The Art of Joy: Inspiration and Practical Tools to Cultivate a Life Filled with Passion and Joy

By Ginny West

The Art of Joy sends a powerful message of love and support for you to follow your heart and invest in your dreams. The words in this book connect you to the vital beat, the pulse, the wild drum of your heart, and spirit you forward on the wings of change. The more frequently you say no to the inauthentic, the more readily your passion shows up.

The Art of Joy is about consciously cultivating the positive qualities available to you, to open your life up to numerous possibilities. By following the sensation of joy that arises in the body, mind, and spirit when you are on track, your choices become a living, breathing version of an authentic life. Every corner of this book draws you closer to your heart and soul. Filled with inspiration, contemplation, and practical tools for self-discovery, The Art of Joy is a step-by-step guide to coming to know yourself well and committing to the life of your dreams.

Through this poignant exploration, Ginny West reminds us all things become possible when you are willing to connect to the immensity of who you are. The Art of Joy holds the door ajar in an open invitation for you to step into a life filled with joy, passion, and purpose.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Oct 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781452511542

Ginny West

Ginny West has been leading inspirational workshops, retreats, and holistic health training since 1997. Ginny is driven by an absolute passion for health and wellness and a joyful faith in the human spirit. Ginny’s first love is assisting people to find that deep sense of inner peace and belonging that comes from connecting to their true path. www.wildlotus.com.au

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Copyright © 2013 Ginny West

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

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Balboa Press rev. date: 10/10/2013

Contents

Introduction

How to Use This Book

The Daily Meditation Practice

The Joy of Action

The Joy of Appreciation

The Joy of Authenticity

The Joy of Beauty

The Joy of Belonging

The Joy of the Body

The Joy of the Breath

The Joy of Celebration

The Joy of Choice

The Joy of Clarity

The Joy of Commitment

The Joy of Communication

The Joy of Confidence

The Joy of Connection

The Joy of Consciousness

The Joy of Releasing Control

The Joy of Courage

The Joy of Nia Dance

The Joy of Discernment

The Joy of Faith

The Joy of Forgiveness

The Joy of Generosity

The Joy of Humility

The Joy of Imperfection

The Joy of Karma

The Joy of Listening

The Joy of Love

The Joy of Mistakes

The Joy of Nature

The Joy of Opportunity

The Joy of Passion

The Joy of Patience

The Joy of Potential

The Joy of Processing

The Joy of Relationships

The Joy of Responsibility

The Joy of Responsiveness

The Joy of Scent

The Joy of Self-Acceptance

The Joy of Self Discovery

The Joy of Self Expression

The Joy of Structure

The Joy of Sensation

The Joy of Sight

The Joy of Simplicity

The Joy of the Soul

The Joy of Sound

The Joy of Space

The Joy of Stewardship

The Joy of Stillness

The Joy of New Stories

The Joy of Success

The Joy of Surrender

The Joy of Synchronicity

The Joy of Taste

The Joy of Teaching

The Joy of Touch

The Joy of Truth

The Joy of Vibration

The Joy of Breaking the Victim Contract

The Joy of a Vision

The Joy of Wealth

The Joy of Wisdom

Introduction

Tell me what it is you wish to do with your one wild and precious life

—Mary Oliver

It’s easy to think of living with joy as being unrealistic. We fight hard to hold onto the notion of life as a struggle we must get through. If only we would fight as hard for our joy as we do for our pain! It can become a habit to work on your ‘stuff’, and then wait for the next wave of imperfection to ‘solve’. Of course self-awareness and illumination are important, but where these become more about pain stories rather than uplifting stories, the spiritual path can become a badge to wear rather than a soothing, joyful presence in your life. This is really coming at things from a skewed perspective. You are trying to solve what’s ‘wrong’ to make you good, happy or successful. The trouble is you can get tangled in the explanations and find yourself in a tight knot of confusion or frustration. If you consistently use the spiritual path to explore your wrongs its no wonder there are days where you really don’t feel like connecting.

What if spirituality or meditation was a quiet place you could go to that was filled with love, light and the peace of stillness? What if there was a never ending stream of joy without judgement that you could bathe in at any moment? Would you choose to step in? What if you accept that you are light and focus only on your highest most divine features until all else drops away? Some issues will still arise to be healed of course, but with a strong foundation of love, tenderness and support at its core these illuminations will be easier to process. I am not suggesting that there is no pain in life. Or that you pretend that pain doesn’t exist and go skipping through the daisy’s with a forced grin, while you are in desperate need of assistance. Or that you don’t grieve your losses. There is no need to pretend to be happy when you’re not, or to suppress your feelings. What I am suggesting is that alongside any difficult times, and any work you do on yourself, that you also invite the presence of light and joy to walk alongside you. Most important of all is a daily commitment to a spiritual practice that consciously invokes pure light, positive emotion and the sensation of joy in the body.

