How ‘Doing It Right’ Might Be Blocking Your Joy

You might think you are doing it right. But, are you really? Or have you just made up an other set of rules to live by and are you unknowingly blocking your joy? What I mean is this:

I was having lunch after an amazing dive in Bali and with me at the table sat a lovely Australian lady. She had discovered diving three months earlier and loved it so much that she came back for more. We started talking and she told me how her previous trip to Bali was life-changing for her. She discovered not only diving but also she experienced what is was like like to live a relaxed lifestyle. She tried yoga for the first time and loved how it made her feel. She is a businessowner and changed her ways back home. She lost an incredible amount of weight in just three months and experienced so much more joy in her life.

She told me she wanted to continue doing yoga at home and went to class. But they did not do it right. There were too many people in the class. It was too dark. The teacher made no adjustments to her postures. The lady got frustrated. This was not how it was done in her amazing experience in Bali. She was so focused on doing it right and holding on to the way she first experienced yoga and the way it made her feel. She was holding on to the past. I offered her a suggestion that I often use myself.

Find peace in every situation.

Say yes to the moment, accept it. And then find your peace within that moment. In her case of the yoga not being ‘right’, it might have been a different yoga style that does things in a different way. You wouldn’t want your peace to depend on the amount of people in a class. Or the amount of light in a room, would you? Be open to a new experience. Be curious about what that class is about and allow yourself to be open to a new learning experience. Things are never going to be the same as they were and holding on to the past, especially if that was amazing, will only set you up for disappointment. Peace depends on our innerstate, not our surroundings.  

So just allow yourself to have a new experience and see the beauty in that new moment.

‘Yeah, I guess I was so focused on doing it right.’ She said. And that’s exactly what blocked her from being at peace with her new yogaclass. For her it was yoga, but it could be about anything: travelling, a second date, a new book from an author you love, a certain type of meditation or a workshop you’ve taken before. Give yourself a change to have a new experience. So ‘doing it right’ was really just a new set of rules she made up for when something was ok and when it wasn’t. It was keeping her stuck in the past and blocking her joy in the present.

You don’t need to be recycling your joy. There’s always more!

In order to experience joy, we must feel at peace first. Fighting reality, wanting something to be right, which is really just an other way of saying reality is wrong right now and I am rejecting it, is a major block for peace. When you feel peace, then it is easy to see beauty, to let love flow, to see what is funny or amazing or great. It is all a matter of perception. And perception is your choice.

So today, why not give yourself a change to see with a fresh pair of eyes and an open heart. Allow peace to come in and joy to follow.

Enjoy!
Love, Susanne