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Finding Joy When Life is Stressful

Finding joy when life is stressful seems impossible. Yet these are the times joy is most needed.

How I Found My Joy

Inspiration for joy came to me in many different ways. All these ideas have one thing in common – taking action.

  • Connection with positive friends
  • Looking for beauty in nature
  • Noticing synchronicity in everyday occasions
  • Asking for help

Connection with Positive Friends

Although I’m a caregiver to my husband and elderly mother, I also choose to surround myself with positive friends. This is the primary way I find joy when life is stressful.

One example is a nearby cousin, Tom, whom I’d only seen at sad occasions during the last year. His brother and parents passed just before and during the pandemic.

Look for L. Anderson, my grandfather

Tom called me to ask a favor of helping him deliver his car to a mechanic shop located between our respective homes. He enjoys eating out and offered to take me to lunch in gratitude. Our conversations centered around sharing past adventures and our mutual interest in the family genealogy. We made a pact to discover the location of our great-grandfather’s home in the late 1800’s.  We spent a Saturday afternoon at the local county historical library, pouring over platte maps.

Looking for Beauty in Nature

During 2020’s restrictions, I discovered nature in my yard. It was wonderful to visit the many plants, some that I had installed specifically to attract butterflies and birds. In contrast, the declining health of my husband and mother pulled me farther out into the world of nature.

Although I walk every Saturday morning with a gardening friend in the gardens of Bok Tower, this week I twice answered the call of a wilder place. Last Sunday I went to a local state park and took my dog, Sugar. The pain in my arthritic knees reminded me that I have walking poles hidden under my husband’s hunting camo in the garage.

When I decided to head to Bok Tower’s wilder side, Pine Ridge Preserve, I dug out the poles, cleaned off the cobwebs and brought them with me. As I used the poles to steady my stance and distribute the force away from my knees, I thought, “Why have I ignored these tools hanging in the garage four years!”

Noticing Synchronicity

There have been so many instances of synchronicity, it’s hard to know which to share. Mostly, I’ve been drawn to reach out to like-minded people through my online groups.

One such person is Miggy Rodriguez, of Infinite FlowInfinite Flow. I’ve known her over a year, liked her Facebook comments both on our private groups and in our personal pages. Finally, I reached out and we had long telephone conversation. She asked me where I lived in Florida. Although she lives in North Carolina, her father lives right here, in the same small town I live in. And her sister literally lives off the same street as me. That’s extreme synchronicity.

You might wonder why that brings me joy. It’s rather simple really. For me, synchronicity is proof of a higher power guiding and helping me.. helping you.

Asking For Help

This has shown up in myriad ways. Not only have I asked friends for help navigating the complex medical world of my husband’s cancer, I’ve learned how to ask for help in small ways too.

Now is the time of oak leaf drop in Florida. I asked my landscaping person to help me by blowing the leaves on our circular drive into piles. When I checked on his regular lawn care tasks, I found him raking the leaves into piles. We worked together to get them into a garbage can.

When you ask for help, joy is doubled. Both people benefit in this giving and receiving exchange.

Final Thoughts

This coming week, consider finding joy when life is stressful. It’s a combination of a choice in your thoughts and taking positive action.

Smiling,
Dawn

Three Tips on Finding Your Values

There are many, but today I’m sharing three tips on finding your values. This step is crucial to living a fulfilled life. For me, I had vague ideas on what was most important to me.

The Three Tips

  1. Understand the concept of values
  2. Explore your personal values
  3. Hone in on your top three to five values

What Are Values Exactly?

I want to be clear, I’m talking about personal values that serve as the basis for our goals toward achieving fulfillment and ultimately our life purpose. This article on Physiopedia.com is an in-depth explanation of personal values and beliefs.

Furthermore, values are what you feel is important to you.

How Do Values Affect Me?

If your thoughts and actions are in synch with your values, you are happier, that is, you are calm, centered, content.

Conversely, if your thoughts and actions are based on the values of others, you may be anxious, unsettled, jittery. Empaths are often unduly influenced by the values of others. My blog about empaths will help you discover if this is your reality.

How Do I Discover My Values?

Here is a list of values with further hints on using it. Now, let’s get to it!

