Find joy when you’re walking to the grocery store. Find joy when you’re waiting in line at the cashiers. Find joy even in the simplest, most mundane moments of your life. Because that’s when you begin to open your eyes to see the absolute beauty and radiance that exists in every single moment of every single second of every single day. We are surrounded by beauty and the magic of this divine kingdom. And yet we don’t allow ourselves to see it.

Joy is not a destination. It’s not something we attain after jumping through hoops and passing tests and achieving things and becoming someone. Joy is not a prize, it’s not a badge of honour, it’s not a goal. Joy just is. Joy is us. Joy is all. Joy is presence and being-ness. We’re so conditioned by our distorted masculine society to do and to get, and we are taught to believe that we must do in order to get. We must achieve to win. We must work to attain. Everything is linear, everything is conditional. But what if we allowed ourselves to open our eyes to a different perspective. To really begin to commune with the unconditional. To see the world as unconditional. We’ve been conditioned to be conditional but the true nature of the universe is without condition. Forests burn, flowers bloom, trees grow, animals are born and then they die, and they all surrender to the natural rhythm of life.

So why must we make our own being-ness conditional? Why do we continue to put hurdles in front of ourselves to torment ourselves? Joy is not on the other side of a promotion or signing a new client. Joy is not on the other side of a marriage or a relationship. Joy is not on the other side of a specific number in the bank account. Because joy is with us NOW. Joy is with us, regardless of all of those things, if you simply open your heart to feel it. I’m a classic sucker for the “I’ll be happy when” mentality. And the truth is I’ve experienced that, yes, I will be happy when I achieve that thing or when I reach that goal. But it’s simply a momentary happiness that fleets as the excitement of whatever pinnacle reached simply becomes the new norm, or until another round of anxiety hits, or until there’s a new goal to focus on. So the question I’ve started asking is why must I deny myself pure joy in all the moments in between? Why must I deny myself the beauty of joy when joy can always be harnessed—even on the days when I’m still in my bathrobe at 12:30 in the afternoon, and I haven’t brushed my hair, and I eat cold leftovers for lunch while standing at the kitchen counter, and I feel the tightness of anxiety in my chest because I don’t have any client bookings on the calendar. In those moments, yes, my ego self/shadow self can drag me down into the depths of fear, scarcity, and worry. And my higher self can bring me to joy. And the choice is mine, whichever path I take. The choice is always mine. “But how?” you may ask, “How do I get to joy?” “What’s the magic trick” “Do you think of something happy? Do you find something to be grateful for?” And sure, while those can be helpful tools, they’re also not necessary. What if I told you that you are powerful beyond belief, and simply by dropping into your Self, you can open your heart and receive joy. Yes it’s really just that simple. Joy is expansive, it’s subtle and pervasive and overwhelming all at the same time. It’s not the fleeting volatile adrenaline high of happiness. Instead, to me, it feels more grounded, more spacious, more secure. And if you could always come back to joy, if you could always operate from a place of joy, if you could always open yourself up to joy, why wouldn’t you?