This week's Joy Rebel Army assignment was to think/write about being a Joy Rebel and what it meant to us. I took most of the week to think about it because it's actually turned out to be a complex and deep-rooted thing for me. In the end this is what I came up with:
I’ve been mulling this over, and I think to me joy rebel-ness is a combination of a few different things in an equation that is constantly shifting. The components are:
Mindful/conscious living - choosing to see and feel joy in the every day, appreciating the “small” things, remembering to breathe
Self-care - being gentle with myself when I’m having a bad/low-energy day and instead of wallowing in it trying to do something to break the negative cycle...drop my to-do list, take a bath, get outside, have a hot chocolate at Starbucks, watch a happy movie, or listen/dance to fun music
Joyful Activities - This is where the creative expression really comes in - I’m a dancer by nature, so that's often the first thing I think of. Writing and taking pictures and doing crafty things (knitting, cross-stitch, painting, making collages, and I want to learn to sew this year). Doing yoga and walking outside. Cooking and trying/creating new recipes (I’m learning to bake bread this year...it’s very fun!). In summary, doing SOMETHING creative and/or active -remembering to explore life instead of just numbing out.
Spreading the Joy - Things like giving hugs, keeping in touch with people, remembering to kiss my husband good morning (you wouldn’t think that would be something I’d need to remember, but Xander and I get up before him), sending care packages, making cookies, commenting on friends’ blog posts...etc etc etc.
I think sometimes these categories overlap...like I might bake cookies because I’m feeling down, and then the joy spreads when Matthew gets to eat them too...or I do something creative like knit a scarf, but then I share the joy by mailing it to a friend who lives far away...that kind of thing.
And finally, I wanted to say that being part of this Army has really and truly helped me. I'm playing more, and I'm appreciating my life and my family more, and I'm not as prone to expanding negative moods (not that I don't HAVE them, but I'm finding it easier to stop obsessing about them and making them worse). So thank you!!!
I'm not saying that I'm happy and gleeful every day (because that would be a lie), but I really do feel like this process has helped me. Really, the whole SARK messageboard has helped -it got me away from the parenting sites and interacting with women who have more than one thing on their minds (no, I don't really mean that parents/parenting board people only have one thing on their minds, really, but it IS refreshing to be in a place where one out of 200 posts is about kids as opposed to vice versa and where any post about a kid is about how amazing/fun/unique they are and not about their various bodily fluids, sleeping habits, diets, etc)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment