Peace, Love & Joy

Couple of weeks ago I had a wonderful lunch with my uber talented sorority sister, Karyn, and the conversation turned to her art and some projects she is working on and who inspires her. And that lead to us talking about how some people generate an image that can transform their art or message to such a degree that they become known for it.

On my way home that day I wondered what image would I want to be known for 🤔

And as much as I adore the red smiley face which is the symbol of the Circle of Joy I feel we can't get to JOY without two other steps.

We need to:

BE at Peace with ourselves and the world... 
which leads to KNOWing Love... which leads to FEELing JOY.

When we are little we feel JOY all the time because it's our natural state until we get told we're doing life wrong- by our parents, teachers, lovers, society. And so it gets harder and harder to have raw moments of JOY. How do we get back there? I've found the simplest way for me to get more JOY in my life is to be at PEACE with myself and then with the world we are surrounded by. Mediation helps. So does compassion for knowing people are doing the best they can with where they are at the moment. And if we ourselves want to be less crazed we need to simply let them do them and focus on our inner PEACE so we can be as powerful as we can be in the world.

When we are at PEACE we then can learn or remember how lovable we are. How lovable others are. Knowing LOVE changes our energy, our tone, our experience of ourselves, others and our world. Unless we LOVE ourself we have a hard time loving our life or anyone in it. And it's almost impossible to feel the depth of LOVE when we hold back because we haven't received or learned to give the LOVE we are capable of knowing as a human in this world. 

Yet if we can quiet ourselves to be at PEACE, then open ourselves enough to know LOVE, then it's a way shorter journey to feel JOY. It flows to us when we get the two other elements in line.

So it might be greedy but I want to have three symbols I am known for. And not only are they symbolic, they are a formula and a practice I want to live my life by:
PEACE + LOVE + JOY!

What word symbolizes the message you have for yourself and the world? What image visually summarizes what you are up to this year/decade/life? What do you want to be known for?
If nothing comes to mind... please ponder! We need you and me and all of us at our most inspired if we are going to fully live the lives we have been gifted.