In this week’s video, we are excited to share with you a simple, yet profound, concept for finding greater happiness and wonder in your daily life. Click the VIDEO below & WATCH this week's inspiring video episode.
Letting ourselves experience the joy of hope & anticipation of our dreams & goals, is a key in allowing the creation of daily happiness. There is great joy, and WONDER, that can be found in the anticipation of something that has not yet arrived…whether that be a special event, the dream of something you wish to happen, the attainment of a certain professional goal, or something simple like a really good dinner or the watching of your favorite show.
The helpful phrase, “enjoy the journey” may sound simple, yet it is an empowering technique to create daily happiness.
We recently were reading a book, along with some articles and blogs that were talking about the positive feeling & health benefits of “anticipatory joy”. This inspired us to discuss and reflect on this idea that a major way for any of us to feel happier in any single normal day, is to remember to let ourselves feel & express the joy we feel in waiting for something special to happen.
Scientific research has found that the more you allow yourself to experience the joy & uplifting excitement of anticipation, the more easily you will be able to overcome obstacles that may present themselves to you on the way to that something. Studies have actually found that the looking forward to a vacation is more pleasurable than often the time spent actually on the vacation.
In our modern culture, we have nearly instant reward and gratification. We have become so used to getting the things we want… now, or at least pretty fast. Go online, buy something, get it the next day in the mail. Or want something, well you can get it now because there is a way to get a cheap version that’s affordable. More so than in humanities past, many of us have become accustomed to getting the things we want now really fast, and we have lost the familiarity of the joyful experience of looking forward to something.
From our daily experiences, we have found that there is one obvious and BIG difference between our happy days and our sad days. The difference maker being the presence or lack of joyful anticipation & hope.
On our sad and emotionally depressed days, the joy of anticipation & hope is absent. When we feel sad and down, it is usually because in that moment we do not feel the things we want to happen ever will, or we do not know how we will ever get them to happen, or that what we want to happen will not, or we feel just whatever about stuff, so there is nothing to look forward to.
On our happy days, we vibrate with the frequency of joy & excitement for a whole variety of things that we are looking forward to happening. In that sureness & faith that these things that we look forward to will happen, we live in the present moment knowing that all is well and things are working out. We feel we have good life, with challenges, yet an empowered perspective that we can handle the challenges because good things are happening and will happen.
We are not saying that life would be more beautiful without the sad and down and out days. It is from the depths of sadness, that we often learn about the magical wonder of love & happiness. We are joy loving people, who do visit the emotional places of despair and worry occasionally. It was actually because of those days of feeling sad and depressed that inspired & necessitated the need for us to commit to a daily & weekly practice to find and share joy, wonder & gratitude with the world. From the dark place of worry and fear, the inspired concept to be intentional joy & wonder seekers was born… and now we have co-founded Sea Tree Wonder.
It is our goal and purpose that the inspiring Sea Tree Wonder mission to find & share joy, wonder & gratitude, not only helps the two of us to live happier lives, though for it to inspire & motivate YOU to embrace & experience the joy, wonder & reasons for appreciation that fill YOUR life. We are in this together, with you, as we all go through the journey called life… and if we can develop daily practices that give our lives purpose and increased happiness, then the world really does become a happier place.
We know what it feels like to be a happy people with exciting goals & dreams. As we each go through life, some of our dreams and things that we were really excited about, have manifested wonderfully, others have not yet, and some things just really did not work out how we wanted. We started realizing that we were not dreaming and getting as happily excited about our upcoming plans. It almost felt like enough of them had not turned out, so we were conserving our joy for when things turned out well, but missing the potential to experience joy on the journey to fulfillment. We realized that this was no way to create daily happiness.
Keeping yourself safe from disappointment is a ticket to an unhappy life.
It’s a certainty of life, that things are not always going to turn out how we want them to…though, if we forgo excited anticipation, we miss out on a necessary way to feel the hopefulness of daily joy & wonder that makes life worth living.
