How to Reconnect With Yourself and Find Joy Again: 5 Gentle Practices
How I look when I feel deep joy from within - a connection with my Inner Purpose
Have you ever looked at your life and wondered: When did I stop feeling like me?
Maybe nothing is terribly wrong. You go to work, answer your messages, make plans, cross things off your to-do list and keep moving. From the outside, your life might even look pretty good. And yet, somewhere between all the things you have to do, the person you used to be has become a little quieter.
Maybe you don't really know what you want anymore. You can't remember the last time you felt wildly excited about something. You make decisions with your head because you can barely hear what your heart is saying. And when someone asks you what would make you truly happy, you genuinely don't know.
If that feels familiar, I don't think you necessarily need to find a new version of yourself. Perhaps you need to remember the version of you that has been there all along.
The one who knew what lit her up before she learned what was realistic. Who could spend an entire afternoon doing something simply because she loved it. Who looked at the world with eyes of childlike wonder, dreamed without immediately asking whether the dream was possible and experienced joy without needing to earn it first. She hasn't disappeared, you may have just forgotten how to hear her.
What Does It Mean to Reconnect With Yourself?
Reconnecting with yourself means creating enough space to hear what you truly feel, want and need beneath the noise of your thoughts, the expectations of others and everything you have learned you should be.
I like to think of it less as finding yourself and more as remembering yourself. Because underneath the roles you play, the goals you're working towards and the person you have learned to be, there is still a part of you that knows what feels true.
This is what I call your Inner Purpose. I see Life Purpose as having two dimensions: Inner Purpose and Outer Purpose. Your Outer Purpose is about Doing: the unique way you express yourself through your passions, gifts, work and contribution to the world. Your Inner Purpose is about Being: presence, heart connection, openness, self-compassion and the joy and aliveness of simply being here.
And there is a reason I believe Inner Purpose comes first.
Why Reconnecting With Yourself Starts With Being, Not Doing
We are so often taught to create our lives the other way around. We think we first need to have the dream career, the relationship, the house, the money or the life we imagined — and then we will finally feel happy, fulfilled, confident and free.
But what if we turned this around? What if you first began being connected to yourself, joyful, present, open and alive, and then allowed your actions to emerge from that place? You don't have to wait until your life looks perfect on the outside before you allow yourself to feel the way you want to feel on the inside. You can begin there. Now.
Here are five ways to begin.
1. Heart-Connection: Reconnect With Your Heart and Ask What You Really Want
Meditation is a direct way to connect with your joy again - through the heart
When was the last time you asked yourself what you really wanted without immediately allowing your mind to answer for you? Not what makes the most sense, what is realistic, what other people would approve of or what fits neatly into the life you have already created. What do you want?
Heart Connection is the first piece of my Inner Purpose model. It means becoming connected to your deepest desires and your ability to dream big again, creating enough space to hear what you truly want beneath the limitations of your mind and the expectations of others.
Try closing your eyes and remembering a moment when you felt completely alive, joyful or full of love. Don't just remember what happened; notice what it felt like in your body. Stay there for a moment and then ask yourself: What do I really want? What would make me feel more alive? What is my heart trying to tell me?
2. Present Moment Awareness: Come Back to the Present Moment to Feel More Alive
We spend an extraordinary amount of our lives somewhere other than where we actually are. We drink our coffee while thinking about our first meeting, walk somewhere while replaying yesterday and lie in bed while our minds are already living tomorrow.
Present Moment Awareness means being fully here for the life that is actually happening rather than constantly thinking about the past or future. And you don't need to become perfectly peaceful or stop thinking to practise it. Simply notice when you have disappeared into your mind and gently return to what is here: your breath, your body, the feeling of the earth underneath your feet, the wind against your skin, the taste of your coffee, the colours of the sky.
The more present you become, the more you begin to notice how much life is already here. Joy, beauty, connection and wonder aren't only waiting for you somewhere in the future after you finally fix everything. They are here, too.