The Art of Joy is about having a realistic view of the human condition and choosing joy in spite of that. It is about choosing joy because of that. As well as the opportunity for great tragedy in your life, there is the opportunity for enormous triumph. There is nothing in this world you cannot have, do or achieve. It will take time and planning and dedication, but anything is possible for you. Cultivating joy is about consciously gathering the positive qualities that are available to you, and using them to open your life up to numerous possibilities. It is about opening up to a sensation of joy and wellbeing that permeates the universe if you would only choose to tap into it. It is about stepping into the light at every opportunity. Look around you. This is a beautiful world you live in. Even amidst pain and debris there is the human spirit, breathtaking nature, kindness, humour and joy.

The trick to living with joy is to recognise it as a multi faceted energy, not simply a hyperactive high. Each quality of joy has its own layers to be explored and its own gifts to bring. Some days it will be easier to connect to one facet of joy than the other. If you are feeling stuck choose the joy of action, choice or potential. If you feel overwhelmed choose simplicity, clarity or surrender. The joy of peace is a much quieter expression of joy. It may be a time in meditation, nature, a moment of solitude after everyone has gone to bed, or it could be a deep breath taken just before a wild ride begins. Whether joy has arrived via the internal or external world, welcome it, embrace it, and breathe life into it. Feel it. The qualities of joy can be consciously cultivated by setting aside time each day to appreciate all the things that do work in your life. The people you love, the roof over your head, your wonderful intelligent body, your creative expression and who you are at the deepest level. Joy can be consciously invited into your life initially, but as you connect to this energy on a daily basis, it is a sensation that will spontaneously arise in stillness, or during the oddest moments in the course of your day. If this does occur I urge you to stop what you’re doing for a moment and consciously greet this energy with an open heart. Let it permeate your body: muscles, skin and bones. One day your life will feel like this.

At its highest level the positive emotions of joy blend into an experience of the pure light of the divine. Have faith and confidence in a higher power and feel your life as an expression of this higher power on a daily basis. The Art of Joy is the practice of connecting to a vast resource of assistance that is available to you in good times and in bad. Joy as a conscious practice has many benefits. It can balance the emotions, bring a sense of peace and nurturing to your day, connect you to gratitude, help you feel safe, lighten your heart, build positive relationships and clear your vision. For some people stepping into joy will be as easy as slipping on a light coat, for others it may take a little longer. It requires self-awareness and a committed practice. Stick at it. For every piece of resistance you overcome, you move closer to a joyful and deeply fulfilling life.

A large part of uncovering your joyful life is to unite you to your deeper self through passion, purpose and meaning. A lack of joy in life is often caused by a disconnection with who you are, or a fear of expressing or living your dreams. My job is to reconnect you to the vital beat, the pulse, the wild drum of your heart. To teach you to unashamedly plant your feet and shout to the world this is who I am. It is about living fully from your heart energy. It is simply a matter of dropping the curtain and revealing the truth. Your time is precious. Too precious to be spent worrying about what other people think. There is time only in this life to ground yourself totally in who you are, and even then there’s nowhere near time enough for that. But for every moment you spend wholly, deeply immersed in your true self, there is an eternity. The more frequently you say no to the inauthentic, the more readily your passion shows up.

There are so many people out there hiding their light under a bushel it’s a wonder we can see the path ahead at all! All I know from my own experience is that if I try to be who others want me to be, even at the presentation of their demands, they are never happy. My response to this used to be to try harder to impress, running further from myself in the process. Now I recognize disinterest from others, or a need to please, as a warning to walk away and reconnect to my true joy, passion and authenticity. There is a great illusion that it is selfish to follow your dreams and that you should put others first, but I guarantee you that whatever is best for you at the highest level, is best for everyone around you, whether they see it that way or not! Let your choices be a living, breathing version of an authentic life. Living truthfully is a mark of self-respect I am committed to upholding. I am an adult and I have choice. I know that when I speak from the heart people lean forward, their eyes light up, conversations are started, synchronicity occurs and everything expands.

I’m sure there are a thousand stories of where you split from your instinctual self, and the hurt that ensued. This is good to know, but don’t get too caught up in the grief or blaming over the event, rather sift through the rubble of memory, extract the jewels and flush the pain away. Do what you need to do to sort it out, and then move on. Make your illuminations about the past a knowledge story, rather than a pain story. To get stuck in the emotion of it means you keep yourself there by choice today; and that affects you on a physical, mental, emotional and spiritual level. What if you were in paradise but were too busy to notice it because you were caught up with the preoccupation of lack in your head? What if there was a choice and that choice was yours to take?

