The French term "joie de vivre" is defined as the exuberant enjoyment of life. There’s something about this term that lights me up from deep within. It’s such a powerful reminder of something we should never have forgotten in the first place—a reminder that life is to be enjoyed, and yes, quite exuberantly.
If there’s a daily reminder that I’d want to wake up to each day, it’s to enjoy life’s simple pleasures. It’s a notion that’s close to my heart because I spent years forgetting how to do this. I think it’s easy to forget to find our joie de vivre when life feels like an endless list of responsibilities and tasks to get through. We say things like “I’m just trying to get through the day”, unaware of just how bleak it all sounds. Life isn’t something we need to tolerate. We’re not here to merely suffer and pay our dues. Our lives are beautiful and magnificent. The fact that we exist—the incredible string of events that led to our rare and precious birth—is nothing short of a miracle. The exuberant enjoyment of life is seeing life as a gift and honoring it as such. Oprah once said, “The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.” Living with joie is a celebration of life.
Our well-being depends on it
Author Gabrielle Roth wrote in her book, Maps to Ecstasy: “In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions: When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop being comforted by the sweet territory of silence?”
When I came across this passage, I felt its profound truth ring deep inside my core. I knew what it felt like when I had forgotten to sing and dance, and how it affected my mental, emotional, and physical well-being. We do things for our physical health such as eating well and exercising, but many of us forget that feeling joie is incredibly vital to our well-being. We are holistic beings made up of an intricately connected mind-body-soul system. There is little use in nourishing the body if we forget to feed the soul. The soul is fed by the things that light us up from the inside. We know the feeling of being satiated at a soul-level. We yearn for it, sometimes without our conscious awareness. One thing is for certain—when we live a life devoid of joy and pleasure, we will feel the health implications of it.
Joie needs to be cultivated
In a culture where hard work and sleep deprivation are worn like badges of honor, the enjoyment of life can sometimes feel like swimming against the tides. We often place joy and pleasure as the last priority, only getting to it when our time frees up—which seldom happens. The enjoyment of life is an act of rebellion against the current cultural norm. Mostly though, it is an act of pushing against the internal voices that tell us there are more important things to do. This is why joie, or joy, needs to be cultivated. It needs to be something we carve time out for. It needs to be intentionally sprinkled into our days, as much as possible. What often happens when we create a new habit is that it takes on a life of its own and continues to grow without much effort. Soon, we’ll find that living with joie becomes a way of life.
15 ways to cultivate joie de vivre in your everyday life:
- Turn on music and light candles
- Buy yourself some flowers
- Create a morning or nighttime ritual
- Use the nice things you’ve been saving for a special occasion
- Upgrade your loungewear or sleepwear
- Spend time meandering in nature
- Make something with your hands
- Sit under the sun and read a book
- Find ways to add scents and beauty into your space
- Take a bath with flowers and essential oils
- Go on a solo date
- Write in a journal
- Make a meal that tastes and looks amazing
- Put on a killer outfit
- Sing and dance, as often as you can
Simple pleasures can be woven into seemingly mundane moments. Joy and pleasure can be found in the smallest of things, yet the positive shifts that come from living this way are immense. There are so many ways to cultivate a life full of special moments, and it looks vastly different for each person. The important thing is to never lose your spark, the wonder and enchantment you once felt as a child for the small things. We all still have it inside of us, and it could be cultivated and brought back to life. It’s a moment-to-moment choice, a practice. Because at the end of the day, it’s not about what you did, but rather, how much you enjoyed what you did.
