As you head into the new year, how are you feeling?

How do you want to feel?

What’s on your heart? What’s on your mind? What do you want to do? What do you want to experience?

What do you feel called toward? What can you feel building within you? Where do you feel yourself moving? Do you know?

Awareness allows us to move with intention; it allows us to connect with what is true and right for us.

It allows us to move intentionally in the world. 

When we soften into our truth—the truth of how we feel, the truth that lives deeply within us—we can do what feels right to us in each moment.

We can take actions that feel aligned with that inner truth, that resonate with that soft, wise place within us.

Here are five tips for experiencing more joy in the new year:

1. Be in the moment.

Practice coming to the present moment; let yourself be wherever you are. Notice your breath; feel the air move through your nose as you inhale and exhale. Feel your body in space. Notice how you feel. Look at the world around you.

You can use each of your senses to come into the moment.

If you’re walking, feel the wind on your face, hear your footsteps on the ground, look at the trees or the clouds or the sky. If you’re working, let yourself settle in there, be there with whatever task you’re doing. If you notice resistance, notice that too, watch that too, allow that to be there too. If you’re listening to someone and notice your mind wander, just come back to where you are, to the conversation, to what the other person is saying.

When your mind wanders, come back, over and over again. This is the practice.

Life happens in the present moment. We’re here, now, doing whatever we’re doing—sitting, typing, reading, walking…doing whatever it is that we’re doing. We only really experience life in the moment we’re in. This is why it’s so important to let ourselves be where we are.

2. Notice the things you appreciate each day.

Maybe it’s a good cup of coffee or feeling warm and cozy while snuggled up under a blanket. Maybe it’s a refreshing glass of water or the feel of the sun on your face. Maybe it’s feeling comfortable lying in bed or seeing the shifting colors of a sunrise. Maybe it’s time spent with someone you love or reading a good book or having a few moments of quiet, alone.

When you experience something you enjoy, when you notice yourself appreciating something, let yourself be there with it, move into it, allow that feeling of appreciation to fill you and flow through you.

3. Get to know your mind.

When we watch our thoughts and our reactions, we begin to distance from them. We see them move through us. And when we observe them, we can learn from them.

We’ll see patterns of thought, beliefs we may not have known we had. We discover our filters, the layers that cloud the way we view and experience the world.

So much of how we live our lives is based on beliefs we don’t even know that we have. As we watch our mind, observe our thoughts, we notice those thoughts, those patterns, those beliefs, and we begin to see through them—we may see where they come from, what they mean, how they’ve been influencing our lives without us realizing it. And then we can choose to make a change.

With this awareness, we can begin to shift the way we think, the way we act; we can change our habits and patterns of thinking. Through cultivating awareness, through watching our minds, we can shift the way we live our lives.

4. Spend time doing what you love.

Do what you love just because you love it. We don’t always have to do things that are productive or that feel like they’re “taking us somewhere.” Doing things we enjoy simply because we enjoy them brings lightness and joy to our lives.

What are some things you love doing? Is there something you’ve been wanting to do but haven’t felt like you could because you’re so busy with other parts of life? How could you bring more play into your life?

5. Tune inward and move with what feels right and true to you.

Spend some time in silence, in quiet. Go inward. Pay attention to your feelings, the sensations that move through you. How do you feel? What feels right to you? What feels true to you? What do you feel called toward?

We all have a space within us that knows what is right for us, that is there to guide us. We just have soften, turn inward, and listen.

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