The 2015 Joyful Warrior 30day Challenge is officially over and I am so overwhelmed with the incredible amount of love, strength, encouragement, compassion and joy the Joyful Warriors showed themselves and each other during the last 30days. We started out as strangers and ended as sisters and friends. Truly amazing and so, so awesome!
I mean, come on! See pretty awesome, right?!?!?!
This was actually the first annual Joyfulwarrior 30day challenge. And honestly, I wasn’t sure how successful it would be, or even is anyone would join me. But I thought I would just try it, so I wrote up a post and started promoting it on my social media feeds. Also, The day before the challenge started, I started a The Joyful Warriors Facebook group, which proved to be awesome, because it really became an awesome little community of support and empowerment for eachother.
Honestly, it was amazing!
The beauty and strength these women from all around the world shared with all of us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Thank you, every one for inspiring me every day!
There are so many reasons why this experience was amazing, but here are a few life lessons I took away from the beautiful women in the Joyful Warrior tribe on how to live a full and beautiful life!
Stop to smell the flowers. During the challenge, I was surprised at how many posts about flowers, landcaspes and architecture there were. These things are often all around us, but we don’t normally take the time to admire then and share our admiration with others. Stoping to admire the beauty in life, is a lost art but so worth our time.
Having Connection. As humans we are hard-wired for connection, we thrive on it. Do you know that in the brain, social pain and pleasure are the same as physical pain and pleasure. This need for connection is especially true as women, because we are collaborators. During this 30days, we formed connections with each others and what made it even more impactful was that we came together for the sole purpose of empowering, caring, supporting and loving each other. Especially in the Joyful Warrior Facebook group we formed a little safe haven where we can open up and share our lives, passions, pain and pleasure. It is fantastic! This type (distant/social media) of connection is valuable, but it can’t substitute to real human connection in our own world. But my hope is, that our little nest of love and support, will give each of us more strength and courage to make healthy and strong connections with those physically around us.
Feeling valued. Feeling valued and seen, is a basic human need. In our society today, sometimes value is only seen in those who make grand gestures, are famous or are very wealthy. But true value is found in the day to day brilliance of our lives. During this 30 days we put ourselves Gratitude to be seen, and highlighted events in our own lives, and shared them with the other joyful warriors in our tribe who give a heart felt, “that’s fantastic! You are awesome” or say “I’m sorry friend, I am sending you love”. Whatever the sentiment was, this said you and what happens in your life matters to me. And this is very important for us as women and unfortunately lacking in our world today.
Living with Gratitude. The amazingly brilliant Brene’ Brown says “There is no Joy without gratitude” and I believe this to be so true. Without taking time to reflect on the amazing experiences and gifts in our lives, we don’t have the opportunity to fully enjoy them. Which makes me think, have you ever thought about the word Enjoy? Enjoy = “being in a state of Joy”. So to be in a state of Joy more often, we have to experience gratitude often in your reflecting during this 30days we spent time everyday relfecting on the events and activities of the day, how they made us feels and I am guessing and how we were going to create the same thing the next day. And this time reflecting allowed us to feel gratitude for the magic of the day…the joy of the day.
Living on Purpose. We spend so much time everyday just being on default, checking “stuff” off the list and completing tasks. But The purposeful decision to do something everyday, that you love and that makes you feel strong, is so powerful! This something doesn’t have to be a big thing, it can be something as small as fully appreciating your coffee in the morning or making the decision to listen to music on your way to work. It’s the little purposeful acts that make us feel fulfilled
And it doesn’t stop here. This was such an amazing experience, we are as a tribe, we are continuing on our Joyful Warrior journey! Just like when this started on June 1st, I don’t know exactly how this journey will evolve or what the road will look like, but I am excited to get to enjoy the ride!
Won’t you Enjoy it with me?!
Wanna join the party? Please do! Check out the tribe at The Joyful Warriors Facebook Group
With Love,
