11:11 Waves Blog 16: Joy

Every Monday, I share 1 question for you to contemplate, 1 idea from me, 1 quote from others, and 1 inspiration for us.

This week’s topic is: Joy

Last week I discovered that one of my favourite songs – Life is a Flower by Ace of Base – turned 25 years old. This song entered in my life as I was going through a very depressing time. As a kid I excelled at sports – competitive figure skating, soccer, rock climbing, athletics - and when I turned 11 years old, I developed a knee illness that meant I had to stop all training and exercise. This song opened up a whole new world for me and brought back light, meaning and joy in my life. I became so passionate about this band that I founded the first Italian Fanclub, I learned English by diligently translating their songs and writing to newfound pen pals from all over the world, I developed new skills by becoming the amateur vlogger of fans’ international meetings and discovered new places by attending their concerts. This song's anniversary reminded me about the importance of cultivating and finding joy in everything we choose to do.

One Question for you

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.

Discuss the question here.

One Idea from me

Joy comes from within and it is essential to our existence. If we consciously choose to cultivate joy every day, we can make our life more fulfilling, inspiring and beautiful. Everyone’s path to joy is different and below are three tips to help you make your life more joyful:

Choose joy: Consider that in each moment you have choices that are available to you and you can start by deciding to cultivate more joy in your life by taking small steps and making joy-aligned decisions. Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy. This week I invite you to reflect on: What can you do every day to develop a joyful state of mind and heart? What intentional decision can you make to sustain that state of inner joy?

Choose joyful people: We are constantly influenced by the people around us: family, friends, colleagues, community, social media etc. Some people drain our energy while others light us up. Start to be more mindful of who inspires, encourages, motivates and lifts you up, how these individuals impact your life for the better and consider nurturing these relationships even further. Who drains your joy away? Who are the people in your life who bring you joy? What helps you stay close to the people that lift you up?

Choose joyful experiences: Being open to new experiences and learning fuels our wellbeing, boosts our confidence and our creativity and can bring a lot of joy in our lives. What’s something new that you can try, learn or experience this week?

One Quote from others

“If you carry joy in your heart, you can heal any moment”. Carlos Santana

One Inspiration for us

In line with the introduction, this week I am sharing a little story of when I heard Life is a Flower for the first time and the video of its performance. I discovered Ace of Base in June 1998 while I was watching a popular summer music tv show called Festivalbar. At the time, I did not know anything about Ace of Base, but the song immediately captivated me. As I was not paying attention when they were introduced by the show masters, I totally missed the name of the song and the name of the band. My English was so bad that I could not even capture a word they were singing, so by the end of the performance I was left with a tune which I desperately tried to remember (I even recorded me humming the melody so I would not forget). Following their performance, I could not stop thinking about the song and so I listened to the radio and MTV obsessively all summer to find out who they were. Unfortunately, as they were not popular in Italy, I had to wait the whole summer for the final episode of Festivalbar in September to finally capture their name and buy their album. From that point onwards, a new chapter of my life started. Fun fact: I was able to meet members of Ace of Base twice. The first time was in a church in a tiny village in Sweden and the second time was after a concert in Copenhagen.