10 things I believe help me create more joy in my life
I remember a while ago talking to a mum friend about my mindset coaching for moms and saying to her; ‘I feel happy for no reason most days’. And she was like ‘what the actual hell….is that even possible?’.
And it’s totally understandable to feel that way, I used to as well…being a mom is really fucking hard and for sure some days in the past I was like ‘is this it?’.
This list is not to say that I never experience shitty things, life can be shitty lots of times…it’s just that our brains are wired to look for the negative in life, so I’ve been actively trying to do stuff that I believe helps creates happiness for no reason.
It’s not to say that I was morbidly unhappy in the past, it was that I used to get my happiness from external things. Meeting up with friends, buying a new thing, having a new experience etc. All those things still bring me happiness.
But now I have moments where I feel happy for no reason. I’m still getting used to it, but it happens most days and feels different, almost overwhelming good when it pops up.
So it got me thinking about what I do differently now and I wrote a list.
They’re in no particular order and sometimes they’re done a few times a week, sometimes daily. And that’s the whole point, I don’t beat myself up, I just accept that I’m where I need to be and move on with the next day. Because if my child has woken up five times in the night because of bad dreams, I’m sure as hell not going to be getting up at 5.30am like those gurus do and practising yoga on my head and meditating for an hour.
If you prefer audio, it’s all on my TikTok, click here.
1. Constructive Rest
Constructive Rest is for regulating my nervous system. So often our bodies are in a state of stress - much like when cave people feared threats from wild animals because they might die - and these days stress can be caused through our busy environments but doesn’t necessarily mean we’re actually going to die. It’s like a smoke detector going off but you’ve only burned the toast.
To do constructive rest, you lie on your back with your knees bent so your back is flat on the floor. This lengthens your psoas muscle and tells your body that you are safe. From here you notice your connection with the surface underneath you, what you can feel through different parts of your body, how you know your alive, how your breath makes your body feel. Getting curious as to any tingles, warmth, gripping - just noticing - no judgement.
I do this most days for about 10 minutes, but you can do it for much longer if you like.
2. Shaking/Dancing
Shaking or dancing freely is a great way to get out of your mind and into your body. It’s fab for moving emotion through the body and often I’ll have a release of tears: I’m not sad, it’s just energy that needed to be released. If I’ve had a tough morning with the kids it can sometimes leave me feeling a bit uneasy and this is a great way to move through this feeling.
It looks pretty wild, so just let yourself go and make everything wobble, move and shake as much as you can in whatever way feels good to you. If something feels good, play around with doing the movements bigger, smaller, faster, slower….get out of your mind and into your body.
3. Work on Limiting Beliefs
Working on my limiting beliefs has massively helped me to be more chilled about life.
I used to believe things like ‘every time I play with my kids it turns to shit’ because that was something I had experienced when they were little and every time it happened as they grew up, it reconfirmed what I thought.
I had the limiting belief that I should put other people before myself because I believed that was what I should do.
I found it hard to bring up issues with my children’s school because I wanted the teachers to like me, not to be that ‘difficult parent’.
I would get stuck re-reading emails to make sure they were exactly ‘right’, because I thought I needed to be perfect otherwise people won’t like me.
I’ve changed those beliefs (and many more) and it brings me soooo much more ease into my life.
When there is an issue with school, I get straight in there, say it how it is with far less emotion attached to it. Because I don’t need to be liked by them anymore, I’m much better at facilitating change that helps my children get the care they deserve.
Now I put myself first in situations where in the past I felt like I ‘should’ put others first.
Now I play with my kids and we have fun and if it does turn to shit (it still does sometimes, cos, y’know, kids!), I’m far less attached to their drama so my mood is less affected.
Now, I write an email, do one quick check and then send it off and don’t look at it again.
Lots of these issues stemmed from minor incidences in my childhood, where I made the meaning of not being good enough, not feeling like I could get things wrong etc. Some of the beliefs were absorbed from other people. Some were inherited. Some were mine. But all of them were unconsciously driving my behaviour 95% of the time. You can read more about how limiting beliefs hold you back by clicking here.
