From Balance reDefined Radio Episode 39
[00:00] Welcome back to Balance Redefined. I’m Connie Sokol, and I’m thinking about joy. Are you needing some joy? Are you feeling an absence of joy?
[00:09] I sure have been recently and usually I am the queen of joy. I talk about it. I love it. I’m making it a part of my life.
[00:17] I’m teaching people how to live it and you know, it’s kind of like that cobbler’s son has no shoes where you are all involved in it and then you forget to use it as your go to when you get depleted.
[00:29] So that’s what was happening this week…
[00:31] I just wanted to share with you little experience with what I discovered about doing something different about joy to get that joy back. I have been feeling really depleted.
[00:41] Have you ever had a time in your life like that where you just… “eh”?
[00:45] I remember years ago I saw this magazine ad and it was the stretchy mom doll. So it was like kind of those stretch Armstrong’s from years and years ago, but it was a mom doll.
[00:56] Somebody was pulling on both arms and both legs and just stretching her like she was going to pop.
[01:02] And I’ve always remembered that because that is exactly how I felt. There was so much going on in home life, children, seasonal, then business, and then speaking and tv stuff, and just all of these different things.
[01:18] All of these demands and getting them done quickly so that when the kids come home, I’m all set, and I could be phase two with them.
[01:23] I just felt this click.
[01:25] I don’t know if you’ve ever had that where you just click and you’re like, “I’m done. I’m done,” and your body and your mind had been giving you some signals and they’ve been a little faint because you’re just going crazy and not like you’re crazy every day, but it’s just this consistent, persistent push.
[01:42] So if I was running around harried and sweating and all of that, it would be a clear sign to me and I’m aware of those. The more insidious for me is when it just keeps getting notched up and notched up and another plate is added and another plate is added…
[01:57] It’s not like six get at it at once and then I know…
[02:00] It’s one here, two there, da ta da… can you, would you, and then before I know it, there’s just plates that are starting to crash and I’m feeling like I cannot function.
[02:10] So have you ever been there?
[02:11] I just had that. I don’t even know how to describe it, but it’s almost like this click, like when I try to turn over one of our machines and you just hear nothing, it’s just the click of the key.
[02:20] You just go click and you know, there’s no more gas, there’s no more energy, there’s no more spark, there’s no more we’re done.
[02:28] And so yesterday or the other day, that’s how I felt was just this max out and the thought that came to mind…
[02:35] I had awakened early because I didn’t sleep well…
[02:37] I had awakened early and I was just laying there pondering and the thought came to mind, “You need a day of joy.”
[02:44] And I went, you’re right. That just was balm to my soul. I need a day of joy. And that was great. So I thought, how can I do this, how can I actually make this a day of joy? So I looked at my calendar for the day and it was stuff that I could actually put off to the next day.
[03:02] A lot of it, not all of it, but most of the things I really could delegate or put to the side just for that particular day. And I thought, okay, this is gonna work.
[03:11] So came downstairs with my kids. I got them ready and out the door for school. We do these things called scripture strips. So we pull a scripture strip and then we read it and it’s a scripture and then we say, what does that mean?
[03:22] So it gets them on that little bit of scriptural bent for the day, gets them a little injection there before they go little immunization and then they go out the door anyway.
[03:30] And as I read it, it was so funny because in my mind I was like, I was up and doing that. I thought, is it okay to do that?
[03:37] I mean, I’ve got these things and I really should get a jump on them. I should get these finished and not put off tomorrow, what I can do today, blah, blah, blah.
[03:43] And I pulled out the scripture stripping it said, “And as I partook of the fruit thereof, it filled my soul with exceedingly great joy.”
[03:52] “…And then I began to be desires that my family should particular but also.”
[03:56] And I just started laughing because I said yes, I remember I teach this. If I will partake of joy first, then it will naturally flow out to others and my family will have a happier mom. And so, so funny. So what did I proceed to do? I ate.
[04:12] I wrote and I mean I ate healthy too. I wasn’t even trying to. I said I’m going to eat whatever I feel like today. And my biggest splurge was hot cocoa with some Biscotti was so yummy, but I found that when I had this release, I really did want to do good things and eat good things.
[04:28] It was kind of funny, but I just let go of that sort of structure and paralysis of I’ve got to do and be and let’s go and get this done.
[04:37] So I read and I wrote. I actually wrote fiction, this one idea that I had on a book last week and I was like three hours, so happy. I was just entrenched in this beautiful fun story and it had me laughing. It had me teary.
[04:53] It was like, seriously, it was really funny that I’m writing this myself, but it was fantastic and then I binged watched a little bit of a hallmark movies, those cheesy Christmas movies and it was fantastic.
