When I first moved to Indiana 9 years ago, it was quite a change.  I went from working full-time outside of the home to working part-time from home.  What I hadn’t realized is that I had been at a job for over 14 years and was burnt out.  There was no joy left in me as I headed to work each day.  This move was an opportunity for me to change things.  So, when my neighbor asked if I wanted to go to a Bible Study on Finding Joy, I jumped at the opportunity.  I immediately bought the book that we were supposed to read, the journal, and the workbook. I was so excited!  I thought, this is it, I am going to go to this class and they are going to tell me how to find joy.

Of course, I was wrong.  I wasn’t just going to go to a class and find joy.  In fact, according to the owner of Purple Ink, JoDee Curtis, finding joy is a skill that requires self-assessment, planning, continuous discipline and improvement.  But at that time, you can imagine how frustrated I was feeling after 4 weeks of the class. I wanted to find joy in my life, but I still didn’t know how.  They were telling us each week what joy was about and what it looked like, but that was it.  I went into the next session and boldly raised my hand and asked my question, when are we going to get to the part where they tell us how to find joy?  Well, as you can imagine, I totally stumped the leader of the workshop.

It’s funny now – when I look back over that time going to the Bible Study, my first clue should have been in the title of the book that we used for the class.  The book was called Choose Joy: Because Happiness Isn’t Enough (by Kay Warren). As I have now learned, happiness isn’t enough, because happiness is just a representation of a feeling for a specific moment.  Joy is more than that.  It represents your overall well-being and your attitude towards life.

Recently, I attended a virtual conference, Happiness through Resilience, which was produced for International Women’s Day by the group International Women of Indiana.  One of their speakers, Sarah Ratekin, highlighted something called Emotional Kryptonite.  Emotional Kryptonite is that feeling that you are most afraid to feel.  What I like about Sarah’s explanation of Emotional Kryptonite is that it totally related to what I was feeling when I first went to that Bible Study.   The reason I was looking for the step-by-step process for finding joy is that I was afraid to acknowledge the things – my Emotional Kryptonite – that weren’t helping me to find joy.

What’s your Emotional Kryptonite? Is it holding you back from finding joy?

The reason JoyPowered® can continue to create so much content about finding joy is that it’s not easy, and there’s no simple answer for how to get there. If you need some ideas, though, check out the books, blogs, podcasts, and videos on this website – our first book, JoyPowered®: Intentionally Creating an Inspired Workspace is a good starting point!