3. Openness: Stop Distracting Yourself From How You Really Feel
Be open and curious to what is there within you and you will find an opening in it that allows in joy again
Reconnecting with yourself isn't only about reconnecting with the beautiful parts. Sometimes, before we find joy, we find everything we have been distracting ourselves from: boredom, loneliness, fear, sadness, anger or uncertainty.
We have become incredibly good at not feeling any of it. We scroll, work, watch another episode or fill every empty moment. But Openness means staying open to Life with curiosity, including the uncomfortable parts, instead of immediately closing down, resisting or distracting yourself.
The next time discomfort appears, try not to immediately make it disappear. Notice where you can feel it in your body and breathe into that place without needing to fix or understand it. Something changes when we stop fighting every uncomfortable feeling and allow ourselves to experience what is actually here. Sometimes there is sadness underneath. Sometimes an answer. Sometimes simply space. And often, there is much more aliveness on the other side.
4. Self-Compassion: Reconnect With Your Authentic Self By Being Kind To Yourself
Hardly any of us speak to ourselves the way we speak to the people we love. We would never tell our best friend that she should have figured everything out by now, isn't doing enough or should simply get herself together. And yet inside our own minds, these sentences can sound completely normal.
Self-Compassion means learning to become your own best friend and meeting yourself with kindness and love instead of constantly criticising or abandoning yourself when things don't go the way you hoped.
This becomes especially important when you start living more authentically because being yourself isn't always comfortable. You may have to question expectations you've carried for years, choose differently or step outside your comfort zone. So ask yourself: How would my life change if I treated myself the way I treat someone I deeply love?
You will need yourself on the journey back to yourself. Become someone you feel safe coming home to.
5. Joy: Find Your Magic Again by Stopping the Constant Postponement of Happiness
You deserve joy now (just like I do and did and therefore made my dreams come true by publishing my debut novel)
Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that joy comes after. After I finish this project. After I make more money. After I find the relationship. After I figure out my purpose. After I change careers. After I become the person I want to be.
But what if joy isn't the reward waiting at the end of your journey? What if it is part of the path?
To me, joy as part of our Inner Purpose is the gratitude, aliveness and wonder of simply being here. It means allowing yourself to enjoy your life rather than constantly postponing that enjoyment until you have achieved something.
Ask yourself: What would bring me 5% more joy today? Maybe it's dancing to your favourite song, lying underneath a tree, going swimming, painting badly, buying yourself flowers or doing something simply because a little voice inside you says, Ooh, that.
The things that make you feel alive aren't silly distractions from the important work of figuring out your life. They are part of the answer.
How Reconnecting With Yourself Can Help You Find Your Life Purpose
There is so much emphasis in our world on becoming: more successful, more productive, more confident, more disciplined, more healed. And growth can be beautiful. But I increasingly believe that one of the most beautiful journeys we can take isn't about becoming someone completely new. It is about remembering who we were before we learned who we were supposed to be.
Your Inner Purpose isn't another destination you have to reach perfectly. You will forget. Your mind will take over again. You will get caught up in the future, distracted by the outside world or pulled back into old patterns. That's okay. The practice is remembering.
Again and again, you return to your heart, to this moment, to openness, compassion and joy. And from this place, you can begin exploring the bigger questions about your Life Purpose, your dream career and what you actually want to create with this one beautiful life.
Before asking “What should I do with my life?”, perhaps there is a deeper question: “Who am I here to be?”
Because your purpose isn't only what you do. It is who you are and how you express that in the world.
Start Your Inner Purpose Journey
The Online Course “Magical Forest: Find Your Joy Again” starts soon. Check out the Sneak Peek now.
This is exactly where our journey begins inside The Land of Remembering.
Before exploring your passions, talents, values, contribution or dream career, we enter the Magical Forest and reconnect with your five Inner Purpose puzzle pieces: Heart Connection, Present Moment Awareness, Openness, Self-Compassion and Joy.
Through Heart Answers® Meditations, heart-focused breathing, journaling and practical exercises, you create space beneath all the noise to listen to the answers that are already within you.
Because we are not going to think our way into your Life Purpose. We are going to create the space to listen for it.
