January in Review

Well friends, my first month of The Joyfulness Encounter is quickly drawing to a close so I figured I better write one more January post! For your reading pleasure I will review some January highlights, and then inform you of slight changes I'll be making to the completion of this project :)

January Highlights:

Kairos Joy - it has been so beneficial to search out those Kairos moments in each day, and be intentional about keeping my Kairos "memoir" (a simple doc on my computer at this point). It has been an integral part of keeping my focus on Joy, rather than fleeting happiness!

Motivation - after a month of choosing Joy, I am finding my motivation has increased! Motivation to get out, to make connections, to pull myself out of a slump, etc. One practical application of this motivation is my newly scheduled Tuesday Coffee/Playdates! I sent out a message to a number of other young moms in my church, suggesting they bring themselves and their little ones over on Tuesday mornings to get out of the house and hang out together! I finally feel Joyful enough to do something about my winter cabin fever and my winter loneliness - killing two birds with one stone :) (Unfortunately, we are a bunch of sickies in our home right now, so we won't actually be beginning this new playdate until next week)

A few things that need some more intentionality through the next months...
I need to work on Beginning and Ending my day in Joy! My Joy awareness has been increasing throughout each day, particularly during moments of stress (although I would be lying if I claimed to change my attitude immediately!). But I have not been intentional enough about getting out of bed each morning with a prayer of Joy on my lips, and laying my head back down at night with whispers of gratitude and Joy!
I need to focus my intentionality into certain areas of Joy. Through the month of January, I randomly chose resolutions out of my collection ending up with resolutions in various categories of life (i.e. my roles as mother, wife, friend, etc.). But I really struggled this month, feeling as though my focus was spread too thin trying to cover so many areas of Joy! Which leads me to the change I'll be making for the following months...

I have grouped my resolutions into areas of Joy so I will be able to give more intentional focus to those areas (i.e. mother, wife, friend, home, etc.). There will still be an element of random-draw to choose the category each month, but I will have the opportunity to concentrate each month on one area, which I'm hoping will help with the focus issues I've been having. And maybe this will give me a higher "success" rate as I won't be constantly flitting from one area to another throughout my days. We shall see...

Well, friends, that's all I have to say for January (my head is a little fuzzy from this cold...can't remember anything else I had wanted to mention)! Until tomorrow, when a new month of Joy begins :)

I'll leave you with the lyrics from a childhood favorite:
"Joy is the flag flown high from the castle of my heart...for the King is in residence there." ~ Joy is the Flag :)