Cultivating Joy

Hello 2023 🙂

Slowlii

Alicia and I were chatting, and our goal this year is to cultivate joy, and we hope you come along for the journey!

• Why? Well, to be honest we kinda feel like we were missing it in 2022 – “lost it” amidst the daily grind. Launching a business took a huge emotional toll on us and we want to get back to why we started Slowlii in the first place – to enjoy more of the small stuff.

But enough about us, here are three reasons why we all should focus more on joy:

1. Financial & career goals are cool, but ranking joy as a new year resolution just sounds like more fun. And we are ready for more fun :). 
2. Thinking about joy through the eyes of a child is pretty remarkable and we’re lucky to be reminded of this with our three littles ones on the daily. Childlike joy is constant curiosity, connection and wonder. Obviously we don’t want to look like we are on shrooms regularly, but we hope just the intent itself sparks more connection.
3. Seeing someone joyful is like a magnet, so it’s a wise way to be. 

Elsewhere 

Since January is all about relationships, with yourself (mind + body) and with others, here are two worthwhile insights:

1. “It is the erosion and eventual loss of safety and trust that creates the conditions for the death of a marriage” This is How Your Marriage Ends, Matthew Frey 

• Okay this title is intense – and Alicia was alarmed when she saw it on my desk ha –  but, seeing so many marriages dissolve around me, I thought it was worth a read.
• This book is eye opening. How small things in a relationship can become big things over time. There is a story of a man explaining that his wife was “losing her mind” that he ate a fish sandwich. He thought it was petty and that she was blowing it out of proportion. So he perceived himself as fair minded and mature and his wife was someone who didn’t know how to maintain a healthy perspective aka a little crazy. But really, the fish sandwich was a trust thing because they both agreed that they would go vegan.  So long story short, the book helped me become more aware of a few “fish sandwich” examples in my own life.

2. “I think my why is, ‘Can it make people happy?  Now that is something on which you can build a career. It isn’t following a path. It isn’t doing something just because. It is a mission. A purpose. And the blueprint for how to build even bigger”, Jimmy Fallon, source. 

• After I read the “DADA” book to my kids I was wondering what Jimmy Fallon was doing writing a book. So I dug a little deeper and this answers it.
• His purpose is literally to make people happy and it radiates off of him, doesn’t it?  He is a walking smile machine. Jimmy had two failed movies and was pretty lost for a while, but once he slowed down and pieced together his why, which actually happened over a long period of time, his path became a little more clear. Even when he was bagging groceries as a teen, people would request him because of those smiles he created in others. 
• Thanks to him, our son said dada before mama. There is a smile. 

*Image via @jacquiemunguia Unsplash