Every moment of your life is filled with the seeds of choice. You can wrap things up anyway you like, but your life and destiny from this moment forward is up to you. True there are often circumstances beyond your control, but your reactions to these events and how you move through or past them is your choice. One thing I have noticed consistently in my life and the life of my clients is that when you are centred in a soul state on a genuine search, answers will naturally arise. The universe wants nothing more that to see it’s self expressed through you. When you are on track and determined to live an authentic life all manner of doors open to you to support your quest. At some point in your life you are going to have to take ownership and responsibility of your own journey and let the past go. Let it be sooner rather than later.

The trick is to begin. Start wherever you are. If you wait until you’re ‘perfect’, it will never happen. If you feel you don’t know what you want, really it’s just that you haven’t set aside the time for self-discovery or to listen to your heart. What is required is commitment and bravery to uncover your truth. Search for an idea of success that lives and breathes who you are authentically, and you will find a life filled with passion and joy. Self discovery does not have to be a long and arduous journey, nor does it have to be instructional or spelled out in technique. If you are genuinely seeking it can be a few true words, a glance from an open heart, a turn on the dance floor, when something in you clicks and your entire being is lifted to another feeling, viewpoint, breath that contains a far wider landscape than you have known before. You may follow many paths, or one. It is your choice.

Self awareness is not the study of your lack—it is the courage to choose to sit every day in the light of your radiant soul. It is to be offered suffering and to choose joy again and again, without hesitation or apology. My life works because I made it so. After 20 years of debilitating depression and no tools to deal with it, I had had enough. I fought with all my heart, mind and soul to build a life I could love. For every wave that pushed me over I got up and pushed back. I didn’t always feel like it, but I did it. I worked through my pain, took responsibility for my life, owned my future and moved forward. I saw natural therapists, took courses, read books and did the exercises required. I love myself with all my heart and soul because I am a fighter, I am courageous and I believe in myself. I did the work. I still have emotional times the same as everyone else, but for the last 10 years I have not experienced depression. If I can do it, anyone can.

This book is a strong message of love and support to you. You are not alone. If you commit to doing the work, believing in the love that is offered to you in these pages, and the universe that surrounds you, anything is possible. If you take that hand and choose to move forward, totally, genuinely and completely, even if you are scared and don’t know where you are going, a whole new life awaits. As for me what I want now is to dance and sing and kick up my heels and drink in this beautiful life. I want to make up for years of sadness and the impact they took on my mind, body and spirit by being unapologetically happy. I want to invite you to take a chance and dive in the deep end with me, opening to the joy that surrounds you. I want you to let go of the lie that life is difficult by flooding your veins with this truth—that this life is joy, and you are the light.

How to Use This Book

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy

—Rumi

Make sure you follow these practices in good care. They are not meant to be a self-berating tool, or a chance to overanalyse. Remember the end goal is always cultivating joy. The tools in this book should be practised in the spirit of love, kindness, openness and generosity. If you have shifted some stuff remember to turn your face to the sun at the end of everyday. Fill your life with small pleasures and moments of deep connection and appreciation. Invite joy at every opportunity. Be silly, have a little fun. Sometimes you will need to step away from introspection and just go out on the town. Life is about the living of it. I fully advise seeking out a good kinesiologist or other practitioner that you trust if you feel you need help, but don’t rely on these practitioners alone. Be a willing participant in your own healing. You need to take ownership of your own journey. Commit to the daily meditation practice to cultivate your inner wisdom and sense of joyful awareness.

Obviously it is totally your choice as to how you proceed and above all else you should trust your intuition. I would suggest you tackle one subject at a time and allow at least a month to fully integrate the changes, longer if you need. If you rush through you may overload your self with processing and fail to absorb the joy of your self-discovery. Also remember if you allow yourself the time and space to integrate each subject you will be approaching the next one from a higher level of wisdom and therefore your answers will be deeper, more conscious and more illuminating.

This book is not about getting somewhere; it is about feeling joy in the moment, and expanding that to every corner of your being. I also believe it is essential to uphold a physical practice to let your hair down and bring joy and energy to the body. I suggest something conscious such as Nia dance, Yoga, Tai Chi, Qi Gong or walking out in nature. Remember self discovery is not a mental journey, or a matter of working things out. It is an unfolding exploration of the sweetness of who you are