A Behind The Scenes Look at Embracing Joy

Benefits: Embrace the joy of someone sharing their joy with you.

So That You Can: Find out how the practice of embracing joy can be used as another tool to live the fulfilling life you were meant to live.

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A Behind The Scenes Look at Embracing Joy

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In this post, I go from inspiration to action! I go from being inspired by the idea of journaling our Delights to actually taking action myself. And you are going to get a behind the scenes look at how I embraced joy this week — a sneak peek into my mind if you will (it’s really not that scary in there; I promise ?).

If you’re not sure what I’m referring to when I say “journaling our Delights,” go ahead and check this post out before you continue, An Inspired Way to Embrace Joy: An Introduction to Delights. It’s an introduction to the concept of a Delight as well as a call to action for all of us to make recognizing our Delights a daily practice.

At the end of this post, I’ll talk a bit about the experience of journaling my Delights, but, for now, sit back and Embrace the Joy of someone sharing their joy with you. It might just inspire you to do the same.

A quick side note: I wrote these Delights by hand and transcribed them exactly as written, warts and all.

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A Simple Hand Gesture

No . . . not that one! Get your head out of the gutter ?

As I was contemplating the drafting of my FIRST EVER Delight, I started think, “What Do I take for granted on a daily basis? A small kindness that goes unnoticed. As Matt Dubbed it in his post, ‘An empathic activity [I] observed a person doing.’”

Then it hit me . . . the friendly wave-through that drivers often give each other to signal, “Please, move ahead. It’s your turn.” Wow! It really is a Delight when you think about it.

It’s a sign that someone in the world is acknowledging your existence. That they’ve learned to take turns & are empathetic to the fact that it is indeed your turn. Or, even if it’s not technically your turn (even better!) that someone is willing to put your needs/wants ahead of their own. If only for a moment.

I quickly realized how many of these hand-gesture Delights I have the privilege of experiencing every morning — when I drop my baby girl, Emma, off at school. (She’s 11 now & would quickly tell you she’s not my baby, but we both know she is & always will be.)(Another Delight!)

As you can imagine, drop-off traffic is coming into the school from multiple directions, with the end goal being to all end up in the same single-file line, all heading in the same direction.

I typically receive at least 3 hand-gesture delights every morning. And I usually get to give one or two as well (another Delight). But my favorite one comes from . . .

the crossing guard, who stand on-guard at the end of the single-file line, every, single, day! Rain or snow . . . cold or hot . . . there she is. Waving me through.

And even better — if she has to stop me to let a group of 10-12 year olds cross the road safely (another Delight, watching these kids make their way in the world), I am sure to get a friendly wave through & a mouthed “Thank You” accompanied by a humble smile.

For some reason, that simple “Thank You” is just so awesome to me. There is no reason she has to thank me. Afterall, she’s the one holding the bright red Stop sign. And what am I going to do? Run over a bunch of kids who are making their way in the world.

Then again, maybe not everyone gets a “Thank You.” Maybe she saves them just for me. Maybe there’s something in way I acknowledge her request for me to Stop. Maybe we have some special connection. Okay, I’m almost certain that’s not the case, but it’s fun to think about nonetheless. And what if it were true? Ya never know.

And therein lies the power of these small gestures — the wave through, the head nod, the toothy smile, the shared look of knowing, the holding of the door — the power to connect us with another human being if only for a second. The power of feeling understood if only for a second. The power of someone putting your needs ahead of theirs, if only for a second.

As this Delight comes to an end, I can’t help but feel excited about seeing that crossing guard tomorrow. It’s really weird to think about (I am shaking my smirking head as I write this) but it sure is Delightful – HA!

A Dress With No Pants?

“Everyone wears spandex pants under their dresses don’t they?” My step-daughter Emma’s (we have 2 Emma’s in our house – Delight!) question upon presenting herself to my husband and me in her freshly purchased Winter Formal dress.

What prompted this odd and oh so innocent question? Our immediate reaction to the length of this “sexy” red dress we were seeing for the first time. But, upon further inspection, the dress isn’t short at all, if it weren’t on our 16-year old daughter who we still think is like 12, maybe.

After the initial shock of seeing this beautiful, almost woman in front of us, I realized the dress was entirely appropriate and said, “Just be sure not to bend over.” Insert the spandex pants question here. And the statement that she always wears “spandex pants” under her dresses — to not do so would be “gross.”

“Why wouldn’t you wear spandex pants under a dress?” To which I said, “Well, there are a few reasons I can think of that I’m not going to tell you.” You see, I’m not quite so innocent in thought. Heck, I was not so innocent in thought at 11 or 12, let alone 16.

What a Delight indeed! That a 16-year old girls isn’t thinking, “Hey, these spandex pants might get in my boyfriend’s way later.” That she isn’t trying to be too sexy for her age. That she actually thinks all girls wear pants/shorts under their skirts and has no idea why they wouldn’t.

Now, you might be thinking, “Oh, she’s just acting innocent to throw you guys off.” I know, right? But, no, she isn’t. Believe me, I’ve tested that theory out on several occasions because, after all, I can see myself playing that game.

But she really, truly has an innocent mind — again, What a Delight!

