5 Reasons You Are Not Experiencing Joy

Each of us has the ability to live vibrantly, to tap into a deep sense of freedom and joy.  Believe it or not, total freedom exists every moment – of every day – for every body.

But our modern lifestyle often has us focused on the wrong things for the wrong reasons; leading us to spend a lot of our time feeling controlled by the circumstances around us, disconnected from happiness and joy and just totally stuck.

We might describe this as feeling off, drained, worn out or burnt out.  These feelings can start showing up physically through illness, headaches and muscle or joint pain.   Often its not until we experience physical discomfort that we even realize something is wrong. And it takes a lot of digging to realize how we let it get to this point.

In my work as a yoga therapist and burnout coach, I focus on helping my clients gain clarity around the beliefs, behaviors and patterns that are holding them back.  While each of my clients has a different story and set of beliefs, they commonly exhibit behaviors and patterns that keep them stuck.

They stop paying attention.

Most of us have routines that keep us in balance and feeling great. What often happens when we feel stressed out in one area of our life, we stop sticking to these routines. It may start with a “treat” one day, sliding into skipping the gym the next, morphing into staying up to watching internet memes.  Without even realizing it, we’ve lost our anchor to joy.

They ignore the signs that something is not quite right. 

Back pain is a huge indicator that something is off in my life.  My body sends all sorts of warning signs telling me to slow down and recommit to self care.  If I ignore these, I’ll end up flat on my back in a full “flair up.” So I had to learn what the signs were, how to spot them early and then to cultivate my willingness to listen to them.

Or they acknowledge the signs but prioritize alleviating the pain in this moment over the long term solution.

In my case – during a back flair up, I just want the pain to stop and popping Aleve or having a glass of wine can be a quick way out of pain.  It also requires less effort than meditating, stretching and working out. But if I choose the “quick” route out of pain, its guaranteed the pain will still be waiting for me until I deal with the real issue.

They put off taking action until they are in a full on emergency state.

We tend to not want to slow down long enough to take care of ourselves even when we know something is wrong.  I have a student who had received a health warning from his doctor a year ago. But it wasn’t until he went back six months and received more grave news that he was willing to make the changes necessary to turn things around.

They rinse and repeat.

Most of us will thankfully never be in a full on state of burnout, our “off” periods may lift for a bit and we are able to reconnect to freedom and joy. But then when things start sliding again, we  end up right back where we were before, unaware of our behaviors, ignoring the signs, running away from the pain in the moment, and waiting til we feel there is an emergency to take action.

My advice to my clients stuck in this cycle:  

Stop checking out.  Check In. Learn what feeds you. Get curious about why you engage in habits that diminish your freedom or joy. Let this information drive your actions.