The Circle of Joy — Receiving it and Passing it Along

A challenge response to the Three Joyful Moments Challenge issued by Good Vibes Club

Good Vibes Club kicked off a new challenge — the Three Joyful Moments Challenge. So I’m going to go ahead and kick off the challenge with my own response. My own Three Joyful Moments, formed from the circular energy of both giving and receiving.

1. What’s a small joy that fills your soul with delight?

This seemed like an easy question. Until I went to answer it. When you start looking for joyful moments, life is filled from edge to edge with them. Then comes the difficult part. Which one to mention? Which one to write about? There are so, so many.

I’ll go with my cats. We have a houseful of them. I think that I’m the boss of them — but in reality, I’m very wrong. More truthfully, they are the bosses, and they just let me think I’m the boss. But what fills my soul with delight is when I sit down in the living room and they all start congregating around me, vying for a spot on my lap. They all want to be the favored one, and when the latecomers arrive — you can see the pouts on their faces when they realize they lagged too far behind and they’re now standing in line.

Seeing how much they love me and want to be sharing cuddle time with them, considering that every single cat in the house is a rescue cat, wells me up with joy.

2. What’s a large joy that swells your heart with love?

A large joy that swells my heart with love? That’s got to be my grandkids. Whether it’s seeing them in person, which is my preferred way to visit, or chatting on the phone, or Facetiming, any moments shared with the kiddos are large chunks of joy that get me through any difficult patches in life.

3. What’s one way you can spread joy with others?

There are so many ways to spread joy with others. I’m looking forward to seeing other people’s challenges so I can make notes on different ways that I might not have thought of.

My favorite method right now is one I’m consciously trying to do more of every day — complimenting strangers.

My part-time job is stocking greeting cards in a Walmart. So although I’m only working there as an outside vendor 15–20 hours a week, there is lots of customer interaction there! One day I noticed how many thoughts throughout the day I had that I didn’t share with people.

What a great jacket that is!

That little boy is so well behaved.

Look at the colors in her hair, isn’t that beautiful?

What a sweet puppy they’re carrying.

Look at that beautiful baby.

One day I was chatting with a customer that shops greeting cards fairly regularly. We’ve chatted before. She’s a bit older than I am, probably in her seventies, possibly early 80’s. It’s hard to tell and I’m not going to ask. But during this conversation, I noticed that her short, silver hair was now highlighted with dark lavender streaks.

It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, lots of people sport colors in their hair now. I’ve even thought of doing some purple streaks myself, just haven’t had the nerve yet.

Normally I would notice it, think what a nice look it was for her, and go on about my business. But this time I mentioned it and said how lovely it was.

Her face beamed at the compliment. Looking at her radiant expression, you would have thought I’d just handed her a bar of gold.

That hooked me into handing out compliments to random strangers. Sometimes I’ve had the thought as I passed by them, then decided to go tell them, and had to turn and sometimes chase them down an aisle or two to tell them.

But you know what, it seems when I do that and specifically go out of my way to pass along a seemingly minor compliment, it seems to mean even more to them. And seeing their faces light up with joy brings joy to my heart too.

It’s not a one-way street. Sharing joy brings joy back around. It’s a circular energy in this world and I aim to spread more of it around.

Do you want to play along with the Challenge too? According to Good Vibes Club:

· There aren’t any rules to play along.

· Tags others if you like. Don’t tag anyone if you don’t want to.

· Submit to Good Vibes Club if you’d like. Or publish on your own. Or publish in another publication. We’re not fussy about where the words land. We only want to hear your stories about joy — and ways you can spread it with others.

· We would appreciate a tag, so we can go read what you have to say about joy — tagging either Trisha Faye or Good Vibes Club.

It’s a challenge….what do you have to say about THREE JOYFUL MOMENTS?

Here’s a link to the original challenge if you want to check it out.