24 Sep Joy: A Sneaky Way To Experience It …

Looking for ways to add more joy to your week? Here’s a sneaky pattern of life that you might miss if you don’t look for it: when one door closes in your life, very often a new door will open as a result.

It’s a normal part of life to experience closed doors: you receive disappointing news, a relationship ends, you lose a job, an opportunity is denied, you have to make a geographical move. Like a magnet, a disappointing event can pull your attention to dwell on the negative aspects of these situations, and your  joy level will be depleted.

Joy By Noticing Newly-Opened Doors

But if you think about it, you will notice that closed doors often result in new doors that wouldn’t have opened otherwise. Without conscious attention, we often don’t realize that without the closed door, the next opened door wouldn’t have arrived.  For example, you receive disappointing news that your child received another F in math. As a result, you talk to your child’s teacher and enroll her in an afterschool math program, and in a few months, her grade drastically improves. On top of that, she makes a new friend in the afterschool program. And there are other examples: a job loss eventually means a new career is found; a relational difficulty means that new relationships form, or life lessons are learned; a health difficultly results in healthier lifestyle choices or a new life direction.

Try This & Experience Your Joy Level Rising…

So throughout today and tomorrow, reflect back through your life to look for this closed door/open door pattern, and notice this as it happens in your current activities.  To get your brain going, think of 2 events from your past where you can find this pattern: changes, disappointments, health issues, dreams denied, relationship struggles, etc. Also, when something happens that is disappointing this week, notice if it provides an opportunity for something good to follow: maybe you have to wait in line, but you get to talk someone else who is waiting; they’re out of your favorite pastry at your coffee place, but you get to try something new instead; you get some frustrating news, but it enables you to bond with someone as you tell them about it. Then watch as your joy level increases.

When you look behind a dark cloud, you’ll often become aware of, not only a silver lining, but a promising new horizon as well.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Patsy Clairmont has noticed it in this way: “It’s not that God has said no to your dream, it’s that he’s said yes to another dream for you.”