Outrageous Joy

Every time I hear the phrase Outrageous Joy, I can’t help but smile. Why does the concept sound so absurd and abnormal in everyday life?

I have read a gazillion books about how to be healthy in body and in mind…and in whatever else there is besides those two things. Our relationship to the universe? A higher being? Even communicating with dead people?

I listen to my library of books on CD in the car sometimes. One of my regulars is Ask and It is Given by Jerry and Esther Hicks. They talk about many concepts that I love—Better Feeling Thoughts, what life is really about (“The most important thing in life is that You Feel Good!”), how to get what you want…

Every time I listen, I get something new out of it. Right now, I’m totally on board with experiencing Outrageous Joy.

What if we went through life pretending everything was easy? What if, when someone died or got hurt or lost a job, we were sad for a minute but then laughed celebrated and took the next step?  What if we removed the filter that makes us use our past experiences and societal norms (other people’s opinions) to interpret present situations?

I was spurred to this by experiencing tragedy, and a commitment to make good things happen out of a bad situation. I found out through that, and from wellness coaching a lot of really stressed out (and some not so stressed out) people, that how you feel throughout the day impacts you the most. Your work still gets done the same way, a person is still dead or hurt, a job is still lost…whether you laugh about it or cry about it.

When you feel badly, you’re just damaging yourself and setting yourself up to feel badly some more.

What if feeling Outrageous Joy was just a simple choice? You choose to live that way, or you choose to let your surroundings determine how you feel? What if you chose it whenever you could (when it was easy to), so that when the really serious crappy things confronted you, you could get back to Outrageous Joy more easily and more quickly.

What if you chose Outrageous Joy (or even just reasonable happiness), and this started to affect your surroundings, instead of the other way around?

Whether you believe in energy medicine, life force, vibrational frequencies or not—you could still choose to feel happier in most moments. I don’t mean to minimize things like depression, and I wouldn’t expect someone who is feeling awful just to jump to the top of the emotional scale…but what if progress toward it was an option? We tend to think that we don’t have control over our thoughts and feelings…but there is actually really good information out there that says otherwise.

Did you know that if you’re sad, a higher emotion on the scale is anger? And that frustration is higher than anger?  What if, wherever you are right now, you just reached for the next level?

We like instant gratification, and we’d love to jump from dispair to outrageous joy. But it’s just like lifestyle change—take baby steps, and you’ll progress toward your goal. Take a huge leap, and in the same amount of time that the baby stepper realizes her goal, you’ve bounced back to square one three times.

Do you know the emotional scale? I think with a little knowledge of the scale, and a little perspective adjustment on happiness, it’s easier than we think to take control of our own happiness…regardless of our situation. I really believe that if you adjust your feelings, your life will follow that trend even if it’s more slowly than you’d wish for.

I practice this very often, and part of the practice is to quit fighting things in life and to stop comparing my happiness to other people’s standards. So I had to do 14 hours of work on the computer yesterday and 3 hours this morning–I did it, and it feels good to have accomplished what I need to do. I immersed myself in each moment instead of grumbling about my to-do list and interrupting my focus.

What could you up-shift toward Outrageous Joy (or even Reasonable Happiness) today?! I think the term Outrageous Joy brings attention to the fact that we rarely let ourselves feel that way. But why don’t we? It feels good! And couldn’t we all benefit by having that feeling more often?

The secret to mastery is practice. Can we practice on the easy things, and gradually learn how to transfer it to everything?

So, I’ll talk about the anti-candida approaches in my next post.

I hope your weekend is filled with Outrageous Joy.