Somewhere Over The Rainbow

Let intuition connect you to joy

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Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high
There's a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby

Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true

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How do you describe joy, that elusive feeling you know only when it arrives?

One day, when you least expect it, it appears, sitting across the table from you in a crowded restaurant. It takes your breath away, and you’re no longer hungry. In fact, you can’t eat. And you hardly know what to do with this feeling except to hold onto it with all the strength and boldness it’s given you. You may give it a sideways glance and wonder more than once if it’s an illusion, but there it remains, and the feeling doesn’t leave. It is undeniable and inescapable, yet different than what you likely envisioned over all those years. There, in front of you, the most beautiful surprise of your life. You’ll forever be wondering who put this gift into your arms.

Joy is that thing that stops us in our tracks and makes life worth living in the moment. It is a rare occurrence—a point in time that connects us to all we are at the core of our being, a place where our deepest felt beliefs and our life’s purpose align with that of another person. The deep resonance of it feels as natural and predestined as anything one can experience. We are supremely lucky if this experience happens even once in our lifetime.

How Do We Find Joy?

Most of us are expert at evading joy. We are conditioned to do things that keep us barricaded off from it, be it in relationships, or in our creative and professional lives. To see it, know it and experience it, we have to get tuned into our gut feelings, our intuition. If these parts of our being are not functioning, the first order of business is to get back in touch with them. Humans are hardwired for intuition, so deliberately practicing and refining it prepares us for putting it into action.

Intuition – that wonderful function our brain provides after having integrated all of our life experiences, the knowledge we’ve acquired and the conditioning we’ve learned. It is our brain looking at the situation in front of us and subconsciously comparing it to everything else we know. Once our brain has made the comparison, it tells us how this novel and present experience fits into our lives. Our gut may be screaming “danger” with a surge of adrenaline, or expressing dislike with a knot in the stomach. Anger might be noted by tension in the neck, fear with a rapid heartbeat. Then there’s love and a myriad of “symptoms” present themselves: euphoria, flushed cheeks, butterflies, and a surge in energy.

If you are a person who pays attention to your body’s reactions, you are already on the right path. If, however, you are someone who prides themselves on shoving feelings to the side and prioritizing logic and objectivity when assessing a situation, you will never get to this top level of connection with the universe, in addition to reacting less than ideally to more basic encounters. Intuition lets you scan the whole “computer” when determining how to react to a particular scenario, while logic, essentially compares the situation to a checklist, then spits out an “appropriate” response. When it comes to life’s most important decisions, you can probably guess which variation of problem-solving is going to result in an answer with the most integrity.

Things to consider in honing your intuition:

• get out in the world: the more life experiences you’ve got, the more reliable your intuition

• when practicing intuitive decision-making, repetition is not enough; continual refinement based on observation and assessment is equally important

• when appropriate, get all the senses involved, not just ears and eyes, but also smell, touch, taste and immune input; fine tune your overall awareness

• work on living in the moment; fully experience what is right in front of you

• release yourself from the habit of overthinking every situation

• improve your self-perception; quit imagining yourself a victim

• figure out how to be happy alone and work toward removing yourself from less-than-ideal relationships

• work toward acceptance of your reality, then get on with it

• be accountable for your behavior, full stop

• improve self-awareness vs. comparing yourself to others

• work toward fewer distractions in your life

• start trusting your hunches; keep track of what transpires

• work toward being your authentic self at all times

Be courageous. When you start to get a feeling about something, don’t immediately seek out the opinion of others. Sit with your feeling, understand it, trust it. This is a fabulous habit to perfect.

Patty Van Cappellen, in The Journal of Positive Psychology says it best: “Joy is elicited by the appraisals that an event aligns with who we truly are, with what we value, what we strive for, what we live for. Joy is the emotion that makes life worth living in the moment because it resonates with our core identity. It is associated with feelings of ease, appreciation, and meaning.”

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Explore this topic in more detail:

Trust Your Vibes, Sonia Choquette

The Art of Intuition: Cultivating Your Inner Wisdom, Sophy Burnham

Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path: a Philosophy of Freedom, Rudolf Steiner and Michael Lipson

Second Sight: How To Tap Your Inner Wisdom, Judith Orloff

How to Hear What You Know, Jan Bowen

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Enjoy “Something’s Got To Give” (Netflix), which explores issues of joy and intuition.

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This column is dedicated to Liz, Ann, and Ashley, who have helped me stay the course and trust my feelings. And to John, who has brought me unexpected and immeasurable joy.