What Brings You Joy?

What makes you tick? What makes your eyes sparkle, the hair on the back of your neck stand on end proudly, I recently received this question during a meditation, what brings you pure JOY?

What brings you joy, Amber? There is no one thing that brings me joy.

I love hearing my kids’ infectious giggles. I love to hear kookaburras. I love the feeling of a diary full of clients I have the opportunity to help. I love to travel. I love spending time with my girlfriends. I love learning. I love trusting my intuition. I love sharing these gifts and talents I have been blessed with. I love long hugs and butterfly kisses. I love bush walks on cold days when the earth crackles beneath my feet.

But again, I had this perception I had to find ONE thing that bought me pure joy. I started to look back over the years and try to pin point certain times and events that bought joy to my heart. But the more I thought, the more I realised they were moments, rather than activities. They are in the past, and only exist in my heart and memory. If I think about a time, such as the birth of our second son, a time that bought such clarity, purpose and intense joy to me at that moment, I can feel that moment of pure joy start to well in my heart again. Upon pondering this question whilst driving the two hours from Perth to Boddington I finally had that ‘aha’ moment. Everything brings me joy. This very moment brings me joy, knowing you are reading this blog now and will possibly share it with your loved ones brings me immense joy! I have such a deep appreciation and respect for my own life and existence, that every single moment brings me joy. I hear you ask, “but what about the bad times Amber, how can you find joy in sickness and death, in pain and suffering?” And yes, those times suck. It happens to all of us.

We recently had a sudden death in the family that rocked us all. I mourned deeply and with much sorrow. However, during my mourning I also acknowledged her life, and the joy she bought to the world, to every person she met. I acknowledged the joy of coming together with family and friends, regardless of the sad circumstances, the joy at reconnecting with loved ones we love that we live so far from, shone through the darkness.

There can not be death without birth, there can not be sickness without health, there can not be dark without light! Our human existence depends on the duality of consciousness! Everything exists in duality! It’s important to know that when we are going through a rough moment, there will be light not long after. When there is pain, be it physical or emotional, the healing has already started to occur! We may not be aware of it, but it is happening!

I spent 3 days over the weekend just past doing a course. I travelled to Perth to spend 3 days away from my loved ones, away from my beloved animals and from my husband who was on night shift. I explored my own comfort circle and expanded the borders to challenge myself, to learn, to receive, to laugh and to connect deeply with other people and THIS BRINGS ME JOY!

I live a truly incredible and inspirational life! I am truly blessed by a gorgeous family, we live in a stunning part of Western Australia, and I run a busy practice here at Amber Healing. I have been incredibly well received in the Boddington Community and I am so proud of this!

Considering when we moved to Boddington 3 years ago, I was just going to ‘play mummy for a while’ to our two gorgeous little boys… then within 1 week of being here, I treated my first client… and the rest of you started knocking on the door soon after! It was then that I realised I live an abundantly joyful life! Now I look for joy, light, and love in every situation. What I have learnt from this is that in every situation there is joy. We just need to search for it, acknowledge it and accept it! I took my children to the pool this afternoon for a swim after school despite being exhausted after a huge weekend learning. My eldest resisted getting out to go home for over an hour. I remember catching myself in a moment of exhaustion about to turn into 'Grumpy Mummy’, and thinking “would I be this nasty to myself? Why would he be so nasty and ignorant to me? Everyone is a direct reflection of me right?”. Its true! I would never ignore my self, so why was he ignoring me? What was I to learn from this?

I thought about this for a bit as I watched him play happily with his friends swimming confidently and giggling, I realised in that moment, HE was experiencing joy…and although in that very moment I was experiencing the opposite emotion, yet he was in pure joy mode!

This equilibrated the situation immediately and I watched on as he played and connected with his mates. And in a strange way, I too felt joy from his pleasure. A quote I try to live by sums up this story perfectly.

“at the deepest level, both science and philosophy agree on one thing, and that is that we are all one.”

So I leave you with the question, what brings you joy?

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