Finding Joy in the Everyday

Life rushes by at breakneck speed, and we often miss the countless small joys embedded in our everyday experiences. What if we could train ourselves to notice these precious moments more consistently? 

Sally Burlington guides us through practical approaches to embracing everyday joy in this heartfelt conversation about mindfulness and gratitude. As we transition from winter's darkness to spring's renewal, Sally shares powerful insights about making joy accessible to everyone—regardless of background, education, or resources. "Joy is there, waiting for all of us," she reminds us, "and training our eyes to see it will make all the difference."

The episode explores three foundational practices for cultivating greater happiness: gratitude journaling to recognize daily blessings, self-compassion to counter our inner critic, and celebrating small wins to boost motivation. Sally candidly shares her own struggles with self-criticism, particularly when editing podcast recordings, and offers the revolutionary suggestion of creating "done lists" rather than focusing exclusively on to-do lists.

Two transformative social media trends receive special attention: Drew Barrymore's movement to redefine "pretty" beyond physical appearance (being "pretty patient" or "pretty dedicated") and the reflective exercise of imagining a coffee date with your younger self. Sally walks us through her own imagined meeting, revealing touching contrasts between past and present selves while acknowledging enduring qualities like curiosity and friendship. This intimate glimpse reminds us that we often treat our younger selves with more compassion than we extend to ourselves today.

Ready to discover more joy in your daily life? Listen now, then try these reflective practices yourself. You might be surprised by the insights you uncover when you reconnect with your authentic self and train your eyes to notice the beauty that surrounds you every day.

To learn more, go to mycreateharmony.com

Chapters

• 0:05 Welcome to Create Harmony
• 0:51 Episode Introduction: Winter Wellbeing
• 2:05 Embracing Joy Through Daily Practices
• 3:57 Self-Compassion and Small Victories
• 5:18 Redefining "Pretty" Beyond Appearance
• 6:43 Coffee With My Younger Self
• 9:11 Closing Thoughts and Invitation

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Welcome back to the Create Harmony podcast. So this is a place where we celebrate goodness all around us, and in the hustle and bustle of daily life, it's easy to overlook these small but really significant sources of happiness. By cultivating mindfulness and practicing gratitude, we can train ourselves to become attuned to all the joys that surround us all the time, whether it's a spontaneous hug from someone you love or feeling the satisfaction of getting a task completed, or maybe it's the beauty of nature in full bloom. These moments are gifts. They're precious little gifts that remind us of the richness of life. So let's embrace them, and embrace the magic of every day, and let them fill our hearts with warmth and contentment. So this is episode 117, and I'm your host, sally Burlington.

Speaker 1: 0:57

So throughout winter here at Create Harmony, we've journeyed through a series we called Winter Wellbeing, and that's where we make a mindset shift toward things that lift our spirits and just generally enhance our well-being during the winter. So listen, winter is long and it is dark and it is cold, and I don't even live in a place that winter is extra long, because I live in North Carolina, but sometimes it seems like time just stands still and winter just keeps going, on and on and on. Now, where I live right now, we're starting to have all the signs of early spring and we know that by now we're going to make it. We're going to make it out of winter and where you live, you might be really getting tired of winter and maybe you're getting tired of this content. So we're only going to touch on it for just a few short minutes and then we're moving on to something else. So we're just here to say today that to be on the lookout for ways to embrace joy, that can be a life-changing mindset shift. So getting into habits where you see more joy around you, that's the way to make your life happier. It takes a bit of practice, but anyone can do it. You don't have to have a special background, no qualifications, no special education. You don't have to have a ton of money or a ton of time. Joy is there, waiting for all of us, and training our eyes to see it will make all the difference.

Speaker 1: 2:24

So here at Create Harmony, some of the practices that we dwell on that support this idea are gratitude, self-compassion and self-care and just celebrating small wins. So gratitude is a powerful tool and it is really part of embracing everyday joys. We do a whole series in the fall that we call Great Fall, and it is focusing on things that we're grateful for, shifting our attention to what we do have and not what we do not have. So that's really restorative and good. But gratitude is woven into all of the concepts that we talk about. You might wanna weave some more gratitude into your rhythms, maybe. Keep a gratitude journal and each day take a few minutes to write down just you can write down just three things that you're grateful for, and over time, what this will do is this practice will train your mind to recognize things that are good and appreciate them and recognize small blessings, and that leads you to a more happy life.

