Joy Is The Reason For The Season

'Tis the season to be jolly, right? With all the hustle and bustle of the holidays, we often forget to take time to enjoy. We are so busy with gifts and guests and galas, we overlook the essential spirit of the season.

How can we stay unruffled by the holiday chaos and truly celebrate this magical time of year? I offer these suggestions for making your transition into 2008 a joyous one:

Don't Wait, Be Happy: Deep in the subconscious, most people believe joy is something that must be attained or earned. Once you complete the next project, close the next deal, get through the holidays or "pull your life together," happiness will be the result. Your permanent happiness is waiting just around the next corner.

Consider instead: Joy is your birthright, your essential nature. Joy is ever-present. Joy is without beginning or end. The yogis teach that 'sat-cit-ananda,' or 'Being-Consciousness-Bliss' is the core nature of the Self. Bliss is not the result of success, wealth, or achieving your goals -- it is the very essence of who you are. It is available right here, right now, without restriction.

Sounds great in theory, you say, but what if you're not feeling so joyful?

Relax the Need to "Fix" Things: Pleasure and pain are undeniable human experiences, but your attachment to pleasure and resistance to pain blocks your joy. If you need things to change to be happy, know you're heading down the path to suffering. Stop. Breathe. Relax. Release your impulse to "fix" things. Let everything be OK just as it is...and feel the tiny flicker of joy that arises within that spaciousness.

Practice this state of allowing with your loved ones during the holidays. If you feel stressed or triggered by a family member ask yourself, "What if they never change...EVER? Will you go on resisting (and suffering) for the rest of your life? Rather than trying to change others, simply practice staying present with whatever is arising in this moment.

Reconnect with Your Joy: If you need additional assistance re-connecting with your natural joyful state, consider the words of Buddhist teacher Thich Naht Hahn, "Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy." In other words, you can use your imagination, memory, or simple somatic gestures (like a smile), to bring you into a joyful state.

By recalling special moments such as tucking your kids into bed, watching a glorious sunset, roasting marshmallows over a campfire, or snuggling with your beloved, you evoke a natural expansion of being. Whenever you notice yourself constricting in fear or doubt, use your special memories or somatic gestures to bring you back into this open state. Eventually, as you practice this technique, you will be able to access joy instantaneously.

A small word of caution: Opening to joy is not the same as renouncing sorrow or pain. When you are truly available to joy, you are also available to hold less pleasant emotions with equanimity and grace. By celebrating all of it, you honor the full unfolding of life.

Kahlil Gibran expressed this simultaneity of opposites: "Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?"

Don't Confuse Pleasure for Joy: Pleasure is a fleeting experience that has a beginning and an end. You enter a new relationship and you feel dreamy, then you end the relationship and feel devastated. You earn your performance bonus this year and feel invincible, but miss it next year and feel resentful. Don't confuse pleasure for joy. Your fluctuating emotions are conditional. Joy is unconditional. Eternal joy comes with the dissolution of the ego self, which constantly grasps for personal pleasure. By letting go of transient pleasure and resting instead in the joy of the eternal present, you can be in ecstasy in every moment.

Joy is Your Power to Create: Joy is a supreme energy or power from which your entire worldly experience is manifested. Joy is the nectar that enlivens you. Your joy breathes you, walks you, dances you. It is the very impulse of the Divine within you. You cannot experience abundance, nor share it with the world, without first living your joy. Why is that? When you are constricted in fear or doubt or struggle, closed off from joy, it's a sure sign that your ego has taken the reigns. The ego-self is a finite identity with limited creative capacity. When you open instead to the infinite creative potential of the universal Self, you can manifest freely with ease and grace, and with joy as the abiding experience.

Offer Your Joy in Service: Your joy is a powerful light that brightens the world. It has a unique pattern, a unique vibration that cannot be replicated in any other person. If you suppress your joy, it will be lost to all. You have no right to silence it, or deny it, or shrink away from it. While joy requires no particular words or exchange, you might feel compelled to express it in some way. Eleanor Roosevelt is quoted as saying, "Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give." How will you offer your happiness to the world?

During this holiday season, with the warmth of family and loved ones all around, take stock not only in what you have to be joyful for, but how you serve the world through your joy.

And when you are wearied from all your holiday shopping, remember this: Love is the greatest gift, joy the most valuable currency. As Mother Theresa expressed beautifully, "A joyful heart is the inevitable result of a heart burning with love."