How Do You Create And Share Joy?

Camille11325 · 2017-09-28T16:26:47+00:00

Like I said in my other post, I loved finding "The Right Needs Joy" because it put to words so many ideas I'd been turning over in my head. Growing up it was very easy to participate in "reality affirming" traditions and rituals. We visited museums, hosted events, attended events and performances, went camping, celebrated the holidays to the max, and more. As a homemaker, I'm now in charge of planning and implementing these activities I used to mostly just participate in. Over the past few years in this new role I haven't been prioritising this aspect of my role due to health issues, but I am finally in a position where I can give 100% and I'm super excited!

We have no issue when it comes to attending parties and celebrations hosted by others, so my focus for the next 3 months will be on creating joy through "reality affirming" traditions and rituals with just M and I. We've been pretty consistent with having a weekly date night where we spend extra time getting ready and then devote 100% of our attention on each other. It's a great way to block out the stresses and pressures of everyday life and really connect.

The first area I'll be focusing on is our meals. I want to tailor what recipes I make to the season so that we feel more in tune with the earth. This may sound silly but it's what people did throughout time and only recently have we abandoned this practice (due to technological advances). Some of my favorite memories are season and nature specific - going to a pumpkin patch, playing in snow, strawberry picking, sailing on a river, etc. M and I love food so a focus on in season produce and recipes that pair well with the spirit of each season will bring some joy to our days :)

I'll also be putting a lot of effort into celebrating Christmas this year. It's my fav holiday and having decor, music, desserts, and more throughout the Christmas season will really lift our spirits (yes M is on board too!).

In the next few weeks I will continue researching ways to make a house feel like a home and create a unique family culture during the holidays. And of course I plan on continuing traditions from my own family and incorporating what M enjoys as well.

Looking forward to hear what everyone else enjoys and plans on doing :)

gemmv · 2017-09-28T21:02:24+00:00

Great post. I think being pregnant has made me even more interested in this topic. It's really important to me to create a happy life for our family and I know that requires mindfulness and effort on a daily basis.

Leading a joyful life begins with having a positive attitude and a gentle spirit in my opinion. Being grateful, mindful, and thoughtful help contribute to my personal happiness, which puts me in the position to genuinely share joy with my friends and family. My goal is to be a source of happiness and peace for the people in my life, especially my husband. I believe in extending grace and treating people with kindness. I strive to be understanding and empathetic rather than critical and judgmental. My spirit sets the tone in our home, I need to be happy in order to create a joyful life for myself and my family.

My daily routine includes refreshing my appearance and my attitude about an hour before my husband arrives home. It's important to look nice but I need to be nice too. Little rituals like this are important to me because they contribute to overall happiness for both of us. It puts things into perspective- I might be in a bad mood but I have an amazing husband who I adore and love with all of my heart and I want to be really good to him, so I'm going to pull myself together (and in doing so I end up feeling better). It's helpful to check my attitude on good days too. I want my husband to come home to a relaxing, loving, peaceful environment and I take pride in creating that for him and knowing it makes him happy.

I look for opportunities to brighten ordinary days. Little things like setting a pretty table for dinner or putting silk sheets on the bed and lighting candles can be really nice. I like to dress up for no specific reason sometimes. Making a special meal for my husband just because or getting takeout from his favorite restaurant can make an average day a little more special. I surprised my SIL with fresh flowers and cookies yesterday when she came to pick up our nieces last night.

Holidays mean a lot to me. I've loved creating traditions with my husband and I'm so excited to share them with our baby. I look forward to the simplest things, some of my favorite memories are watching a Christmas movie and decorating the tree together or taking a walk to look at Christmas lights. Holidays create lots of opportunities for entertaining and I love being hospitable to our friends and family. I know my husband appreciates it too. I've hosted a Halloween themed dinner party every year we've been married and it's become a tradition. I like that he becomes more involved each year too.

GratefulWifeandMama · 2017-09-28T21:26:32+00:00

Ooooh what an excellent topic. I love traditional holidays and small every day rituals. My kids and I have candle light breakfast almost every day since they are such early risers. I have an elegant silver candleabra for summer and seven brass holders for winter. We often have tea time before bed too, just for fun. They are only small yet but I figure if I condition them early they will want to talk still when they are in those troublesome teen years. We also each take a single child out on dates which is usually for me... a dump run or other such chore followed by an outing for ice cream or a special place. On Monday mornings we sneak out early so my husband can sleep in on his day off and go bird watching or to the river often with a thermos of something good and some muffins and fruit. I feel like most celebration is cerebral and I try to infuse that kind of joy into our every day lives. I love doing the seasonal stuff. Summer's are for state fairs and fireworks and family BBQ's and swimming. Patriotic and gingham everything. Autumn is all about those pumpkins and apples with Thanksgiving and Halloween. The pumpkin patch is one of my favorite things each year. Winter is for holiday festivities and getting cozy with warm drinks, family movie and game nights, making gifts and lots of baking. Spring is Easter, my hands down favorite holiday. For each major holiday we have a couple movies we watch around then. There are always special foods. I spend a day decorating the house and porch. I'm really looking forward to doing it this Sunday, in fact. I'm going to try and pop out by myself this weekend to pick up a special decoration or two. And on my sons birthdays, so far only 6 between the two of them, I have made an elaborate cake as their gift from me. We should all constantly be celebrating as far as I'm concerned!! I celebrate with a candlelit bath after yoga as often as I can lol.

jack_hammarred · 2017-09-28T17:21:22+00:00

In the original linked post, I found some things to help myself clarify what I can do to live a joyful reality.

