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  Think of each day as a blank canvas and try to fill it with things that uplift you. Look for beauty, because joy is never far behind it; whether it’s in a spider’s web, an art gallery, or the rhythm of falling rain, it is always there, waiting to be noticed.

  Be curious about yourself. Notice and name the things that lift your spirits and make you laugh. Give yourself permission to have more of what enthuses and impassions you in your life.

  Commit to joy and then open all your senses to the unusual or unexpected. The daisy that insists on growing where it shouldn’t, the tattoo on a stranger’s arm, the lyric of a song you’ve listened to a thousand times but never really heard before. These are simple moments we don’t notice in our rush, or we notice them but don’t appreciate what gifts they are. Committing to joy means that you make a commitment to yourself that you will start to pay attention to those gifts.

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  Exercise 1: The Artist’s Life

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  This exercise will help you connect with the opportunities of joy that are all around you. Find or make yourself a notebook—one that you can easily carry with you. Use it to record what you find beautiful or uplifting each day. This can be anything you see, hear, or experience—or even something you taste or smell. Describe it in as much detail as you can: sketch or doodle it, take a photo, jot down the name of the piece of music or quotation that made you laugh or weep, paste in tickets to events that you attend.

  There’s no right or wrong way of doing this.

  Artists and writers rely on their sketchbooks and notepads to store inspiration, observations, and ideas. If you already practice this habit, use this as an opportunity to collect examples from beyond your regular areas of interest.

  Just as your regular gratitude lists leave you feeling more grateful, so connecting with what inspires and enthuses you makes you feel more inspired and enthusiastic.

  When your notebook is full, review it. See whether it reveals any areas of interest you didn’t know you had. Ceramics? Music? Architecture? Drawing? If you can, take a class, go to a free concert, find a way of developing that interest further.

  How extraordinary is the world we live in. We are all creative, and the more we allow ourselves to connect with our creativity, the more joy we’ll feel.

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  My mother tells me that as a child I was happiest when I was painting—apparently I whistled, which, if you knew my usual adolescent demeanor, might startle you. But something in me knows that if I were willing to give up what I think I “should” be doing with my life and do what I know would make me the happiest, I would be . . . happy. But there are so many “buts” in the way! So now I carry a simple sketchpad and a fine-tipped pen, and once in a while I endeavor to sketch something: a corner of a room, a table, a face. Not only does this feel like I’m honoring a long-standing desire within me, but it’s also honoring my creative self, honoring moments in my life that so often whizz by, and honoring that part of me that has always wanted to be—were I not so attached to my phone and its camera—one of those people who did things like write letters and drew things in notebooks.

  —GA

  Creating Space for Joy

  It’s a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.

  —LUCILLE BALL (1911–1989), comedienne, TV star

  Joy requires space, which in our 24/7 lives can be hard to make. When our days are full of the noise of the world—be it radio, TV work, or online chat—we can starve joy of the space it needs to grow.

  Children generate joy effortlessly through play, and so can we. Use your Mental Detox day to open up the space to play, create, explore, and tap into joy.

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  Exercise 2: Joy in Practice

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  This exercise is to help you brainstorm activities that bring you joy. Think of things that you enjoy doing—that aren’t about consumption or end results but about the process of doing them. Ice skating, rollerblading, dancing, making pottery, or collaging? Maybe you like gardening, listening to music, sharing a meal with friends, painting, reading, or going to the movies. Or is it travel, table tennis, or rock climbing?

  Think of as many as you can—at least ten. Now, beside each item on your list, write the date when you last did it. How many of your passions are in your life right now?

  If it’s been awhile, you may feel a pang of sadness at the time you’ve lost. Often there are good reasons why we’ve had to stop doing something; perhaps children, work, or financial constraints have gotten in the way. But living in deficit doesn’t work. It fosters envy, resentment, and sadness. It makes us cling to others to fill the void in the center of our own lives.

  Without thinking about any practical limitations, ask yourself which joyful activity you long to do most. Try picking something you haven’t done for a while and that you especially used to enjoy. Put a star next to it. Now find a way of doing it, and do it on your own. Having a companion will distract you and dilute your experience.

  If there are practical problems in doing the activity you’ve selected, brainstorm a way of getting around them. You just need to honor the spirit of what you’ve chosen. Perhaps you long to walk on a beach but live miles from the coast. Instead, find a lake or even a pond, and take yourself there.

  Perhaps you’ve selected dancing but don’t have child care or the money to go out. Instead, you could set aside a half hour, put on some of your favorite music, close your eyes, and dance around your room. Try your best to really let yourself go. Leave your mind and all your worldly concerns aside and let your body be absorbed in rhythm and movement.

  It doesn’t have to cost anything to have a good time or to awaken the joy inside you.