Speaker 1: 3:25

Now I also mentioned self-compassion. Being kind and compassionate towards ourselves is crucial for embracing those everyday joys. We have a tendency to or maybe you don't, but I have a tendency to criticize myself for every perceived shortcoming I make, and when I listen after I record this content and I listen to it back, my inner editor, you know, goes to work and does stuff tons of work, but that really hinders my ability to experience happiness. So I really have to train myself to practice self compassion and treat myself with the same kind of kindness and understanding that I would offer to a friend of mine, someone that I love, and that shift in perspective can really help me appreciate all the efforts and achievements that I have, no matter how small they are, and really just find joy in the journey. So, speaking of celebrating things, life is full of small victories and those things deserve to be celebrated. So every time you complete a project, or if you try a new habit and you stick to it a little bit, just getting through a really tough day, all acknowledging and celebrating all of those things can boost your mood and boost your motivation. One of the habits that we've talked about here is, instead of making a to do list of all the things you have to do, maybe take some time once in a while to make a list of all the things that you have already gotten done. Celebrate the things that you have already accomplished done. Celebrate the things that you have already accomplished. This does not have to be anything grand, but just a simple pat on the back, just a moment of recognition, can reinforce your sense of joy and accomplishment. Now, along those same lines this is sort of in the vein of self-compassion I noticed a couple of trends this winter on social media that I thought were really interesting.

Speaker 1: 5:18

And the first one. I just want to highlight them just in case you haven't seen them or maybe you have. We're going to dwell on them a little bit more. The first one was started by Drew Barrymore and it was something along the lines of wanting to be pretty when you're older, and then it was followed by ways that you were pretty, like pretty patient or pretty adventuresome, or pretty dedicated or pretty fit. You get the idea and so when you first read it, you think pretty and you think that means something about your physical attractiveness. But then you realize that pretty can have a much more expansive definition, and I really like this mindset shift because for women, being physically pretty is tough and it takes up a lot of our time, especially once we begin aging, spend lots of time and energy trying to become something that really is subjective and you end up trying to define yourself by someone else's version of beauty, and I'm going to tell you right now that is not the path to joy. So just thinking of all the ways that you're pretty, something is a much more expansive viewpoint, and I think it can really be a great way to reframe that, that idea.

Speaker 1: 6:28

So, secondly, I've seen a lot of people posting over the last few weeks about meeting your younger self for coffee and then you go through all the things and the ways that you are same and different, the insights that you have when you are having this coffee with your younger self. So this might be something that people of a certain age are seeing more than younger folks. So I mean, you have to be, I guess, a certain age to want to meet your younger self for coffee. But anyway, it's a nice idea to think about how your younger self might see you. Your younger self might see you and generally, in a general sense, we tend to be more gentle on our younger selves than we are on our current selves. The self-compassion thing Maybe there's a lesson in that Finding ways to connect with your own inner child or your own inner voice can be very restorative and I think reflecting on that will help you think about your current self in ways that are softer and more gentle. So here we go.

Speaker 1: 7:26

I'm going to do this as sort of like our closing. I am going to say if I were going to have coffee with my younger self, let's see what would happen. She would probably be a few minutes late and I would arrive on time. She would get some sort of chocolatey sweet coffee and I would probably get some kind of tea. She would be pleased to know that I found a wonderful husband and life partner who loves me, and I became the mom of two girls who are thriving.

Speaker 1: 8:02

She spends a lot of time making adjustments to who she is and how she looks to adapt to the needs of those around her, and I do not. She probably thought that I was old, where I feel like I'm just getting started on a new life. She tends to play by the rules and I like to dream a bigger dream. We both have a sense of curiosity about the world. We both like to read. We both like to spend time with friends.

Speaker 1: 8:34

She seemed happy to hear that my life brings me joy, but her definition of joy is probably different from mine, and at the end we hugged and smiled at each other and I hope to meet her again soon. May it be so. Maybe you want to try on some of these ideas to brighten your day. You'll be surprised some of the insights you realize if you go through these exercises redefining yourself as pretty something and also just reconnecting with your inner voice or your inner child. So thanks for joining us today as we talked about connecting more deeply with ourselves. Hopefully you'll come back next week for some more soul soothing conversations. And until next time, peace, thank you.