!

To experience more joy of presence, begin with writing down everything on your mind and heart. Well, maybe not everything.

Just write down some things that are preventing you from appreciating the moment before you. Sit quietly, paying attention to your senses. How does your body feel in the chair? What are you smelling? When you walk upstairs, be aware of your legs. Can you be more present to your son during dinner tonight?

6) The Joy of PresenceGift Exchange You name the Kingfisher for me.We watch him ring the dinner bell from our riverbank perch. Walking on, you hand me nature wrapped in eight shades of spring’s lustrous green ribbon-tied with purple flowers.

I name your burdens pressing in.We sit on decaying tree fall connecting in quiet. In one suspended moment, you hand me your heartwrapped in tumbling out layers of painwhich I untie to hold with care.


Joy on Your Shoulders™ (J.O.Y.S.) is an evolving company grateful to inspire as much peace and joy as possible.

And here’s a bit more of the story...

After singing the peace anthem with every fiber in my being, I began to have a repeating dream I’d write something that would add to the peace in our world. Wow. That was a crazy dream to wake up with so often as a little girl, yet something in me hung onto its message each morning, and I often mused about when I’d write that peace-filled work.

Eight years ago, I awoke with a vision of beautiful fabric around the neck with words of poetry over the heart, an idea that gently hammered inside me until I’d healed enough to grow into my name (which took a mere 53 years), and to realize that my soul is called to inspire as much peace and joy as I can.

Last year, Joy on Your Shoulders™ started to offer the first radiant creations, colorful Batik sweeties with positive messages folks love to wear, give as gifts, lay on altars, and hang on walls. You’ll find them on our website www.joyonyourshoulders.com where you’ll also discover joyful inspiration, plus learn how to join the Joy Movement.

I’m thrilled that you’ve been able to enjoy Seven Ways to Jumpstart Your Joy in this digi-tal version, and thank you for passing the word about this free book far and wide!

Seems our world could use more peace and joy, don’t you think?

Joy

7) Joy on Your Shoulders ™Let it begin with me

PeacePeacePeacePlease

PleadingPerhaps

PerchancePer country

Per dayPer hour

Per minutePer personPerfection

Peace

http://www.joyonyourshoulders.com

Documents

by Joy Resor - Joy On Your Shoulders · 2011-11-01 · in your mind, gaze upon cracked mounds of earth, dream of water sprites. Some dreams before yours and mine died in silence,