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  The word “enthusiasm” has its roots in Greek and means “possessed by God’s essence.” If you feel enthusiastic, go with it. Similarly, the word “inspire” derives from the Latin inspirare: “to breathe in.” So seek out inspiration and breathe it in!

  Once you’ve created space for joy, protect it.

  Seek out the company of people who radiate love and warmth. It’s infectious, and increasingly you’ll find that you want and need to be around it.

  Misery loves company, but you don’t have to provide it. You don’t need to abandon old friends, but you can choose not to collude with their negative thinking. Set boundaries and protect yourself from situations that rob you of your love for life. Negativity, like positivity, is contagious.

  Now that the Principles are generating huge shifts in your life, you’ll find it harder to be around friends who are resistant to or cynical about the possibility of change.

  I used to think that anyone who wasn’t a pessimist was fooling themselves. I prided myself on my ability to see the possible negative outcome of any course of action. But my experiences on this path have transformed me. I’m now an evangelical optimist, because I know that wonderful things can and regularly do happen.

  —JN

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  SETTING BOUNDARIES: LEARNING TO SAY NO AND YES

  The word “no” is an essential part of our vocabulary. Setting boundaries is one of the ways we define ourselves. It lets others know where we begin and end and is particularly important to use if we’re given to people-pleasing. (See page 72.)

  Saying no when someone wants you to say yes can feel brutal—particularly if you’re not used to saying it. So apply the Golden Rule: speak to others in the same way that you’d like them to speak to you: kindly. Let people know what is and isn’t okay for you. We can’t expect others to read our mind. There’s always a way to say what you mean without being mean and without levelling accusations.

  Of course, others won’t necessarily want to hear your “no.” People want you to do what they want you to do. But capitulating won’t serve anyone, and it will leave you feeling angry, resentful, and overwhelmed.

  Saying no to what isn’t good for you frees up the space to say yes to activities and opportu
nities that bring you joy.

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  When you aren’t meeting your innate need for joy, you leave yourself spiritually hungry. No matter how good your life is, you end up feeling restless and discontented, and before long start looking for answers in the wrong places.

  Just as when you’re physically hungry you might pick up junk food to replace the meal you’ve missed, if you’re spiritually hungry, you may end up grazing on unhealthy relationships or pointless activities that leave you feeling empty and more restless still. As you do this, your chances for internal freedom and peace diminish.

  Watch out for feelings of restlessness and dissatisfaction. They are signs that your soul is hungry and needs to be fed with joy.

  I have to really work hard to create space for joy in my life. Self-imposed misery and sadness and irritability come much more naturally to me. I find it so hard to do something that I know from experience will bring me greater happiness and a sense of contentment. When I know that there is a solution, why do I choose to stay in the struggle? I’ve learned over the years that being in synthetic pain is so familiar to me that I have become comfortable in the discomfort. That often I don’t feel like “me” without it. That part of me feels alive when I have something to complain about or fight against. And that there is a small part of me that enjoys the rebellion of not doing something that I know is good for me. The longer I push against that rebellious self and allow myself the gift of happiness without judging it or feeling like I don’t deserve it or that it’s sappy somehow, the more space I naturally make for joy to be a part of my life.

  —GA

  Soul Food

  Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of travelling.

  —MARGARET LEE RUNBECK (1905–1956), author

  Joy feeds our souls and connects us with a sense of the divine. Everyone has an inner sense of the divine, and when we use the Principles to bring us into alignment, we become increasingly aware of it.

  Many of us equate the divine with religion. That can cause problems for those who don’t have a formal faith, as it is all too easy to point to the harm that’s been done in religion’s name: wars, persecution, abuse of power—sexual and material. Not to mention the legacies of guilt and shame that it has burdened so many of us with.

  WE’s path is spiritual rather than religious. It connects us to a source of power that is stronger than any of the difficulties we face and helps us to weather life’s storms.

  Your sense of that source of power will grow as you walk this path. Your knowing will develop experientially rather than intellectually, and it will resonate with the same part of you that recognizes love, authenticity, and truth.

  You can think of that power as God, but if you don’t feel comfortable with that term, try thinking of the power as simply “Love.” Or add an extra “o” to God and think of it as the “Good” that exists in all of us. Reclaim that power for yourself and think of it as you choose.

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  THE G-WORD

  If you’re someone who has a strong reaction against the G-word—God—you may find it helpful to make a list of why you object to it so much. See how many of those objections still apply if you substitute the word Love instead. Or how about Goddess? Religion is man-made, but God is divine, so don’t let your experience of it be limited by those who’ve historically laid claim to it.

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  Many atheists experience the divine but call it awe and wonder. Recovering addicts may find the divine in the power of a group, others in beauty or nature. Still others may return to the God of their childhood but update it as a loving God rather than one to be feared.

  Keep an open mind. Instead of reasoning about God and love, experience it in your soul.

