The world is full of choices and new paths for you.

Yearning for a more joyful and fulfilling life is a major indication that you are unsatisfied where you are. It's time to move into a new way of being in the world. How do you get motivated to begin? How do you change your desire to action?

You want to feel alive again. You want to wake up in the morning with a smile. You want to be eager for the day and what you will experience.

Perhaps you are bored and listless. Perhaps you feel trapped and emotionally paralyzed in a life of routines that no longer hold meaning for you.

You are more alive when you are doing. Yet actively going through meaningless motions based on habit, fear or false loyalty erode your spirit. Life-enhancing doing means actions you take based on what you love. Your enthusiasm comes from living your passion and where you find your meaningful life.

Now is the boundary between the past and the future. If you have completed a cycle in your life, you are on the verge of the new. You feel the despair and hope of both. This is a time to acknowledge the past and future of your center.

These feelings do not mean you are bipolar or artificially manufacturing a fantasy future. Your sorrow and anxiety don’t mean you have failed and slipped back to a weaker and less balanced you.

Your glimpse of something better doesn’t mean you are losing yourself in wishful thinking. In the immediacy of your present, you don’t yet know what is past and what is future. And your past may not be what you think it is or was.

You may believe you were building a relationship or a business or acquiring skills for a project. When the relationship, business, or project fails to materialize or reaches an end, your joy and enthusiasm in the creative effort collapses.

You remember your effort. You remember the joy and determination of going forward toward your goal that now is over. Your present feels like a big blank, and your future is a frightening unknown.

When you stay in your present with your tumultuous feelings of loss and fear, you may see your past differently. You acquired skills, knowledge and wisdom in your experience. You still have that.

You can use what you have developed for what is coming toward you now, something different than what you anticipated. You may find that what’s coming is better than you ever imagined.

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.