Heiterkeit: cultivating moments of joy in everyday life
Soft, velvety fur runs under my fingers; a moment of tactile pleasure. A leap, and he’s on my back as I make breakfast, his chin on my shoulder to watch and purr in my ear; the sound vibrating down my back and making me smile. His mischief is infectious.
I sit to eat my breakfast and he curls up on my lap, rotating once, twice, three times before plonk! into position. Warmth and love fill my chest; for this little creature, for early mornings, for moments like these.
I drink my coffee, I open my journal, I watch as it gets bright outside. The quiet allows me to wake up slowly, to sink a little deeper into myself, to drift through the moment － suspended － simply as a living, breathing presence. I’m here, I’m alive. I’m feeling, what? Tired or energised? Happy or sad? Stressed or inspired?
The truth is － it doesn’t really matter how I feel. What matters is that I’ve taken a moment to find out, to listen what’s within and without, to acknowledge whatever emotion or thought shows up. When you take a moment to bask in the silence, you can hear what’s going on. For me, that’s when I feel grateful － for the taste of my food, for the view out of my window, for pausing in this way, as this is what I need to do in order to feel joy, to feel heiter. By taking these breathers every morning and throughout my day, I’m allowing space for joy, thereby improving my mental health, my resilience, and an overall sense of calm and contentment.
Generally, we assume that joy isn’t within our control, that we have to wait for life to send us good things in order to feel satisfaction. So we wait for the highs － for the dream holiday to relax; for an achievement that we can celebrate; for the perfect relationship or family so that we might feel less lonely. As a result, we’re always striving, working towards the next thing, expecting more to come. More fun, more money, more success, more love, more stuff. But when they come, they often pass us by unnoticed, because we’re so focussed on jumping onto the next thing. We spend our holidays taking photos and posting on Instagram rather than truly enjoying the experience in the moment. We have a success at work, but we think only of what’s still left to accomplish. We delay pleasure, because we’ve forgotten how to feel it, or because, perhaps on some level, we don’t believe that we deserve it.
This isn’t our fault. The modern world has shaped us this way. Our phones facilitate constant hits of dopamine and adrenaline, which leave us stressed out, distracted and unable to concentrate. Life goes by, in a blur of busy-ness and too-much-to-do, so when we finally step back from the routine to pause, we find that we can’t switch off.
Fortunately, this can easily be changed. We don’t have to keep on waiting for those highs, or wonder why we feel empty in-between the good times, or even during the good times. Joy is a habit that can be cultivated, it can be practised in the every-day. The more we do so, the feeling deepens and expands inside us, so our capacity for heiter increases. Just think, if small moments can give you an electric charge of delight, then when those ‘bigger’ achievements or celebrations come, you’ll be open to such a deep sense of euphoria you might never have imagined.
Take last Sunday as an example; a fairly standard moment in my life that could be utterly transformed by how I chose to view it.
I was travelling home from Munich, where I’d been for a few days of work. I was stressed because I had to make a train at 6am and I hadn’t sleep very much. At the station, my internet stopped working on my phone so I struggled to retrieve my ticket. I was exhausted after an intense few days, and the seven-hour journey before getting home felt like for-ev-errr. I had a heavy bag and I was gasping for a cup of coffee, but the station cafés weren’t open yet (!), so I had to settle for the undrinkable stuff on the train, when I had been so looking forward to an oat cappuccino. I wanted to read my book, but I was so sleepy that the words fuzzed before my eyes. I was uncomfortable in my seat, it was noisy, and I just needed to get some rest. This is how I could have spent my morning: grumpy and on-edge.
Luckily, I’m not new to this game. I know how to redirect my energy and revel in the positive rather than the negative. So I flipped my perspective the right way up and the morning went like so: I was proud of myself for working with a new client on a Soul Sign portrait experience, which went really well. I managed to be up at the crack of dawn, to make it to the train in plenty of time (yay) and I resolved my ticket mishap. I couldn’t find coffee in the station, but I did get one on-board. I had a delicious pastry to eat and my book was so gripping that I barely put it down, aside from when I paused to look out at the stunning mountain views passing by my window. I spent my journey feeling cheerful at the thought of arriving home to a cuddle with my cat and a well-earned afternoon snooze.
The events were the same, but I could choose how to experience them. This doesn’t just come naturally, stress is ever-present and it wants to suck us back in. The human brain does have a negativity bias, which means that joy is a little harder to access, but thankfully, we can train our brains to notice and enhance it. The more we experience those good feels, the easier and more often they’ll come.
If you’re not sure how to do that, then you’re in the right place. Heiter shares prompts frequently on ways we can experience more joy.
My favourite methods involve getting out of my head and into my body, without having to carve out extra time in my schedule:
I put on a good playlist that I can dance to when I’m cleaning or folding laundry, it makes doing chores a whole lot more fun! Also we know that movement and vibrations from music or singing have been proven to lift our moods.
Moisturise! How often, after a shower, do you rush to get ready and run out to work? Do you really not have two minutes to give yourself a quick massage with body butter or oil? Take a few deep breaths and feel how lovely it is to know that you’re taking care of your skin, that this is an act of love to yourself. Also, your future self will thank you! When I do this I feel more deeply connected to my body and to myself.
Eat mindfully, I cannot stress how important this is. Most of us work behind a screen, so we spend most of our time there without also scrolling on social media or watching Netflix over our meals. Put the screens away when you eat, just savour the quiet, the tastes and the textures, the act of nourishing your body. If you’re in the habit of watching something over food, don’t worry － this is a surprisingly easy habit to break.
To live joyfully means to reject urgency culture and hustle. We may have to make a concerted effort to find heiter moments in the mundane, in the every-day, by putting down our phones and immersing ourselves in the present. It might take some time to stop allowing ourselves to be consumed by our worries, but it is so worth it. Bad days will still come, of course, but we’ll be more prepared for them when they do. We’ll know where and how to find joy, making the tough moments that bit more bearable, and making the good moments that bit more magical.
Tamzin Merivale is an Irish artist and writer, on a mission to explore true, diverse stories, to hold space, and to guide people to transform their lives through intuitive artwork. 'Soul Signs' facilitates her clients in their quest to unearth their true, powerful selves, and incorporates energetic portraiture to show them their incomparable light and life story. She also writes a popular newsletter which gives readers tools and insights to release their struggles to feel free and aligned. You can sign up here.
Image by Jacqueline Munguía via Unsplash.
