One Simple Trick For More Joy

The place where I live is so beautiful, it’s mind bending.  Sometimes when I’m outside its hard to believe that this landscape is real. The other day I was skiing with Gigi, whose very name, and presence, make me happy and giggly. Bubbly and giddy she is. We were skiing in an inversion, which is when all the clouds hang down into the valleys, filling them with murk, and above it, the snowy peaks are in pure blue-sky sunshine, and as far as the eye can see, the peaks of all the mountain ranges around us are floating in this sea of cloud. It is one of the most spectacular scenes to be in. You feel like you’re flying while you’re skiing, like you’re a bird, or an angel, and when you ski between the layers, when the sun dissipates into cloud as you descend, or when you rise up, on the chairlift, the in-between layer is all smoky blue with shafts of yellow or white waving through, or sometimes small sparkles fill the clouds, all lit up, a million billion sun-lit dots of fluttering snow, through the dense blue darkness into the light of heaven. It really does feel like that, like heaven.

As we paused to catch our breath and to take in the beauty, I asked her, “How do you take in beauty? I mean really. What do you do to feel it? Not just look at it. But be moved by it or changed by it.”

She didn’t even miss a beat, and said, “First I feast on it with my eyes, and listen too,” because we could here the wind humming through the snow stuffed trees, and we could hear the scissor shaft slice of the ravens flying among the tree tops. “And then…I don’t know. You mean how does it get inside you?”

“Yes, how does it get inside. How can I get this immense beauty, this feeling of amazing-ness, in me?” We were both silent, turned inward by the idea. And then we turned our skis downward, and flew off.

We skied all day, floating like that, birds in heaven.

But even in this most beautiful place, I sometimes have a hard time remembering the lightness. Sometimes, I’m stuck in the clouds, below the sun line, in the murk. Life can be so challenging. We all have our struggles, difficult times full of troubles and sorrow. We feel things deeply. Pain. Unfairness. Dread. We suffer loss, indignity, depression.

Living in the wilderness, like I do, helps me remain connected and grounded in beauty. But on the days when I’m deeply sad or depressed, I have to literally drag myself from my office to take the dog for a walk. Always, always, I’m rewarded with some magic. A crystallized stick poking up from the snow. A purple cloud, smooth like a stone, along the sunset edge. Today I saw a black squirrel jump from one tree down into a poof of snow, shake off, and then stand and gaze at me for a moment. I was flustered and joyful to see the little creature and we waved as we passed by, I like to think.

Right there in that moment I “tap it in.” And again when I get home, I take all these joys, the scenes of exquisite beauty, the moments of awe, and “Tap Them In.” With the tip of my finger, in between my eyebrows, I tap lightly, ten or twelve times. I’m tapping in the feeling of Joy. Contentment. Happiness. Peace. The little squirrel smile. The purple stone cloud. A cup of tea, a lovely phone call with my mama. Tap it in. When you do this, you are sending a pulse of energetic information – the energetic imprint of this joyous feeling – and feeding it directly into the nervous system through the intersection of 3 important meridians. The tapping itself, also overrides the energy system of the body that’s intent on keeping you stuck.

This point is also known to stimulate the pineal gland, often correlated in esoteric literature with the third eye. Opening the third eye is said to stimulate your deeper connections with divinity as well as increase your psychic abilities. The pineal gland actually has rods and cones on its surface. It is made to see the inner light of your soul. This is not metaphorical. This is the light within. This is your spirit.

On those days when you’re literally or figuratively stuck in the clouds. If you tap this point, it will release that feeling of joy again, when you need it most. It remembers and reactivates the feeling of joy that you stored away before. Tapping here helps you float up through the clouds, helps you remember: you are also the light.

*This article was written by Lauren Walker and originally published on yogadigest.com*