Hey friend,
Join me for 30 Days of Points of Joy! Let’s care for our souls and nervous systems with this simple practice.
This is my first attempt at recording a video directly in Substack and there are so many features I haven’t figured out. You may prefer to read rather than watch the video, so I’m including the transcript here.
If you’re reading this in your email, you can watch the video with subtitles by clicking on the video above, or click on the link at the top of the post that says, “Read in app.”
Hello, Substack friends.
I want to share with you today a very simple soul care and nervous system care
practice that I call Points of Joy.
I learned about this many years ago from our amazing therapist, Deborah Gray,
and what she said was that when parents are doing hard,
hard work of parenting,
and especially when it's complicated,
parents tend to delete joy from their lives.
They delete fun from their lives.
And I definitely found that to be true for me and for Russ.
And even if you're not parenting, life can be really hard and complicated sometimes.
So we need to intentionally add joy back into our lives.
The thing about joy is it impacts our minds and our souls,
and it also helps our nervous systems.
It kind of fills our nervous systems in a positive way that helps us be able to regulate more easily, and it increases our window of tolerance for the hard things,
which is super, super important, especially if you're parenting.
So I want to remind us of the scripture in Philippians where Paul writes at the
very end, [Philippians 4:8]
Whatever is true,
whatever is honorable,
whatever is just,
whatever is pure,
whatever is lovely,
whatever is commendable.
If there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
So what we do in Points of Joy is brainstorm a list of 50, 5-0, things that give you joy.
And these can be very, very tiny things.
They can be as small as putting on your favorite chapstick.
They could be a little bigger,
like having a very beautiful mug that you put your coffee in every morning.
It could be taking a walk.
It could be calling a friend.
It could be something bigger,
like even taking a day away or going out on a date or whatever it is.
It can be anything from tiny to much, much bigger.
Most of mine are tiny because that's what's actually attainable for me.
And that's true of many of us.
I mean, specifically, I remember when we had all the kids home, life was so, so demanding.
And I remember each evening after dinner,
I would just step out on the back porch while the family started clearing the
table.
and just breathe deeply. Even if it was five degrees outside, I would just step
outside and take a breath, look out at the view (I’m really fortunate to have a bit
of a view from my back porch)
and just breathe.
And that was a point of joy for me.
I often would light a candle on the kitchen windowsill or on my desk just for that
little bit of joy.
It could be putting on a favorite sweater,
which not many of us are doing right now since I'm recording this in August,
but it could be having clean sheets on your bed.
It could be anything.
So begin brainstorming this list of 50 points of joy.
And it might take you, some people, it takes weeks to come up with 50.
Some people can knock it out really fast.
So whichever, it doesn't really matter.
This is a very imperfect, simple practice.
And then what we do is every day, I want you to try to add seven points of joy to your day.
I want you to try to get seven in.
Now there's a mom I worked with in private coaching and she had such a great idea.
She said what she does is at the beginning of every day,
she would write down four points of joy that she was planning on.
I don't remember exactly what they were,
but they might've been like for me,
honestly, having coffee in a favorite mug every single day I do that.
So she would write down her four things that she already knew and she'd leave three
blanks so that she would be looking
for these little bits of joy and her mind would be tuned to it.
I always think of this quote by Dr.
Curt Thompson where he says,
“Put yourself in the way of oncoming beauty,”
because beauty is joy as well.
Like if I have even a single flower and a little vase on the windowsill above my
sink, or if I'm outdoors,
I took a beautiful walk in our arboretum at the university the other day,
there were so many beautiful little moments on that walk.
Those are all points of joy.
So we want to begin putting seven points of joy
in our days, every day.
And I want to invite you to do this with me for 30 days.
You can leave comments right here on this post.
I would absolutely love to hear from you as you brainstorm your list.
Maybe you could share a few of those things as you begin implementing,
seven things every day.
Please come back to this post, drop a comment.
I will be paying attention to the comments.
and interacting with you there.
Now, if you want to interact more,
we are doing this as a group in the Hope Circle,
which is my group for adoptive, foster, and kinship moms.
If that is you, I invite you to join us.
We're going to be doing this three times a week,
sharing different points of joy and how we're doing with it.
I've already introduced it there.
So we're just getting started.
You can find The Hope Circle on my website.
If you want to interact with me like this more throughout the month.
So 30 days, and this is a very small time commitment,
I just really encourage you
Let's do this together.
Let's do a little reset as we come toward the end of the summer to put more joy,
intentional joy,
back into our lives to care for our souls and care for our nervous systems.
All right.
Thank you so much for being part of my Substack community.
I'm very excited to spend more time here and get to know you all better.
All right.
I look forward to hearing from you in the comments.
Don't miss out on this simple and powerful experience of 30 Days of Points of Joy.
With hope and love,
Lisa
P.S. Registration is open for the fall Fullness of Joy retreats! If you’re an adoptive, foster, or kinship mom, this retreat is for you! Find more info and register on my website.
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