The Space Between Happiness and Joy
I've been thinking about the difference between happiness and joy, and whether they're actually the same thing. Twice this summer I pulled the oracle card ‘Rose without thorns’ from Rebecca Campbell’s beautiful Rose Oracle deck. This card affirms your right to your joy, peace and sweetness of life. It was a reminder for me to incorporate more of the moments of feeling alive.
We talk a lot about wanting to be happy. We want happy relationships, happy families, work that makes us happy and ultimately, a happy life, but is that actually realistic, and how do we measure it in a world that encourages to always want more?
Maybe this is where joy finds its space? My description of joy is those little moments where you just feel completely alive. For me, that’s being in the sea, salty skin, paddling my board over glassy sea, music on ridiculously loud in the car, ecstatic dance (either in my kitchen or with kindred spirits) laughing with people I love, sunshine, being somewhere beautiful or just having one of those moments where I think ‘I am so lucky’.
I realised the importance of joy when I was in the thick of cancer treatment; finding that those moments can still happen in the times where everything else isn’t perfect, where we might not otherwise describe our lives as being happy. We can be worried about something and still feel joy. We can be going through a difficult time and laugh until our stomach hurts. We can be tired, overwhelmed or have a million things to sort out and still have a moment that makes us feel completely alive. I have so many fond memories of laughing until I cried even during chemotherapy, or dancing out all my sadness even when it felt like it would never end. The joy feels even sweeter when times are hard.
Thinking about happiness and joy has been learning that two things can be true at the same time; I can be happy, yet lacking in joy and I can also feel moments of joy, even when the rest of my life feels like it’s going to sh*t.
Is that The Space Between happiness and joy?
My invitation to you today is to think about what happiness and joy look like to you.
When was the last time you truly felt alive?
Are you making enough space in your life for those moments?
