Creating a Joy Habit with the 5 As of Agility

Cultivate Joy with the 5 As

1. Attune to Joy through your body and emotions.  

Find a quiet spot and start by sitting comfortably. Feel your body breathing. Consider that you are breathing in the breath of God and that you are in the loving and joyful presence of God. Extend your exhale to breathe out what needs to leave you. Repeat a few times. Slowly scan your body from head to toe, as you do so notice where in your body you feel joy. Attune to those sensations. There is a physicality to joy–whether a lightness in our hearts or a tingling of anticipation. Just look and don’t judge what you are feeling. Emotions come and go, but they provide information. Name any pleasures or pains that you are experiencing. 

2. Become Aware of joy in the sensations within you.  

When you attune to how you feel and experience joy in your body, consider  what thoughts come up? What is underlying those sensations of joy for you? What does this say about you? And what matters most to you? What gives you a sense of joy? Is it an interaction? A relationship? A situation? An activity? Something routine? Or something novel?  What might God be trying to say to you at this moment? 

3. Align your life to pursue joy.

What do your sources of joy say about what matters to you? Think about your day. Will it unfold in ways that offer you joy?  Consider how you might align your life with what you are learning about your sources of joy.  How might joy inform who you spend your time with?  What actions will you take? How might aligning to joy inform a healthy sense of spirituality? How might what you’ve discovered inform how you pursue Advent and Christmas?

4. Active into joy. 

Name one step that you will take today to pursue joy?  What can you do to give joy to another? 

5. Assess the day.

How easy or hard was it to practice joy?  Was there something that made you feel grateful? Would you like a do-over? Ask God for help to make any changes you need to make.  If you fell short, try again tomorrow.  Share your joys and concerns with God.

I hope this practice designed to help you trace and chase joy through your days helps you orient your life more around joy, and opens you up more fully for the joy that God offers to us.