While it is Delightful to have such an amazing step-daughter, I must say, it’s also a bit scary. I worry that this world of ours that tends to prey on the innocent is going to rip her to shreds. I worry that she could be taken advantage of so easily because she would never dream of taking advantage of anyone so she’d never expect it of anyone either.

But then she’ll kick ass (figuratively), like she did last week . . .

So she’s a life guard at our local “Aquatic Center.” A girl, in the same grade as Emma, was swimming & lost/left her hair scrunchie in the pool. Another life guard told her she lost it but scrunchie girl could have cared less. Basically, it wasn’t her problem. That life guard let it go but not Emma.

Emma let scrunchie girl know that she could be suspended from the pool for leaving junk in the pool. Not only that, Emma made it clear that she would not hesitate to suspend scrunchie girl if it happened again.

Emma told me the story as soon as she got home that day. I told her that was awesome and that she did a good job and that I imagined that was hard to do. Especially since this girl is a peer of hers. But in my head I was cheering, “That’s my girl! Kicking ass & taking names!”

I have no doubt that this world is going to try its best to break her innocent, good-hearted nature. But, I also have no doubt that she’ll be just fine! She’s stronger than the scrunchie girls of the world, & she won’t hesitate to kick ass when it’s called for.

That’s my spandex pants-wearing girl! And I couldn’t be more Delighted!

The Stage is Set

As I sat in the Intermediate School auditorium today, waiting for my daughter’s poetry recital to begin, I couldn’t help but be delighted by the familiarity of that place. Staring at the stage in front of me — dark red, felt curtains, risers, microphone, and a lecturne (?) — I couldn’t help but feel like I was sitting in my elementary school 33 years ago.

Even though I wouldn’t say that I cherish my school years (not even close), there’s something about a school, any school, that feels familiar. The staleness of the cement/brick walls, hard floors, fluorescent lights (or maybe they’re LED now), and hallways lined with lockers.

Within the familiar confines of that auditorium, I took a few minutes to just sit and enjoy the moment. I thought of reaching inside my purse for my cell phone, to mindlessly scroll around for a few minutes instead of just sitting there, by myself, in a room of parents I don’t know, staring at the set stage. But I intentionally decided not to. And it felt Delightful.

With nothing to steal my attention, I couldn’t help but notice that the first thing all the other parents did when they sat down was start scrolling on their phones. (Okay, I don’t know if it was every parent, but it was every one that I watched sit down.) I couldn’t help but shake my head (figuratively, I wasn’t sitting there by myself just shaking my head, although that could have been a Delight for someone else to witness.) These are probably the same parents who are so concerned about “screen time” and complain about the fact that their kids are on their “devices” too much, and here they, the parents, are, not able to sit for 5 minutes without picking up their phones for another hit of dopamine. (I think that’s the right neurotransmitter.)

Add to that the fact that we’re sitting here waiting for a poetry recital. Now, I don’t remember all the technicalities of poetry, but I have to think, at its core, poetry is mindfulness put into words. A practice whereby you take a moment, as a poet, to reflect on the world and on events you have experienced. To stay present with these thoughts and images so that they can be conveyed to someone else through written or spoken word.

So let’s put that together. We parents are waiting to applaud our children for their ability to stay mindful long enough to create the poetry they are about to share with us. And at the same time, we parents, can’t just sit & mindfully enjoy the moment; we, the parents, have to distract ourselves from this world, and in particular this auditorium, that is full of delights by mindlessly adding more data to our already overstressed minds.

But enough about that, let’s talk about our Delightful, mindful kids. Each one had to recite two poems they had written in a relatively large auditorium. Granted, there were probably only 30 or so people in the seats, but it is an intimidating stage for an adult, let alone a fifth grader.

These kids were nothing short of amazing. We often underestimate just how intelligent and capable they are, at just 10-11 years of age. But not today. Today, we adults learned about facing fears, being vulnerable, & practicing mindfulness. And our teachers thought they were the only ones there to learn. What a Delight!

(Oh yeah, and I also learned that fifth-grade boys are obsessed with food – Delight!)

What Did I Learn

I learned that journaling my Delights is a Delightful process – HA! But seriously, it really was. My three favorite parts of the experience:

Writing in ink by hand. Although I wasn’t overthinking what I wrote, I did have to think through what I was going to write because I knew I couldn’t (or at least wasn’t going to) edit it. It felt really good to slow down and experience the moments of bringing thoughts together. I always write my notes and outlines by hand because I find it helps with my thought process, but I never write my posts by hand, so it was a nice change of pace.
Letting go of perfection. I went into each Delight knowing that I was not going to be editing it. I actually love editing; that might be my favorite part of the writing process. But there was something about knowing that I wasn’t trying to make this post perfect — I was just trying to express my thoughts and feelings as purely as possible — that was very satisfying.
Letting the piece take on a life of its own. This seems to happen with a lot of my posts, but it was a different experience when writing a Delight. I started off with one Delight and it grew and took detours to places I hadn’t anticipated going, bringing up unexpected thoughts and feelings along the way. And that’s the whole point, right?

Journaling my Delights was definitely a worthwhile experience, maybe even a life-changing experience. I’m convinced that this practice is another tool we can use to live the fulfilling life we were meant to live. This simple process has the potential to hit every component of the Cycle of Deliberate Thinking: Stay Curious!, Personify Core Values, Examine Expectations, Execute with Intention, and Respect Other Points of View. What a Delight!