Joy is a Choice. Heels and Lipstick.

I love to peak inside of an idea. To see how it came about and took shape from the first inspiration. Usually it is not what you would think. As the idea goes from that tingling excitement of inspiration into a reality, as the action takes it from can I do this to I am doing this, it goes through so many changes and cycles.

To peak inside, to tell you I am writing this as my boys are playing with the puppy and talking to me about spells and bones and it is really loud. Puppies are way better than television, which we don't have. Normally I cannot write with the kids around, sometimes I have to. I can cook, take pictures, take notes during the day as we go about our daily routine. To them my work, which I call my creating, is part of our life. Our rhythm.

To take action, to move forward, I find space in the day when I can create. There are times when I am so inspired that not doing it isn't an option. My kids? They are being kids, running around, wearing that puppy out.

Back to the idea. This is how the idea for The Joy UP was born.

In one of my groups, from a women in the tribe I coach in Providence, the idea was born. I was asking them about their difficult. The difficult that we push so hard against that we give it so much attention it continues to grow and take over our lives. I asked them to talk about their difficult and to ask the difficult what it was trying to tell them. What was it saying or sometimes shouting to them.

One of the women, a mama who was doing a lot and feeling like she wasn't doing it the way she wanted, talked about her difficult being a lack of organization. She was taking on so much and was so focused on her responsiblities and her kids that she was falling into emotional eating and not feeling joyful in all she was doing. The things she wanted were actually causing her difficult because they were overwhelming her. Her description of the difficult was an organizational problem but what her difficult said to her was a different story.  She told me her difficult was saying she needed to focus on self care and herself. She needed to carve out time. She desired this time. She truly wanted to feel like an organized person not living inside of overwhelm.

She talked of organizational issues since she was young, always having a lack of focus and not planning well. Now on this particular night she was coming from an event and was looking hot. Heels, jeans, jewelry. She was interacting differently in the group because instead of being in mom clothes she was sitting there like a hot tamale. Like a women who took time for herself, who saw herself as worth dressing in the hot jeans rather than the women who "needed" to lose 20 pounds. Like a women who thought so highly of herself that she took time to plan out her day and care for herself within those days.

I asked her what action step she could take knowing what her difficult was saying to her. She thought getting a planner would help. Being that a planner was a completely hot tamale self care thing to do, I asked her how many planners she had in the past that she never used. A lot. I asked her what else she could do that didn't involve a planner. I asked her how often she dressed like she was tonight in heels and with lipstick. Maybe on a date night but only then.

I asked her to dress like that once a week, on a normal day. A day when she was picking the kids up from pre-school and running to the store. Her difficult wanted her to be more organized, yes, but she could never reach that place of getting organized when she didn't feel she deserved any of it. When she was pushing so hard against everything she wanted, there was no joy in it.

We all know how to lose 20 pounds but we can't do it because we don't set up our lives to support that kind of shift into joy. Diets are easier, they keep us in that place of not deserving, not being worth joy. When we live in the overwhelm we say to our source that we just can't handle all that we want, what we desire.

Joy is a choice. Heels and lipstick are a choice.

You can be organized. You can have all you desire. But you won't ever get any of it until you allow joy.

Because you + joy = the gorgeous life.

That is how the joy up was born. And it evolved and cycled through all sorts of versions of itself. Every day I take the steps inside of the joy up to move forward, to feel amazing. Some days it is really, really hard. Some days I am not sure I can take one small action or stop the voices in my head that compare or judge. What I have learned is that when you have incredible support surrounding you, no excuses and the freedom to explore a simple journey into joy, it is possible. So possible.

Can you change the amount of joy in your life in just 10 days? Come find out.