This is not a political action, at least not in the modern sense of the word. Instead, it is made up of human actions.

I don't think these actions need to be grandiose... if they were, they wouldn't be repeatable actions that can sustainably become part of a lifestyle.

Indeed, when looking through their simplicity, it becomes apparent that meals constitute a fundamental part of any social revival.

Seeing as I'm nothing more than a sandwich maker... ;) But I do think mealtimes are the first way to reaffirm the truth. My boyfriend likes to cook, and thank God he does because he has a gift. But the shopping, the planning, the deciding, the nutritional considerations aren't what he revels in. While I love the wide range of foods that are accessible to us regardless of season, I think keying into foods that are seasonably available is a great way to honor nature, biology, and the way of life that was lost for so many as people also lost the truth.

Flesh-and-bone progressives recognize, albeit inchoately, that a meal with friends and family is a celebration, a party, a feast! And a feast is a time for rejoicing in the company of man’s loved ones and his traditions.

So more food talk, but what’s important here for me is mention of celebration. I try to celebrate as much as possible, because life isn’t guaranteed, but here I am living it, against the odds, and that’s worth celebrating. I think I already drive my boyfriend a little amused if not annoyed with how celebratory I am. I need to find better ways to sweep him up into celebration, so as not to make him uncomfortable by making an event of things.

“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”

I love this concept… it’s not having nothing left to live for, it’s having so much to die for. But we’re talking about being happy here, so I’ll leave that satisfying tidbit alone :)

So, on to my ideas!

Formal dinners are a great concept, except we don’t quite have the space. I think now that I feel confidently on excellent terms with his step-mom and mom, I may bring up the idea with them of reinstating family nights or other celebratory events and clearly mention my eagerness to help with planning and execution.
Our October calendar is already full of parties, with scant room for some of my favorite idyllic fall traditions that I’m just now able to do with my boyfriend and family now that I’m home! But I fully intend on picking apples to do our own cider and punpkins to carve ourselves. I plan on getting tickets to an NFL game, attending at least one of the major horse/livestock shows happening in the Midwest, and going turkey hunting. I’d like to plan similar activities on a seasonal/holiday oriented basis. Come winter I’d like to attend a ballet/symphony, go skiing, go ice skating, go to winter markets. Come spring, more horse/livestock events and camping, maybe host a living room concert at one of our parents’ homes. Summer is for festivals and outdoor concerts and river floats and water sports. I’d like to find more people our age to do these things with. I’d also like to find ways of incorporating the little nuggets in our families in these traditions.
I think making things is a really important thing to do. My boyfriend and I have a few wood working ideas (art from his perspective, more functional pieces from mine) that we can design, create, and finish together. We make container gardens together that we can continue enjoying, but I’d like to try and expand that with other members of the family and with new friends I need to make :) He’s very supportive of my jewelry making and sewing, and I’m supportive of his drawing, but those are tough to do together. We can happily be together doing our own thing of course. But I think we could do some neat things if we were to both do graphic design together, possibly. I’ve learned how to bring him into the homemaking process in a way that’s fun for him without being tedious and in a way that also gives me the guidance and leadership I crave.
He and I are both in a bit of a spiritual funk lately, but the idea of a family bible study came up last year. I think that, or at least a reading/discussing gathering might be worth considering again, at least between the two of us. There are a few great breweries and coffee shops where we could plan the event without having to host in his apartment if other people were to be involved.

I’m not sure how much these things might reinforce masculinity and femininity in the broad sense or even for other people, but I feel they would prop those things up in our own context. I think they are great traditions to bring back and start that would make our lives richer for sure.

jotho817 · 2017-09-29T02:12:20+00:00

One of my favorite rituals with T is our cup of tea together on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. I have a lovely little glass teapot with a matching sugar bowl and creamer pitcher that T gifted me, and I love setting it up on a sturdy wooden tray with a bowl filled with sugar cubes and a few cookies and each of our favorite mugs. (I also purchase sugar cubes especially for this little ritual because I always think sugar cubes are so much more satisfying to watch melt in a cup of hot tea.) Whatever T is doing, he usually sets it aside for a few minutes to chat and enjoy the tea with me. I love inviting friends and neighbors over for tea for the same reason. In those cases, I use slightly fancier tea cups and it's always appreciated. It's an easy, quick way to catch up, and everyone loves having a little fancy break in the middle of the day.

