It was Björk who planted the thought in my mind in my fresh young-adult mind: “It takes courage to enjoy”. Her words were the seed that inspired me to look at each day and find what I enjoy.
Today, I would like to read a book that reminds me about the meaning of the word: Enjoy. We get distracted, don’t we? We get overwhelmed and focus on the things that need fixing and lose sight of the hundreds of things that are great. I would like it to be a book that gives me tools to bring the feeling of enjoyment into every day.
Let’s do this!
Overshare: When I started to practice Ayurveda, I noticed that many clients had an issue enjoying. In the same period, my kids were little and we were at a wedding and they were the only ones tearing up the dance floor. It was one of the most wonderful things I had ever seen. It wasn’t that it was my kids. It was that they were enjoying. Adults looked shy to start dancing on an empty dance floor, but there they were.
Overshare again: As a teen, I started to learn about what’s going on in the world and history. That was harsh. It was heavy. I couldn’t imagine anyone enjoying anything anymore. Yet, people did eventually enjoy. There were births, celebrations, hugs, smiles and healing.
Karine’s definition of Enjoy: To Enjoy is to radiate an honest part of ourselves in an activity, action or moment that allows us to feel open, free, happy and joy. This feeling is free and available to all.
Everyone deserves to enjoy!
Every single baby deserves to look at their life ahead and feel that they can have a life full of enjoyment.
But how do we create enjoyment when it doesn’t seem to spring naturally or when the odds seem to be against us?
Here is my way to develop enjoyment:
- Life Math: This requires to think ahead with some imagination.
If we live to 82 years old (the national average of many countries), we will live a total of approximately 30,000 days. Those are 30,000 precious days that are non-exchangeable. - Daily Gem: Nothing is guaranteed in life, but I like to make myself simple little guarantees of enjoyment. My day deserves a little something 🙂 These little enjoyments are not meant to be world changing, but they are meant to be easy and regular. These can be waking up to a great song, reading a couple of jokes, and sharing with others. This is intentionally planting enjoyment into my day.
- Courage to be different: It is hard to break from the emotional patterns of others. When we have the courage to be different and the courage to enjoy, we are embracing some pretty special moments.
- Simplicity: Humans are GREAT at making things complicated. So, let’s hope we can simplify just as expertly. Simplifying starts with finding something we enjoy in simplicity. This can be just looking at the sky or focusing on how great the water we are drinking feels.
- Freedom: We don’t feel good when we feel trapped. Focusing on our breath and our personal Spirit are great ways of tapping into our personal freedom.
- Open to magic: If we feel we already know that the day will suck, the day will actually suck. If we are open to the magic that the day could hold, we are not searching for magic, but we welcome it.
- Imagination: Great things from having an active imagination. Sometimes, allowing ourselves to drift a few minutes into our imagination can let us get our wiggles out in another space.
- Never grow out of being you: We had TONS of ways to enjoy ourselves as kids. We ran for fun, we could amuse ourselves with paper and imagine a kitchen steamer as a spaceship and a bottle opener as ET. Our kid-version of ourself had a lot of great ideas! Let’s look into what we once enjoyed and see if it still sticks 🙂
- Don’t put off enjoyment: Later. Euh. I do not like the word “Later”. It automatically means that there will be a pinching-point at a “later” time when what we want will battle to the death with what we have to do. I believe daily enjoyment-pertunities are important and don’t deserve to be put off.
- Boldly being ourselves: What others enjoy reflects them. What we enjoy reflects us. We don’t need to enjoy the same things. I find that the more I embrace my truest self and do what I truly enjoy, I get to a special place of enjoyment that is only possible with the key of being true.
It does, indeed, take courage to enjoy. It also takes some effort on our part to allow ourselves to enjoy every day and make it an important part of our daily activities.
Enjoy,
Karine
Here’s a Pin 🙂
