You are worthy of experiencing joy
"I am making the daily choice to soften my heart to joy."
It takes great courage to let your heart soften into joy. It takes courage to allow yourself to trust that even though you don’t know how good or bad things could be tomorrow, that this moment, right here, is worth being a part of, to the greatest capacity.
Because it’s true…
“What if all goes terribly wrong?”
“What if it ends before it begins?”
“What if I open up to someone only to get rejected?”
These are very real fears, and it’s hard to suffer the pain of rejection and loss. It’s even harder to endure this pain when you have already been down that road, and you told yourself you would never go down that road again. But I hope that even then, you can believe in the great possibility that even though things could go wrong, they could also go right. Tomorrow, you might have to learn a difficult lesson, and you also might just learn how to dance again. You might just laugh from your belly again, in a way that you have not laughed in years.
There is no way of knowing what tomorrow will look like, but there is also no way of knowing exactly how to prepare yourself for the worst, either. This is a hard reality to live with, but anyone who has ever woken up to devastating news knows that there’s nothing that can prepare you for that moment. There’s nothing we can do in our minds to adequately prepare our hearts for the shock and pain of loss.
But we can still choose to soften our hearts and line them with joy.
We can let our guards down and see the world with more gentle eyes.
We can delight in what is beautiful because we know it will not be here forever.
We can make room to celebrate the people we love because any day could be the last.
Choosing to cultivate joy is so much more than a feel-good moment on bad days. It is a grace-filled opportunity to take delight in the things that bring wellness to the soul. It’s so hard to think about what we might lose in this life, who may or may not be here tomorrow, or what might change in unexpected ways, but this is all the more reason to make the most of where we are today. It’s all the more reason to:
Find an excuse to dance today.
Print out and frame a photograph of a beautiful memory.
Make a list in your journal of the things you were grateful for today.
Bring joy to a stranger by paying for a meal or donating to an important and time-sensitive cause.
Send the “I Love You” text to the person in your life who gets overlooked.
You just never know what tomorrow will bring.
Soften your heart to joy by daring to cultivate it daily. This is a lifelong discipline, so it’s okay if it takes a while. You are on a long journey called life, so why not pay attention to the flowers and the honeybees and birds singing along the way? Why not take note of where the Light pours in, on the most ordinary days?
You don’t know how long your life will be like it is right now. Tomorrow, everything could change. But this is no reason to fear. It is all the more reason to make the most of your life right here.
You are worthy of experiencing joy, right here, where you are, even though you do not know tomorrow. To sign up for joy is to sign up for living life in the present moment. See every day as an opportunity to grow in your capacity for it.
More tomorrow...
Sincerely,
Morgan Harper Nichols
