Because It Feels Better

I’ll admit, this topic has put a slow on my creative flow. Having said that, I find it sad that such a positive topic comes to me slowly. Shows one where the focus is, doesn’t it? When I heard I needed to write about joy, I wasn’t sure what to say. What’s joy? I’d ask myself. How do people define joy? How do I define it?

Where were the answers I needed? I couldn’t for the life of me figure anything out.  Then a mentor and good friend said, “One reason is sitting right beside you”. Next to me was of course my lifetime love, my partner on this path. An immediate smile appeared in my heart, and on my face. “Of course, Silly,” I laughed at myself.

This has led me to look around and focus my attention more on the joy, love, and happiness in my life, rather than all the troubles of the world that I have thought I could fix. My attention has too long been on what’s wrong, off, out of place, little details that really don’t matter – yes, a part of me just seems to look for those trivial things. I am aware that I’m tired of looking for those things, and it is way past time to look for happiness. Joy. Peace. Love. Contentment. All these things I’ve never thought were there for me to choose to have, because I couldn’t get out of my own way.

Because I have learned to see how the world wants me to see. I can’t see joy if the twenty-four hour news is on! I have to focus my attention on things in life that give me joy. My lady, my cats, my friends and families, art and music, good books, and stories. Good food (yes, healthy good for you food that does taste good) and helping others when they reach a difficult part of the path. There’s so much joy when you can be of service, as small as holding a door open for a stranger, to inventing the next big world changing idea that would benefit all. You just have to choose to look at it. Why?  Because it just feels better than the old ways I’ve always done it!

Happiness is truly a choice, as difficult as it can be to see at times, and I can be in that rut too easily. Why do you think we block joy from ourselves? Is there some greater reward in seeing the non-joyful things? Do we see it as our duty to look for problems with everything and not think that things may just be perfectly fine the way they are? Is the now moment not good enough as it is, that we can’t accept that the flow of life is just a simple flow? When I allow myself that freedom, from myself, to look at joy,  feel, hear, smell, touch, and taste it, I’m in that flow of not worrying, not anxious, not depressed, for there is no room for any of that to exist when I allow joy.

May you find your joy. That is my wish for all. Because it feels better.

– Jozzy Allman

Jozzy is an advocate for health and wellness, of body, mind, and emotions. He shares “what works for (him).”  Jozzy also spins fire and cooks creative cuisine.