Without hope or anticipation, life can feel unhappy & hopeless...
We are done missing out on the happiness of anticipation & hope. We are making a daily commitment to ourselves to be excited about the things that are to come. We are finding that when you just let yourself be happy in the expecting, and you are not impatient or frustrated that it has not happened yet, because you know it will if you take the necessary actions…you can feel really happy. You have the wish, you work towards it's manifestation, you have fun expecting it to happen, you know it will, so you’re not frustrated that it has not happened yet… and then it actually does happen.
Life will always be a mixed bag of things going as planned, things going better than planned, things going differently than planned, and things going much worse than planned. The key to creating daily happiness is allowing ourselves to find joy & wonder in the journey to our goals, dreams, and needs.
We are going to commit, daily, to celebrating the excitement of something that is to come. It sure leads to a happier day filled with wonder & hope. Challenges and problems are not as big of an issue when we are happier and feeling more resourceful.
It is a daily commitment to find joy in anticipation. Practices like this have to be committed to every day, especially when you are forming new habits. It is important to have excited anticipation about even the surest and most short term things because it is fun to feel excitement and then have it actually happen. Sometimes, trying to be excited about something for months and months on end can lead to excitement burnout. Having things to be excited about in all ranges of time frames is important. Short term goals are helpful and can be celebrated on the journey to a larger goal.
These are some helpful things we ALL can keep in mind as we practice feeling anticipatory joy & hope…
~ Make small attainable goals that can be celebrated each step along the way.
(It is rewarding to envision a goal, take action, have it happen, and celebrate it.)
~ Remember life is a journey, and the best way to create happiness, is to live in the present moment.
~ Keep perspective about what life is all about. Remember life is about feeling and sharing happiness and love with ourselves & others.
~ Be kind with ourselves, when things don’t go as planned.
~ Realize that there’s lots to be excited about, so it’s ok if an outcome does not turn out as planned because there is something else to be excited about.
~ When anxiety starts creeping in, reach for the feeling of something happy that could happen.
In summary, we hope that these ideas are helpful for how you can experience more happiness in your daily life. We are all in this together as we open our minds, eyes, and hearts to finding & sharing joy, wonder and reasons for gratitude with each other.
The joy of anticipation really is a wonderment. Have fun basking in the joy of all the amazing things to come. If everything were to manifest instantaneously, life really wouldn’t be all that fun. The waiting is the exciting part...
Until then, go have fun being excited about the simple things and life pleasures that you have to look forward to in your life. If you ever need ideas, feel free to reach out. We are here as your friends.
May this video inspire you to seek the joy & wonder that is the essence of who you are…
Share & interact with us in the COMMENT section below…
~ Do you let yourself feel joy & hopefulness about the upcoming things or events that you look forward to having happen in your life?
~ How do you find daily joy, even when the things you really want to happen in your life have not happened yet?
~ Do you find it difficult to feel joy & hope in the waiting of things to happen?
~ How do you create daily happiness for yourself?
We are building a FINDING JOY ONLINE COMMUNITY and we look forward to sharing our joys and wonders with each other. Together, we can inspire & uplift each other through sharing gratitude, joy, inspiration, and wonder with each other.
Episode Credits:
All video & photos were filmed by the two of us in this video episode, with the exception of the following public domain footage;
~ Traveling Through Clouds by Pressmaster, licensed through Pexels
The wonderful music that goes into underscoring our videos is all licensed through Artlist. Musical Artists heard in THIS Episode:
~ Swirling Ship, Tom Goldstein, Kevin Graham, Osker Wyld, Hanjo Gabler, Ziv Moran, Maurizio Lampugnani, Ian Post & Marc Robillard
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Cheers to feeling & celebrating the daily happiness that’s possible for us each to experience in the joy & hope of our simple & grand anticipations & dreams.
Your friends,
Wendy (Sequoia Win’Ni) & Megan
and "Wonder DOGS" Uluru & Konane
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