Releasing limiting beliefs is lifechanging and is what I do with my clients as a mindset and self belief coach.
4. I believe ‘I am time’
I used to believe AND say to myself, my kids, my husband ‘I don’t have time’. I then read about Einstein time in the book ‘The Big Leap’ by Gaye Hendricks. It’s flipping the narrative to believing ‘I AM TIME’. And honestly, don’t even ask me how it works, but it does.
When I have like three things I need to do and only a 15 minute window, in the past I would have though ‘I don’t have time to do those things’ and so might do one of them and it would take 15 minutes for that one thing. Now I say ‘I am time, so I’ve got time to do them’ and crack on with it. I always have enough time and usually have a couple of minutes to spare. It’s wild!
As a result, I’m more chilled about time now. Because ‘I am time’, I don’t stress about there not being enough.
And hand on heart, the times at the beginning where I slipped into ‘there’s not enough time’, there never was, I was rushed and stressed!
So I invite you to give it a go if that feels like something you need in your life 😊
5. Observing myself
Taking time to observe how my bodily sensations ‘are’ during a challenge or a good patch allows me stay curious, experiment with how I ‘am’ and do things differently or savour the good feelings.
6. Orienting
Orienting is about going out into your environment to feel different, ideally better!
Whenever I feel an influx of emotion (seems to be mainly related to kids 🙈) or if I feel like I need to relax, I get in the present moment using something called orienting. It’s basically about noticing where you are in the space of where you are. You can just talk through where you are to start with ‘here is the door, here I am, here is the chair, here I am).
This means you’re not thinking about the past or what has just happened, you’re not thinking about the future, you’re in the present. Let your eyes wander around the where you are, bring a softness to your eyes. If something feels good to look at then let your eyes hover, but there’s no judgement if they want to move on.
For me, even just a couple of minutes when I wake up feels good to me.
Here’s some other ways for you to orient to your environment when things get intense.
7. Conversations - look for when people light up
It’s our default to look for ‘what’s wrong’; it’s just how our brains work. I would invite you to notice it when you’re speaking to your friends.
To make for a completely different conversation experience, I look for when people light up and then focus in on that. It’s great for kids too - asking them ‘what was good today’.
8. Playfulness & Pleasure
How can you find more playfulness and pleasure in your life? And by pleasure I don’t mean a bit of the old sexy time 😜 although go for it if you want!
I’m talking about little things that make you smile, how can you access playfulness with your kids and in your life everyday, even if it’s a beautiful flower that brings about a nice feeling. I used to think that people who did this were unique, but now this is me. I can look at a beautiful sky and a feeling of wonder and awe washes over me. What can you notice today that brings you pleasure?
9. No Alcohol
Not really sure how popular this will be for some people and that’s cool. For me, I was never a massive drinker since I had kids, but I’d do it once or twice a month and then put up with feeling shit for a couple of days afterwards. Once I drank three days in the month and felt rubbish for three days after each session - that’s 9/30 days and was when I went ‘yeah, I don’t want to feel like this anymore’ and stopped.
So when people ask me ‘do you feel better for it’, it’s more about the fact that I never feel physically shit in the way that alcohol makes you feel. I think this helps to have a baseline level for feeling good that is never depleted by alcohol, so when I feel joy, I’m not topping myself up, I’m just feeling even happier!
10. Curiosity
I know they said curiosity killed the cat, but it didn’t. The cat just didn’t assess the risk properly and did something silly 😂
If I get a funny feeling in my tummy or have something that feels negative come up in my body, I get curious and think ‘ooh, what’s going on there’, ‘what could be happening’. So instead of focussing on feeling rubbish, I get more curious about what’s going on and it helps me remove the emotion from it.
If someone acts in a way that brings up resistance, jealousy, anger - it allows me to be more empathetic - what might be going on for them to act this way? What might be going on in me to act this way? Then I explore.