  • Gather a notepad and pen or pencil
  • Find a quiet place and sit upright
  • Close or soften your gaze
  • Take three slow cleansing breaths
  • Relax your neck and shoulders
  • Sink into your hips and feet
  • Notice how your body feels
  • Slowly open your eyes and start reading each value aloud
  • When a word resonates somewhere in your body, write it down

My Three Values as Example

Here are my values; Honesty, Tranquility, and Purpose

If I follow these values in my thoughts and actions, I’m extremely happy and carefree. It’s fairly easy if I’m alone and in complete control of my environment. Rather, since I don’t live a monastic life alone, I often struggle to live these values.

Let’s see examples where I’m successful:

  • Honesty: I use my love of creative cooking to create a healthy, gluten-free, dairy-free salad for lunch.
  • Tranquility: While caught in Interstate-4 traffic, I tune into the Spa channel on Sirius XM, smile, and calmly allow merging traffic to, well.. merge.
  • Purpose: Quiet morning time is spent meditating and writing my blog.

Now for the opposite:

  • Honesty: Feeling stressed, I open my overhead kitchen cabinet where ‘fun foods’ like wasabi peas and dark chocolate are stored and grab something, stuffing it in my mouth before anyone sees my loss of control.
  • Tranquility: While caught in Interstate-4 traffic, I tune into the 70’s on 7 channel on Sirius XM, pound my palms on my steering column, and switch lanes over and over to ‘get ahead’.
  • Purpose: Quiet morning time is spent checking email, all my social media channels, reading newspaper headlines and getting sucked into someone else’s drama.

Is There a Theme Here?

Absolutely. The theme is self-care. Once I discovered my values, all I needed to do was practice self-care by respecting myself and these values. And yes, I fall off my self-care regimen all the time, forgetting to honor my values. Above all, I start again.

May you explore my three tips on finding your values and use the list of values to discover a calmer way to live with ease.

With honesty, tranquility, and purpose,
Dawn

The Most Important Marketing Tool

Are you wondering what the most important marketing tool is? Also, why do you post on social media? If it’s to connect with your readers or potential clients, this article is for you.

Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

First of all, I want to mention marketing guru Dan Blank of We Grow Media. When I read his newsletter last week, it struck a nerve. One of Dan’s principles is the importance of connecting with the right audience, that person who needs what you are offering. I wholeheartedly agree with this idea.

How I Expand on Dan’s Idea

My experience includes the importance of purpose. Why do you want to publish your book? What is your motivation?

If you want to help your readers or your clients improve their lives, then we are on the same page.

Non-Fiction vs. Fiction

It is obvious that many non-fiction books are written to help elevate the reader. In contrast, have you ever felt better or learned something about yourself in a fiction book? I know I have. Those are the fiction books I crave; well-written, interesting locations, history is nice, and characters that learn something along the way. Some of my favorite fiction books that fit this description are:

There are many more on my Goodreads profile. Furthermore, I’m in the process of adding books I’ve read in the past to this account, making it a resource for my readers, like you.

What about my favorite non-fiction?  First, I want to note that the first three non-fiction books in my list above are loosely based on the author’s lives. I suspect that is often the case.

Here is my short list:

I imagine you are thinking, these are kind of strange, unrelated subjects. Absolutely! But that is the key to the most important marketing tool.

Here’s the Marketing Tool

After being very clear what you are selling, writing about, or the service you are offering, imagine your perfect client sitting with you. Have a conversation with them. What would you talk about? Ask them about their interests and hone in where you have common ground. Furthermore, what are they looking for that you can give them?

Finally, use this information when you post on social media.

Draw your perfect client or reader in with a photo, question, or quote. Engage with other like-minded people on social media. Don’t just ‘like’ their posts, comment from your heart. Share their posts. Use their profile link in your share to let them know you care about what they are sharing.

Be real.

An Invitation

Let’s have some conversations on social media. You can find me several ways. Click on the social media icons on the page. Or search for @dawnoutside on Twitter and Instagram. I can’t wait to read your share on the most important marketing tool.

Update on my Instagram account: A friend notified me she had received a personal message from someone who stole my profile picture and was contacting my followers. Hmmm. At first I was very angry, then fear crept in.

Finally, a little more about my photo here. It’s a photo of the first dawn at my new house. Did it help to draw you into this page? I’ve found that personal, real photos are much more effective than using professional images. Furthermore, my loving energy will always be in my photos, words, and paintings.

See you soon,
Dawn