Don’t miss out on the joy of parenting, because you can never get these years back

Do you want to get more joy out of parenting?

I have been working with families for 15 years now. And what I can tell you from my experience is that in order to harness more joy you need to know what you learned about it when you were young, identify your values around it, and practice cultivating joy every day.

So, here’s the 1 tip I would give you if you wanted to boost joy.

 

Check your agreements with joy.

Does it ever bother you when someone is too happy?

You feel like it’s just annoying!

They laugh too loud. Dance too much. Talk endlessly about things they love.

If so, it’s possible that you learned at a young age that being joyful is not an okay thing to do. Maybe the people that raised you told you to go outside when you were excited or yelled at you when your childlike joy made your personality bigger than they had energy to handle.

When your early lessons about joy are not, well, joyful, you might need to relearn how to embrace this life giving emotion.

One thing you can do is to embrace in little moments of joy. Notice joy in yourself. What’s it feel like and sound like? When does it feel comfortable to feel joy?

When you start to notice joy, you can start building capacity for it and over time gain the benefits it brings to you and the people around you. When you can embrace joy for yourself it becomes easier to empathize and celebrate the joy others are feeling.

You are building a legacy. Might as well enjoy it!

 

The parenting workshop offered at Thresholds called Emotional Education for Parents is great for learning more about all of the emotions and creating new habits around how you embrace and celebrate them in your family.

 

Thanks for reading,

 

Amity