Our approach to life flavours the moment. As time unfolds, my experience rolls out as a unified sense of my body, my thoughts and my dialogue within an environment that I am shaping, all likely through prediction. So where does this approach, or set of rules come from? What is the effect? And how can I use my approach to be successful and live the life that I want? How can I choose to practice the art of joy?

Simply put, my beliefs and convictions about myself and life are sculpted from an early age by parents, care-givers, teachers, friends and society to name a few. Of course this is on-going as we update our beliefs with new knowledge and experience. What I practice then, are conditioned patterns that I don’t really think about as I am living the experience of those patterns as they come to fruition.

You may feel hence that there’s little control over these patterns. I would argue not. Instead, on realising which beliefs are limiting and which empower, I can practice and fortify the latter having disrupted the former. Overcoming chronic pain is all about this, whilst focusing upon what you want in life.

Many people continue to use the same patterns over and over. That’s when life feels the same everyday. Groundhog Day. But, on discovering that you have a potent skill that can transform your life, you realise that this does not need to be the way. What is that skill? You maybe surprised to learn about this amazing resource that you already have!

What is it that affects the quality of your life? It is the decisions you make, moment to moment through the day, every day. Not the big ones, the little ones. Here’s a question. What decision could you make right now to change your life? Pause for a couple of minutes and think about this before reading on.

Pause……..

Here’s an example: I decide to commit to a programme of daily exercise and movement to build my body’s strength, resilience and mobility. Would that change your life? Of course! This decision of commitment you then follow by taking action and gathering momentum by deciding each day when and how you will exercise, together with how you will integrate movements into your day to nourish your body at regular intervals.

Decision-making is one of our greatest powers. When you decide that you want to transform your suffering into a life of joy, everything changes. How? You may well ask! I’m in pain all the time, I have hardly any money, I have no work and all the other reasons why we can suffer. The problem lies in the fact that when we focus on these thoughts and the dialogue is littered with words that magnify the suffering states (pain, anxiety, worry, anger, frustration), then we use all our energy on the very things we don’t want. On deciding to focus on what we do want, we can start taking the steps to get results.

I want to be able to walk to the shop. I want to play with the kids. I want to play the piano. I want to play football. I want to bend over and put on my shoes. I want to feel joy. I want to go back to work. When we make it clear, carving out a vision of success, we have a direction.

This is what we can decide to do before creating a plan that we follow each day, taking steps in that direction. Of course we will have moments of suffering when there is pain, anxiety or things go wrong, but the more we can build resilience and choose an approach that is driven by the notion of life happening FOR me, rather than to me, we take the ups and downs as opportunities to learn, persevere and grow. One of our needs in life is growth without which we stagnant. And that’s not a good place! So, I can decide that I am going to drive growth in my approach. You can decide that right now. But where are you going?

What is your picture of success? Write it down in the following space:

** Remember that this is what you want, so use positive language and feel it whilst you are writing; make it real.

My picture of success is:

Another human need is giving. In particular the giving of ourselves and time to those we care about, which has such a huge effect upon both the self and the receivers. Generosity has also been named as one of the skills of being well by Richard Davidson, the neuroscientist who has been studying wellness.

The art of joy, which is the title of this brief blog, most certainly incorporates giving and generosity from which flows joy amongst other great states. How does the world look when you are feeling joy? How does your body feel when you experience joy? What decisions do you make when you are in a state of joy? Who creates the state of joy? You! We can decide that whatever each day presents to us, we will face it with joy together with compassion (including self-compassion), love and other potent states.

Suffering states inevitably arise. That is normal in life. Yet how we approach life determines what it is like and how long we stay in that state. Deciding to use an approach whereby we recognise the triggers of a suffering state and then change gear using breathing, gratitude, or movement. There are many ways to change state, but these are common ones I teach people who come for coaching and treatment to overcome chronic pain or achieve peak performance.

The art of joy then, is about what you put into life. As a general rule, what we put out there with purpose and intent comes back. A simple example: when you predominantly smile at people, how do you feel? How do they respond? What is life like? When you put a scowl into the world, what comes back? The art of joy and joyful living is all about your approach, which in turn emerges from your beliefs or set of rules. This is why important work involves identifying your beliefs, both the ones that cause us to suffer and the ones that enable us to thrive.

Depending upon your start point, this can of course be a challenge. If your health is compromised, if you are out of work, if you have lost someone close or perhaps just not reached your potential, it can seem impossible to be grateful for the world, nature, your breath, your eyesight or whatever. However, it is possible and with a picture of what you want to achieve, with steps to take, practices and tools to use, you can decide right away that you want something different now. You have suffered enough and its time for change.

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I am very privileged in that each day I get to work with people who want to transform their lives and fill it with joy, love and compassion instead of suffering. As I’ve said, of course we will suffer for a range of reasons, but we just don’t want to stay in that state too long. We want to be able change gears as quickly as possible because shifting into a high energy or joyful state means that our decisions are made with clarity, purpose and in line with our picture of success. It becomes clear what we CAN do.

The Pain Coach Programme is designed to give people the (working) knowledge, skills, tools and treatment to overcome their pain and suffering by living life. Results driven, the programme is all about gaining momentum behind progress and growth from pain to purpose to performance. This is a solution for people who want to make changes, who want to live well and perform their best in life whether it be overcoming pain, achieving success in exams or work or on the sports field by using your resources and strengths.

Call us now to book your first session: 07518 445493 ~ Jo will make all the arrangements for you