It was during undergrad, and I was visiting the home of my closest guy friend, Dan. Normally, his house was bustling with family, but this was a rare instance of quiet while everyone was out. The day was warm and sunny, and the French doors were open into the great room allowing the sunlight and breeze from the west to fill the space. We were making lunch—an enormous and gorgeous salad of fresh veggies and beautiful avocados plucked right from the tree in the backyard his father planted himself. We didn’t bother with plates or place settings. Dan set the salad bowl with two forks in the center of the wide, tiled countertop and we both hopped up there, sitting cross-legged, with the salad between us and proceeded to devour it while chatting about who knows what.
That was one of the memories conjured while sitting in my Chair of Joy™. The essence of that moment, and the memories which surfaced with it of my enduring friendship with Dan, was delight! My heart glowed warmly as I remembered our adventures in college and beyond. Warmth spread from my heart, up into my head, down the lengths of my arms and legs, into my fingers and toes. That delight, that joy, filled me up completely.
This has been my experience with the Chair of Joy™ (COJ).
This has been my experience with the Chair of Joy™ (COJ).
“What is the Chair of Joy™?” You Ask.
When Sheryl Lynn, founder and CEO of JOYELY, introduced the concept to me, it was such an easy “yes”. Can I sit in my COJ several times a day, have my SIT DOWN practice, and see how this impacts my day, the decisions I make, and my moods?
Yes, absolutely!
The essence of the exercise is simple: identify a chair in your home or it could be your favorite bench in the nearby park as your Chair of Joy™, a place you love to sit and BE; sit down and take some deep breaths and invite a joyful memory to surface. Allow yourself to see and feel that memory in its fullest detail. Make contact with the joy you felt then. Now, allow that joy to fill you up.
I mean, who would say “no” to such an experience?
Therein lies the hidden jewel of the COJ. On its face it seems like an incredibly simple practice which doesn’t ask much of you other than to sit, breath, think, and feel. Little did I know (and you will discover the same) that this simple little exercise is wholly transformational.
The Benefits of Chair of Joy™
Once I began sitting in my COJ on a regular basis, I noticed shifts in my life from the subtle to the profound. Sitting in your COJ can shift your mood and mindset to a more positive place. Generally, I’m an optimistic and happy person, so the COJ enhanced that while energizing me and improving my mental clarity. It upleveled my creativity with regard to meal planning. My diet consists of the same basic food groups from week to week but with greater creativity, I began combining ingredients in new ways, creating absolutely beautiful, healthy, and delicious meals. My body totally rejected the leftover frozen pizza I had in the fridge for those times of absolute laziness and opted instead for a much healthier meal of seared salmon with sauteed vegetables.
The reason for all this is that accessing your feelings of joy elevates your energy and your vibration. Everything, everything, e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g is made up of energy. You. Me. That tree. The food you eat. It’s all energy and energy manifests in frequencies. Our emotions are energy (Emotion = Energy in motion) and they, too, have frequencies. Shame, anger, and jealousy are some of the lowest frequency emotions, while love and joy are among the highest. David R. Hawkins wrote about it in his book The Map of Consciousness Explained.
Hence, by sitting with your most joyful memoires a few times a day, you are immediately raising your frequency to the highest levels. This not only lifts your mood but energizes your mind, body, and spirit!
Since beginning my practice I need less sleep. Sleeping less was by no means a goal, nor is it necessarily something I’m ecstatic about as I’m one of those people who loves my bed and loves to sleep ????. But I cannot refute the evidence—my body simply doesn’t require as much sleep as it did.
One of the most compelling side-effects of having a SIT DOWN practice in your COJ is how it impacts and elevates the way you relate to people. You can’t sit in resentment, hostility, or fear if you’re operating from a place of joy. Well, I suppose you still could if you really wanted to, but it would take some effort (and why would you want to?).
I had an incident arise at the tail end of the Global Joy Symposium in December 2021 in which I received an upsetting notice. An email came through that I was being charged for a service I did not authorize by a company I’d worked with some months prior. As we had a written contract spelling out the terms of our business agreement and as they were now acting against that contract, a flash of anger ran through me. I stepped away from the symposium for a minute to respond to this email. I could feel myself about to fire off a hotly worded letter in protest, but then I caught myself.
I took a breath and thought, “Come back to your place of joy”. Instantly, I was back in that open-hearted, uplifted space. From that place, I wrote a calm and rational reply to their email pointing out their mistake. Their representative responded immediately apologizing for the error and assuring me it had been corrected. Satisfied with the resolution, I couldn’t help but acknowledge how my COJ saved me by elevating me out of anger (low frequency) to joy (high frequency). Think about how that scenario could have played out had I responded in anger.
Why This Is The Absolute Best Time To Be Sitting In Your Chair of Joy™
JOYELY is about prioritizing the intentional creation of joy in your life from moment to moment. It’s about empowering people with the ability to choose joy over lower frequency emotions like fear, anger, and shame. It’s about using the feeling of joy to elevate your experience of life across the board from creativity to mental, physical, and spiritual wellbeing to income and impact. From this place of joy, you create a ripple effect in the people around you because your interactions are now coming from a higher vibration. JOYELY is about shifting the global zeitgeist from divisiveness to collaboration through joy.
With so much divisiveness going on in the world today, it’s so refreshing to have conversations about collaborations and all the great things we can accomplish together.
Given the gravity of the world’s challenges, i.e., the climate crisis, political unrest, a pandemic, racial reckonings, economic disparities, it can feel a little strange at times to switch the conversation to joy. Believe me, I know. There have been moments when a part of me has thought, “Okay, come out of la-la land. There are some clear and present dangers in the world right now. Are you seriously telling people in the midst of this chaos to sit down and be joyful?”
You may have similar thoughts.
But, seriously, that’s exactly what we’re doing.
As I see it, there is no better time, no more urgent time than right now, to be inviting people to sit down and tap into their joy. Here’s why – It is a counterbalance to all the noise and negativity that is heart-centered, optimistic, and life-affirming. It’s a counter point to the fearmongering and divisiveness. And, it’s a reminder that we are capable of so much more, such incredible achievements, when we come from a place of high vibration, when we come from a place of joy.
Many years ago, I was an activist marching in protest of one cause or in support of another. Recent national and world events have stirred the activist heart in me once again. But organizing and protesting is no longer my way. For me, activism is about putting my love and care for others into action. Inviting people to cultivate a SIT DOWN practice in their COJ, guiding them to sit, breathe, think, and feel their joy, witnessing them uplevel their vibration and the energy they’re putting out into the world, and being part of a global shift toward joy is my love and care for others put into action. This is what my activism looks like now.
Then pull up a chair. It’s time for JOY!
Website – www.Joyely.com
TikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/@chairofjoy?
It’s time to immerse ourselves completely in the conversation of joy, to prioritize it above most things.. There’s no time to wait; it’s a matter of life and death.
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