Let a joy keep you.
Reach out your hands
And take it when it runs by.

Carl Sanburg
American Poet

Joy was in the air over the weekend.

Whether you took part in a street party, watched the Jubilee concert, headed off to the wilds of nature or hung out with friends in the back garden, joy was in the air over the long weekend.

Liz Davison in her recent blog comments on how important joy is to her saying; ‘I've got into the habit, reinforced by the pandemic, of just 'working on work' as I call it. I now think - right, I have to pick myself up and have a walk around school and go into early years and talk to the children. That's the joy of the job and it was good to be reminded to bring that back to the forefront of everything we do.’

Cultivating joy means leading with heart. When we lead with heart we lead with love. We resource and renew ourselves and others by establishing genuine and authentic connections which, according to Jill Suttie, strengthen our resilience. Joy makes a difference to our ability to sustain our leadership long term, so let’s build the daily habit of reaching for it.

Here’s how Mindfulness can help…

Mindfulness and ‘cultivating joy’.

As humans we are hard wired to notice danger, and be on high alert for that which is troubling and which we don’t want. This can lead to a pervasive undertone of general ‘dissatisfaction’ in our lives and our leadership. It can rob us of joy.

Mindfulness can help us notice this and bring us back into balance as it did with Liz. We can deliberately pivot ourselves away from these negative feelings and instead toward noticing joy, reaching out to it and ‘taking it as it runs by’.

You might be thinking ‘this all sounds a bit ‘unicorns and rainbows’, after all, the steady work of leadership is a serious business. However there is scientific evidence of the personal and organisational benefits of cultivating more joy and happiness at work demonstrated by a randomised control trial at Warwick University, which concluded ‘enabling people to be happier at work, really pays off’.

So, this week - try this…

Open up your senses

Schools have a very special smell, different year groups and key stages sound different, the school environment is full of visual delights. Pause long enough to notice them and feel the extent to which they gladden your heart.

When you notice thoughts arising such as ‘this needs tidying’, ‘that looks tatty’, ‘that's not good enough’, try to come down from your ‘headspace’ and stay open to your senses and to that which delights you. The tatty display will still be there and ready to claim your attention later. 

Savour joy when it appears

When you notice something that ‘gladdens your heart’ savour it.  Pause and give it time to sink in.

Feel it in your body, notice what happens to your breathing, your heart rate, your mood? What happens to your thoughts? Maybe they are less scattered, less judgemental, less busy?. This ‘savouring’ practice  intensifies the experience, imprints it on our body and helps to down-regulate our stress hormones.

Be a joy multiplier

As leaders, how we respond to the happiness of others is significant and can sometimes be a 'make or break' in our relationships. Knowing how important it is to savour joy, we can support others to relish the moment when they are telling us good news, by being curious about it asking; 'tell me more, who else was there, how did you feel?'

Our response to the success and wellbeing of others can sometimes be tainted with envy, and we may feel ourselves contract a little. When we feel this 'contraction' in ourselves, perhaps thinking 'why them and not me, where did I go wrong?', we can simply tune into a simple phrase 'I'm happy because you're happy, may your happiness increase'.

This is a practice of keeping our heart open, even when we feel envy and jealousy, so rather than being depleted by another's joy, we build a positive connection with it.

The Dalai Lama in his lovely book ‘ The Book of Joy’, says quite simply ‘joy is our birthright and even more fundamental than happiness. In fact the more joy you enable in others, the happier you will be.’

If you have time to go further, why not take a closer look at Liz’s blog where she explores the impact her mindfulness practice has had on her leadership saying: ‘if we are balanced as leaders we can help shape well balanced well-adjusted children who are thriving and that's what it's all about really isn't it?’