[05:03] I cuddled under my dubé. I scooted right under it and just…
[05:09] It was warm and toasty, and it was snowing outside. It was on the ground and the trees.
[05:14] And I thought this, this is sheer heaven…
[05:18] I want you to know those hours of doing that. It wasn’t actually very long because then my kids started coming home, but those hours were magical.
[05:27] They were magical and the energy that I got, I have to tell you, we think that joy is fluffy.
[05:34] It’s not fluffy, it is not a fluffy thing. It’s not an afterthought, it’s not a, “Well, I’ll get that and get to it, you know, after I get the other 622 things I need to get done today.”
[05:45] No, and I had forgotten I had shelved the impact and the pivotal nature of joy and had just kind of casually pushed it aside when I know better.
[05:56] I know this because that’s what got me through some of the most difficult times in my life and in fact, that’s where the joy challenge came from. So if you are wanting to do something with joy, feel free to take the joy challenge. It’s free.
[06:06] It’s on my website, conniesokol.com. Take the joy challenge. It’s 30 days of thoughts and views about joy and very simple things so that you can get joy in your life.
[06:16] Yes, I’ve taken the challenge…
[06:18] I took it so much. I wrote it. I made it happen and then actually created with my assistant this 30 day challenge. Then it became such a way of life that I don’t even think of as a challenge anymore and there in lay the rub because I had taken it for granted and was not being conscious about it.
[06:35] So remember that joy is actually the thing that will give you the energy you need and what were the results for me, having the joy day, I had energy, I found myself laughing, laughing with my children, and the fact that I recognize that I was doing that made me realize that I had not been laughing as much as I should have been. I was singing spontaneously, and we actually all enjoyed it.
[07:01] Who knows? But we were dancing in the kitchen. We were singing.
[07:05] I was spontaneously singing, like found myself singing a little cute Christmas song. I was like, what in the world? So I found this energy, this joy, this bubbling up that was coming and I wasn’t being snippy. Not that I’m snippy, but I was, you know, that little tone that you can get at 4:00 in the afternoon.
[07:24] Ooh, I did not have that tone…
[07:27] I was more happy about sitting on the floor and playing and actually decluttered my son’s toys. We decluttered them together. I said to him, “So what do you think about this one? What do you think about that one?”
[07:35] Whereas in the past I may have just waited until they go into school and then just picked them out for, right? Yeah. So it was a nice, awesome connecting time that we had.
[07:42] So I so encourage you to consider doing a joy day. Maybe you go, “Oh, I would so love that, but it’s just not gonna happen, sista.”
[07:52] And that’s okay. So do a joy 15 or a joy moment or a joy hour. And start with something now, if it’s a joy moment, then just breathe or rest or close your eyes or feel something good or experienced delight.
[08:13] Do something simple and then expand it to 15 minutes and then maybe 30. Then maybe just be wild and crazy and have a Saturday that you take an hour to do something joyful.
[08:26] I promise you, especially for women, if you will do this, you will be restored. It is this amazing restorative power of joy.
[08:37] You get back to happiness. You stop being so structured and so choreographing, which is what we end up having to do as women, wives and mothers because there’s so much and so many people that are we are the hub for.
[08:51] So I invite you. Find a way today to have a joy moment, a joy 15, a joy hour or plan…
[09:00] Take time right now and plan it in your week. I promise you that even in the planning, you will begin to feel joy because your soul is so hungry, so thirsty for that joy, that the mere mention that it’s going to get filled will actually make you happier in the process.
[09:19] And here’s the kicker. I did a little funny experiment. I weighed myself before I started my joy day and I lost a pound. Yeah, it’s true, and I actually noticed that I felt so relaxed that that puffiness that I get from my cortisol increase, that comes from stress, that it actually was less. I was not in that cortisol way.
[09:38] I actually think my body just needed rest and so it didn’t get all hyped up, so isn’t that funny? Now it could be just water weight, but I’m not going to go there.
[09:46] I am going to stick with the fact that yes, having joy helps you lose weight. Yeah. It must have been that hot cocoa and Biscotti. I’m pretty sure.
[09:54] Anyway, do the joy challenge or just pick a day, 15 minutes, a moment to have a joy day. Let me know and comment below what you experienced.
[10:05] I would love to know it and other people to learn from it. Also stay tuned for more podcasts and more balanced, redefined.
You got it. Thanks for listening and remember to rate and subscribe. And if you are feeling the need for real balance in your life, get your free 3-Step Life Plan, and get started today! Just go to conniesokol.com/download.
