Today’s blog post is by guest blogger, Kerry Koerselman. Kerry is a Licensed Professional Counselor at Sioux Falls Psychological in Sioux Falls, SD. She works with adults and couples and her areas of specialty include: relationship issues, midlife issues, trauma, spiritual issues as well as anxiety and depression. Kerry graduated from the University of South Dakota in 2001 with a Masters degree in counseling psychology and received a Graduate Certificate of Theological Studies from Sioux Falls Seminary in 2016.
I was at a gathering recently where everyone went around and talked about how they were raised to feel about joy. It was interesting to hear that there were many different answers to this question. Some people said there was no time for joy in their family—there was work to be done. Some people said their family time was full of joy. Others said joy almost seemed sinful unless it was in church or explicitly about God. Another answer was that feelings were not discussed, not joyful feelings or other feelings. These messages we learn about feelings from our families can be limiting. Becoming aware of the messages you were given and then setting your intentions on what messages you would like to shift and what messages you would like to be like yours can make your life more fulfilling.
At Christmas, the word “joy” is all around—in the Christmas Carols, on the decorations and in the cards. When you read the story of the birth of Christ in the book of Luke, joy is woven throughout the story. Joy at the pregnancy, joy in the angels singing, joy in the worship of the baby. It seems that joy is integral to Christian experience.
What would happen if you made stepping further into the moments of joy in your life a focus? What if your personal joy became a goal? Perhaps some activities would need to lessen and other would increase. Maybe simply giving yourself permission to sit more fully in the joy is what you need. It may take a conscious effort not to feel guilty, not to move on the next chore, not to move away from the intensity of the emotion, but just to sit with it and feel it.
My guess is that if you look at your life and what truly brings you joy, it will be times of connection with people around you, with nature, or with becoming more fully you. All of these connect us to that which is beyond us, that which is spiritual.
At times in life the joy will be hard to come by, and when the joy comes, it will be held alongside sorrow. Sometimes the joy is most powerful and poignant then. At those times, keeping your heart open to joy is courageous.
Moving toward joy is moving toward living life more fully.
~KK
