Seeking Joy

When you feel overwhelmed, it can seem impossible at first to seek and find joy in the midst of this trying time. When you are hugely overwhelmed, it can feel like life keeps on handing you a bowl of lemons again and again.


Dirty dishes piled in the sink, the loads of laundry that repeatedly require our attention, the repetitive and often monotonous aspects of keeping order and everything within a household ticking over well...... by all accounts these aspects of household logistics do not always make it easy to seek joy in one's domestic circumstance.

Yet being able to find a source of happiness, a sense of well-being, perhaps even a sense of gladness in an aspect or two of our daily home-making experience, can help towards providing measures of joy that make our daily experience less dreary and full of drudgedy. It can help us move out of the slump that feeling overwhelmed can potentially keep us in.

On the home-front there will always be things that can be a source of irritation.

Sticky smears evident on window glass due to sticky little fingers been run along them.....

Piles of shoes once again tossed aside haphazardly at the back door as the rush from outdoor to indoor play occurs......

Like one big bowl of lemons being handed to you again and again, the monotony and the repetition, can be a source of discouragement and overwhelm you.



Yet we can seek JOY.

I would like to encourage you with this one truth, worth embracing and taking on board:  We can seek JOY in amongst that which feels overwhelming.

One of the very best ways to help yourself come out from under a weighty sense of feeling overwhelmed, is to consciously choose to focus on one or two things each day, no matter how tiny they may seem, that HAVE provided you with some measure of joy in amongst your home-making activities.

Stop. Take time to consciously choose to consider what it is that IS able to be seen as a glimmer of goodness, a spark of delight, a source of JOY for you.

Surely some measure of appreciation, and therefore joy, can be found in the smell of freshly washed and clean bath towels, now all dry and ready to be folded and put away?

Stop. Enjoy and appreciate this beneficial aspect of dealing to that particular load of laundry.

Surely some delight can be experienced in the warmth of a mug of tea, as you get to enjoy both the wafting aroma and drink in the pleasant taste of it's contents?

Stop. Acknowledge the blessing of what IS able to be put on your table to feed your household at it's next meal.

A provision of dry firewood, ready at hand to build a fire on what will be a cold evening, can be viewed with gratitude and be a source of joy also.


There are many simple, everyday aspects of home-making, household administration and daily home-life that we can choose to view gratefully as sources of joy.

Seeking out that which gives us a sense of well-being, does help to lift the suppressive clouds of feeling overwhelmed.

Seeking out that which provides even a small measure of joy, here and there, can be very helpful. It helps to elevate a sense of being trapped by those monotonous, repetitive cycles that are often so much part and parcel of running and administrating a household.

It can take some practice. It does take some effort at first, to seek out that which can provide an experience of joy, when you are feeling overwhelmed.

It does require something of a conscious choice to engage one's attitude and thoughts to seek out joy.  Yet seeking out sources of daily joy helps provide the breakthrough needed. It helps the overwhelmed to move forward positively and constructively.

Choosing to focus on finding just ONE small noteworthy aspect of your day, that can give a small measure of delight and a sense of joy, really does help elevate a sense of being overwhelmed.

Seeking to find joy or staying stuck in a swirling pool of overwhelmed-ness?

A bowl of lemons, or an opportunity to make some lemonade and lemon curd?

Seeking to find joy IS a choice. It is a big choice to make. It is a choice that opens a window when everything else may leave you feeling closed in. Go for it. Seek joy.



No comments:

Post a Comment