Choices exist in this world. Do you know what your choices are? Your path beckons.

First is your choice to either keep living as you are living or move toward freedom and change.

If you continue to follow your routine in a life that is unhappy, neglect your yearning and fulfill the expectations of others, you will maintain your status quo and gradually feel worse. If you can’t find your way to change, you may try to distract yourself with activities and substances or temporary and short-lived thrills.

When you emerge, you see nothing improved, and your life may have disintegrated more during your absence. If you move to free yourself, you disrupt the known system of your life. You might say that requires courage, perhaps more than you think you have.

Yet, when you see the inevitable outcome of how you have been living, you might say a kind of courage is required to live a desperate life that only brings more pain. That’s the view of self-sacrifice. If you choose self-sacrifice, let it be a true choice and not something you wander into without appreciating the cost.

Your desire for joy points to a different path.

Joy is the gladness of being who you are, how you are and how you live. Acting in a challenging role, litigating a difficult case, painting a huge canvas for a gallery show, writing a podcast script for a deadline, struggling with morning sickness, running with pain in your side and gasping for breath in a marathon, discovering new clues about flight or biology or engineering from studying Leonardo da Vinci.

All involve heavy effort, sweat and frustration. But if these activities are allied with your passion, you feel joy. You may be dissatisfied with your results yet be immensely alive in your experience and eager to try again.

When you reach your point of departure, when your wings are dry, you are ready to explore. You explore, making the unknown more visible. In that visibility will emerge your path to joy.

Complete Listing of Path to Joy

Part One: Welcome and Introduction: Your Path to Joy Part 1

Part Two: New Begins with the End of Old: Your Path to Joy Part 2

Part Three: Rally Yourself to Move Forward: Your Path to Joy Part 3

Part Four: Be a Trailblazer: Your Path to Joy Part 4

Part Five: Your Action Steps: Your Path to Joy Part 5

Part Six: Stumbling Block Alert: Your Path to Joy Part 6

Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Written by Joanna Poppink, MFT. Joanna is a psychotherapist in private practice specializing in eating disorder recovery, stress, PTSD, and adult development.

She is licensed in CA, AZ, OR, FL, and UT. Author of the Book: Healing Your Hungry Heart: Recovering from Your Eating Disorder

Appointments are virtual.

For a free telephone consultation, e-mail her at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.