SylviaToday · 2017-09-29T13:38:43+00:00

We have many little rituals, some for me and my husband, others for us and the kids. Sunday dinners, Saturday ball games, big weekday breakfasts; read alouds for the family before kids go to bed. My husband and I also take time for ourselves to drink coffee and chat most mornings, and we read the newspaper together and debate politics most evenings :)

But for me, it's been important to find joy not only in rituals but in spontaneity. I was raised in a loving but very, very organized and fussy family where there were a lot of rules for exactly how everything should be done. Our home was lovely but there was also a lot of criticism. When we first had kids I wanted to replicate my childhood atmosphere. This created a lot of stress for me and my husband, because I was trying to fit us into a mold. An attractive mold, but still a mold. Finally it dawned on me that our casual, flexible rituals are what's right for OUR family, and for us, they are the way to live joyfully.

littlegoosegirl · 2017-09-28T17:15:03+00:00

Like u/Camille11325, I take special joy in creating traditions and small holidays/rituals that mark time through the year. Doing this marks time in an active way, anchoring you in time and connecting you through time to both your past self, and a community that does this with you. I have found that the key to creating a tradition is intention. When you do things in a specific way at specific times, even the simplest thing can become a tradition that is special and held dear to whoever is participating.

When I want to create a tradition, be it something between just P and I, or something with a larger group, I find ways to make key steps intentional and "just so". People instinctively know that when things are done in a certain order at certain times, the event becomes more important. You are stepping outside of the ordinary and into something more liminal, nearing the sacred. This is part of why religious ceremonies almost always include tradition and ritual. It brings the participant into an active relationship with time, instead of simply moving through it/having it move past you.

As an example, P and I go apple picking every year. We started this tradition two years ago after we moved to our new home, and the moment we began the outing I knew I wanted to create a tradition around this event. The orchard opens the first day of October, and that is when we go. We leave early in the morning after a warm, hearty breakfast, and we bring cloth bags for our apples. When we get to the orchard, we always take the same route around the little farm and visit our favorite landmarks and the animals. We take our bucket out into the orchard and move about halfway into the trees before we begin picking. We always make a point of looking for "the heart of the orchard" in the most majestic, oldest-looking tree that given year. When we find this tree, I will tie a small ribbon around it as a token of gratitude to the orchard for its fruit. When we go home, I will always make dinner featuring the apples in every dish. We light a fire, make a warm drink, and eat warm apples with ice cream. The rest of the apples are frozen or made into apple butter to be used throughout the year. Every time they are used, the meal takes on a special quality to us.

Despite this being something we have only been doing for 2 years, the tradition feels incredibly deep and is something we will never stop doing. Creating our own traditions and "holidays" through the year connects us to the flow of time, the seasons, the earth, and our community/friends. This type of purposeful intention can be used to create a revolving dinner party, a themed friend dinner, or an intimate family ritual like the one described above, and it really deepens the way life moves and brings a sense of much-needed joy and purpose to our lives. :)

littleeggwyf · 2017-09-28T19:33:55+00:00

I love this idea! I really think that our rituals can build up our villages or families ❤

I've volunteered for the school parent group to try and support the festivals and traditional things. So far we've only had one meeting but we're doing a harvest dance and may day maypoles. And a Christmas disco, which is sort of traditional, even if it's just pop music.

I wasn't sure about volunteering, it's a bit out of my comfort zone but I've said I'll help teach the girls some country dances with one of the teachers so wish me luck!

One of the other things I'm really focused on this year is writing down family recipes. It started after my husband's grandmother died before Christmas and hubs mentioned how good she cooked from when he was small was a very strong memory, so me and MIL wrote some down. His other grandmother recently also died so we decided to do it properly and make a binder of family recipes to keep the traditional meals going.

So for bonfire night, we'll have cinder toffee and winter vegetable soup, Christmas I'm going to try a pudding and mince pies and cheese straws.

I love the idea of couple habits that u/Camille11325 mentioned, we try to do date nights babysitting permitting but also we have some walks we do as a family which are very beautiful and it makes time to talk or just be together

sekoiasan · 2017-10-06T21:35:10+00:00

I think being spontaneous is an important contributor to making and maintaining genuine human connection. An example from my own life would be not leaving a conversation until it's exhausted. I'm in school right now, and always have a schedule for homework, hobbies etc. But every now and then, I fall into a great conversation with a friend, and I simply forget everything else and walk home with them (opposite of where I live), and then walk back XD

I think having enough time and flexibility to occasionally go with the flow is important.

And you guys beat me to saying traditions and holidays, arguably the most wonderful social instrument.

Title	How Do You Create And Share Joy?
Author	Camille11325
Upvotes	13
Comments	23
Date	September 28, 2017 4:04 PM UTC (8 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/RedPillWives
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/RedPillWives/comments/7312iq/how_do_you_create_and_share_joy/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/RedPillWives/how-do-you-create-and-share-joy.208752 https://theredarchive.com/post/208752

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