I am now in the homestretch of the “21 Days of Joy: A Resilience Practice” project by Jessica Lin, and as promised, here’s a recap of my week of joy activities from Days 8-14, as well as a few more thoughts.

Day 8’s activity was to express gratitude as a way to focus attention on positive things. I could have filled a page with all the moments in any given day that I am grateful for. It then occurred to me that I was most grateful for the awareness of daily joys in even the smallest quantity.

Day 9’s suggestion was to spread kindness in some way. As I was in my studio working on new paintings, I was reflecting on my almost-10 years as an artist, and those who have been kind to me. So I reached out to 2 of the people who helped me make my decision to become a full-time artist, thanking them for their kindness towards me as I struggled to make the decision.

Day 10 was all about using the sense of touch. The suggested exercise was to hold a small object for 5 minutes and take notice of the sensations, thoughts and feelings, in order to be grounded in the present. I chose a small quartz (amethyst?) dolphin that I keep on a bedside table. This was such a pleasant 5 minutes, noticing the cool temperature, the smoothness and the sharp edges, and how it fit so perfectly in my hand as I rolled it around. It certainly got me out of my head and gave me a new novel way to meditate for a few minutes. The dolphin is being moved to my art studio!

Day 11’s prompt was Blooms or Flowers. Luckily I had a bunch of my favourite flower, the tulip, on the dining room table. When I am feeling winter-worn, I buy tulips. They are the hope of spring, and set against a backdrop of 4-foot snowbanks out my backyard window, they did their cheery job.

Day 12 was a “connection” day where we were to connect with others who make us feel good. I decided that from now on, I will connect with those on social media by commenting on their posts instead of just “liking” or sending an emoji. Not only has this made me feel much more connected, I am getting almost instantaneous responses – as I suspected, there is a thirst for connection out there!

Day 13’s activity was to hug whoever, whatever was nearby. I took it up a notch and looked up how long a hug should be in order to release the “happy hormones”. The consensus seems to be a minimum 10 seconds but interestingly anything beyond 20 seconds may be a bit much according to social norms.

Day 14’s prompt was Movie… a film that brings joy. A few days earlier I had watched the final film in the Bridget Jones series, “Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy”. It was quite an emotional viewing because I felt like my friends and I had experienced adulthood along with Bridget over the last 24 years. For a work of fiction, it hit home in all the right places and it made me reflect on all our journeys with compassion and joy.

Now for my thoughts about this past week’s experiences with the project.

Thought #1: Like last week, there were activities that created a sense of joy and others that created a sense of positivity. The actions that brought me the most joy centered on connection with others, and that joy was longer-lasting. It gave me the realization that this is an area in my life that needs more attention, more deliberate action.

Thought #2: Not only was I interacting with my fellow joy-monger participants, but I started noticing more references to joy in my social media feed. Was I retraining the algorithms? (Some say you can do this by flooding your feeds with a certain topic…) I also think that after a few weeks of exposure to the world’s newest chaos creators, perhaps we’re getting over the shock and bewilderment, and countering with something more useful. I saw a fair bit of sentiment outside of our project about joy being “an act of resistance” and that there seemed to be pushback to all the negativity – the beginnings of a realization that we can do something about how we react to extreme external conditions.

Now onto the final week of the 21 Days of Joy experience with:

I’d love to hear any thoughts you might have about your relationship with joy!