  Wisdom can be found in traditional faiths and in the many spiritual teachers who are alive today. (See the resources section.) We’re lucky to live at a time when there are so many different routes to developing our faith. They all lead to the same place, so it is simply a matter of finding a path that speaks to you and then following it. Almost all faiths and teachers share common truths—and the Principles in this book are distilled from them.

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  MORE UNITY THAN DIVIDE

  While the world’s great religions make war against one another in the name of dogma, cultural differences, morals, and ethics, enter any mosque, synagogue, church, temple, or other place of religious worship, and you might be surprised by the similarities you find.

  The same guiding Principles lie at the heart of most religious teaching: kindness, humility, peace. The names and language may be different, the doctrine and ritual unique to each, but wherever we choose to worship, we are reminded to turn toward joy and seek out transcendence and love.

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  It’s easy to get caught up in definitions, but they’re fodder for our intellects and egos. Spiritual truth is beyond the comprehension of the human mind but not the experience of the soul. It doesn’t matter what we do or don’t call the source of power, how we do or fail to define it; what matters is our experience of it.

  I had faith as a child, but when my father became ill with Parkinson’s disease, it evaporated. As far as I was concerned, God either didn’t exist or was so cruelly indifferent to suffering that I wanted nothing to do with Him. I became an evangelical atheist and dismissed anyone who had faith as either deluded or intellectually dishonest. And then one day—twenty years later—I found myself in treatment, and we were taken on an outing to a small country church. I was in my usual cynical mode, ready to lampoon the worshippers who’d fallen for a made-up story. But halfway through the service, I was suddenly transfused with the most powerful feeling of love I’d ever experienced. I knew in that moment that God did exist and that s/he was love. It was a knowing that had nothing to do with my intellect—it came from deep within me and has never left. Instead of blaming God for the suffering that exists in the world, I now turn to God for help in negotiating my way through it. I’ve discovered that I can access that feeling of love any time I pray or am of service to someone who is struggling.

  —JN

  Asking for Help

  Why must people kneel down to pray? If I really wanted to pray . . . I’d go out into a great big field all alone or in the deep, deep woods and I’d look up into the sky—up—up—up—into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I’d just feel a prayer.

  —ANNE OF GREEN GABLES by L. M. Montgomery (1884–1942)

  Wherever you are and whatever is happening, asking for help is a necessary part of being human. You can’t, and don’t have to, go it alone.

  There are so many paradoxes on this journey. One of them is that the stronger we become, the more vulnerable we can find ourselves. As we come to know ourselves and connect with our true center, we find that we can no longer bury feelings or slip into denial. We need to reach out and connect. Isolating yourself from others does not work, nor does pretending to be okay when you’re not.

  When we’re operating from a place of authenticity, there’s a shift in the way we relate to others. We discover that we need people, but we need them in a healthy way. We can ask for help from a whole range of people: friends, other women who are on a spiritual path, professionals.

  But there’s also another way we can ask for help, which is available any time we need it.

  We can ask for help by praying. Prayer is a tool that works for all of us—atheists as well as the devout.

  If we’re blown off course by disappointment and we pray, it can help to bring us back to center.

  We can pray if we’re furious. Things haven’t gone our way. What we wanted hasn’t happened. We can rant and rage at the universe or our God. We can tell it why things aren’t fair or how we’ve been let down.

  At other times, we can just confide gently—we can chat to the power that’s always there and tell it how we’re feeling: good, bad, or middling. As we talk, we start to feel a connection. W
e come back to center as we disclose our truth—even when we’re doing it to a God we don’t believe in. It’s amazing.

  A Word of Warning: Prayer Works

  Some prayers are answered after a humble request in the midst of our busy lives. Others are dramatically answered after messy, miserable pleadings shouted with snot and tears running down our faces.

  We don’t always know what answers prayer will bring. Sometimes it’s “Yes,” other times it’s “No,” and often it’s “Wait.” Whatever the answer, when we look back, we find we’ve been guided in ways that have led to outcomes that surpass our limited vision.

  Each morning when you meditate, add a prayer to your ritual. Rather than asking for things or specific outcomes—as you may have been taught to do as a child—try simply asking to be aligned with what is good and right. If you are able to do the next right thing in any situation, then the right things will unfold.

  One straightforward prayer, which can bring us into alignment at any moment, is simply to say, “Thy will, not mine, be done.”

  Gratitude—saying thank you—can also be a prayer. Try saying it at night before you go to sleep. Try saying it when you’re struggling with your reality. When we connect with gratitude, we free ourselves from the burden of unhappiness. Prepare to be amazed. Prayer works. It’s an action, and Action Changes Things. So try it.

  If you hold your head up to the sky, sooner or later you will start to feel the warmth of the sun. And so it is with the light of the spirit.

  Keeping an Open Mind