Choose to sing, dance and play

Choose to sing dance and play when you most feel like you should be doing something more important/productive/(fill in the blank here)

Ok, so doing something a little different here today and want to share a bit of inspiration to help remind you to “Choose Joy”!

We know what we want to do. In our gut, in our hearts – we know. 

But somehow (it doesn’t matter if we’re talking about our children or ourselves), we’ve been conditioned to feel things like guilt and shame, and fear being labeled things like irresponsible, selfish and/or permissive.

So instead of letting go of that fear and embracing our Joy, we resign ourselves to do what we believe we are supposed to do… and we push ‘Joy’ away! 

…What?!

Neeeeeverrr! 

… yeeeaaaap… happens more often than we like to admit…

Cue the scenes in “Inside Out” where Joy, Anger, Fear, Disgust, and Sadness all fight over how to make Riley feel? Well, our brains often find all kinds of ways to rationalize why we need to do something e.g. productive/worthy/valuable – but by what standards, and at what cost?

Do any of these sound familiar?

• Resigning yourself to finishing the dishes, picking up the never ending mess or doing the laundry at the end of the night instead of giving yourself that self-care pamper treatment you’ve been putting off
• Feeling obligated to attend a social event instead of staying in for that much needed R&R
• Choosing work or other ‘productive’ activity instead of spending time playing with your child
• Later regretting that you ‘wasted’ time watching or reading for pure entertainment
• Or even something like not letting your kids go out to play in the rain because they might catch a cold (and god forbid, someone see and think you’re an irresponsible parent!).

So what happens when we continually put our Joy on hold? It eventually snowballs into resentment. And we don’t even remember how we got where we are.

In the grand scheme of things, none of those things we felt we had to do, actually mattered. What if in those moments, we had chosen ‘Joy’ instead? Together, those small choices can set your life on a very different track.

So why am I sharing all this?

I’m a workaholic. I currently work part-time but still, I always find myself B-U-S-Y. 

While visiting home and roadtripping in California with the hubby and kids, I worked 20 hours a week and talked to my boss in the UK at 7:00am and I was still pushing myself to try and get a few blog posts written and the May newsletter out the door. Did it happen?

Nope.

Was I hugely disappointed? Fortunately, no.

I did try to finish the blog posts and newsletter on a few drives between places we visited but ultimately, with the last few days in California with my parents, I chose to enjoy mom’s home cookin’, chatting to my parents about nothin’ in particular and…

Karaoke!

Sing, dance and play, my friends 🙂 “Everything’s going to be alright (yeah)”

We just returned this past weekend from our trip to California and after recovering from the effects of my 2nd dose of the Pfizer vaccine (if you got sick from the vaccine, imagine that happening on a 12 hour flight leg!), I realized there was a ton of housework to do, to clean up after our 3 week trip and prepare for the coming week of school and work.

Although there was a giant mountain of dishes piling up in the sink and counters today, I didn’t let it bother me and decided to spend my afternoon with the kids and play the ukulele (I started trying to learn to play the Over the Rainbow song by the late I.K.!)

Sing, dance and play, my friends 🙂 “Everything’s going to be alright (yeah)”

I did feel a tiny pang of guilt leaving the husband to handle the kitchen later that night but little by little, I’m learning to let go, and allowing myself to choose Joy!

I once heard this interesting metaphor (I can’t remember where I read it!) to explain to children when they’re feeling upset or down. It was looking at all the raindrops on a car windshield. That this one moment they’re feeling is just one raindrop, just one experience in their life amongst so many others. It’s a really simple but beautiful way to explain that “Everything’s going to be alright (yeah)”. 🙂

Can you challenge yourself to choose more Joy this week?

We’d love to hear how you and your kids chose more Joy this week in the comments below!