Girls Just Wanna Have Fun: The Blog

Lately, I'm listening to more 80's and 90's music as I get ready in the morning. 

It's a feel-good playlist to start my day on a positive note.

Although you can't always control what happens throughout the day, you can use things like movies, music, TV shows, and memories as anchors to reconnect with your joy. 

In addition to fabulous feel-good music, I've also been thinking a lot about my personal journey since 2018.

In that time, I've moved states 3 times, lost both my parents, my grandmother, 4 dogs, and shifted my identity in more ways than I can count. 

To say that I'm SUPER resilient would be an understatement!

After losing my last remaining dog recently, I've started taking more nature walks as a way to fill my time. During those walks, I've been thinking about attraction, opposition, joy, pain, and computer programs. 

It's a weird combination for sure, but that's just how my brain works.

In fact, according to the Clifton Strengths Test, Intellection is my #2 strength. Basically, it means I think a lot about how things are connected. 

What's my #1 strength? Connectedness!

So yes, I doubled down on pattern recognition and teaching others how everything is connected. 

What I'm about to tell you may not make sense, it might frustrate you, or even make you angry. Ok, so here it goes: 

Some people are attached to pain and focus on it almost exclusively because of that attachment.

Have you ever done a coin flip and chose either heads or tails? If so, then it's a lot like that. 

Joy and pain exist simultaneously and can be viewed as flip sides of the same coin. 

When you choose either heads or tails, you're focusing on the outcome you want with the full understanding that things may go the other way. Both possibilities exist simultaneously. 

Joy and pain are a lot like that. 

Unfortunately, many of us are wired or conditioned to focus on pain and then feel like joy is highly unlikely or impossible to obtain so long as pain exists. 

Blame it on the astrology, solar flares, or nature walks, but I had an epiphany about attachments to pain. After all, where your focus goes, your energy flows. 

It's common to prefer joy but end up focusing on pain. The more attention you give it, the more it grows until that's all you see. It becomes your prime motivator, and that really sucks. 

Based on my individual strengths and the work that I do, I would often tell my clients that I'm really good at finding pain. Finding it in them and myself, then unraveling it at the origin and creating positive mindset shifts and new patterns. 

The problem was that even though I'm helping people (and myself), the direction I was approaching it was still one of pain-relief. In other words, it was a pain focused pathway which is so common. 

So, I've decided to flip the coin and follow the joy-based pathway! 

To most people, the difference is a subtle one, but the focus will be increasing joy. It's not about emotional or spiritual bypassing because let's be honest, pain is generally a part of life. 

Focusing on joy isn't being delulu, but it's about putting your intentions in a particular pathway. Where your focus goes, your energy flows, remember? 

Just like in a coin toss, you can designate your preferred outcome with the understanding that both possibilities exist simultaneously. and in life, the coin is always in motion. 

In the spirit of new identities, I've also decided on a new title! 

Just call me, The Joy Detective!

It combines both my passions and strengths in one action-packed place!

I still use my strengths of connection, intellect, empathy, individualization, and strategy (my top 5 Clifton Strengths) combined with my love of mysteries, human behavior, optimism, and coaching to give you brand-new programs and resources. 

This is my fun era and I want you to join the party too! 

Here's a link to the brand-new community I'm creating on Facebook to support those who are looking to bring more joy into their lives, discover their natural strengths, and break attachments to pain. 

Join the community HERE.

April Darley is a Joy Detective who specializes in helping women search through the clues to find their missing joy, natural strengths, and solve the mysteries of life so they can become more confident, creative, and have better quality relationships with others. Through a combination of techniques, you'll learn how to live an abundant, joy-filled life filled with possibilities.