This is the podcast you've been waiting for, my friend! Isn't this title all nice and fluffy compared to the last three. Now I highly encourage you to go back to episode 96 if you haven't already and begin there. So if we avoid the feelings we don't want to feel, then we are never able to experience as much joy in our lives as we could.

So go back, listen to the prior episodes starting with episode 96 and get in there because that's gonna lay the foundation for this episode. Part of joy is knowing you can handle anything. And the whole series prepared you for this episode. Today you are going to learn how to get more connected to your feelings as simple exercise to feel more of the emotions that you want. And the one question that I ask myself to get out of worry now, I would love it if you joined me on Instagram at Dina de Cataldo. I especially love it when people take a picture of themselves listening or take a screenshot of the podcast and tag me in it and put it in their stories or on their posts. It's super fun and I love sharing them on my own instant stories. I would love it if you did that.

If you do that, let me know by tagging me and that's going to let me know what you like hearing about on the podcast to find me at Dina. Dot. Cataldo and DM me. I always respond to my DMS. Now how often do you feel pure joy? Joy seems so darn elusive sometimes, doesn't it? And that's only because we haven't practiced it. So how are you feeling today? Name it with one word. You may not know what it is at first. That's okay. Start by asking yourself where do you feel it in your body? Is it in your chest and your back and your shoulders in your heart. And then give it a color for fun. So what color is your feeling? Just pick one, something that sounds fun to you or just kind of resonates with whatever it is that you're feeling. Bonus points.

If you're saying all of this out loud, that brings me joy. So that feeling that you have right now is caused by how you are thinking about the world in this moment. The thoughts we have in our brain releases, chemicals and those chemicals course through our bodies and produce sensations in our bodies. That's an emotion. And each of us can have a different thought about that exact same circumstance in the world and have a totally different feeling about it. None of us can control the circumstances, although we like to think that we can, but we can control our thoughts about it. So one of my favorite quotes is we are where our attention is. When we focus on more of what we want, we're creating more evidence that it exists in the world. Now, some of you may be thinking, that sounds nice, but right now is different.

Right now is an emergency and we need to be on high alert. No time for joy here. Well, that is your choice, my friend. Now you don't think it's your choice, but it is a choice and the news paints a picture that the stock market is a mess right now that we should be worried. We're told over and over how many people are dying that we should be frightened. So some people choose to think in these ways, they worry. Then they sell their stocks. While other people look at the stock market right now and think, wow, everything is on sale right now. I should buy something. And they feel certain that it's a good investment for their future. People lived before there was money before there was a stock market before there was social media and the internet and we were fine. There are also some people who choose to be frightened, they drink or they eat or they watch Netflix all day to disconnect while others are thinking about how they can reconnect with themselves and connect more with potential clients online in this new world and prepare themselves for the new markets that are going to spring up.

We busy ourselves and we spend our precious time and energy thinking about what the news and social media wants us to pay attention to. And so we forget. We forget where to put our attention intentionally, where to find the joy. Remember our brain perks up when we hear words like imminent danger. The news uses this to keep us glued to the television so they can keep advertising dollars. They're not gonna get advertising dollars if they're not keeping our attention. So for fun, I just listened to a nightly news program online and I grabbed the headlines from the last few days. It's a really popular one. You probably watch it. These are just a handful of the things that I heard at the top of the hour. Devastating toll death toll staggering toll toll was used multiple times on multiple nights, so they must have done studies and found that that word somehow triggers us crack down, new warnings, hotspots getting worse.

There were a lot more, but there they were just a total downer. I did not want to do that to you. You know what I'm talking about and you can pay attention to them tonight if you watch the news. So can't you just feel the joy being sucked from you. When I say those words, it's like the dementors in Harry Potter books where they just suck the life out of you, but your brain wanted to know about that urgent threat and those new warnings, right? When we focus our attention on a thing, that thing grows in our mind. We must practice focusing our attention on those things that we want more of. This is something I've been thinking about a lot for the last couple of weeks, but I keep thinking about how lucky we are, how lucky we are to be living in a time when something like a pandemic could spread and we have the ability to work online, create business online, hear from our friends on the phone and see their faces online to have social media.

It's amazing how we can coordinate something like a stay at home order. It's amazing that there are helpers in the world who are willing to be on the front lines delivering food, working at grocery stores, giving special hours to seniors to shop, working in hospitals, securing our neighborhoods. These things are magical to me. They are the things of dreams, the things that we could only imagine years ago. Things that we would never have been able to imagine. We couldn't have done this a hundred years ago when the last pandemic hit. People would just get sick and die until they stopped dying so much. And just think of how many lives are being saved right now because of all the advances that we've made, because of all the resources we have right now. Thinking like that brings me joy. It feels amazing. It's, it's a feeling of gratitude. So what else brings me joy?

Appreciating the simple pleasures. Recently one of my coaches said this, take away all my money and all the best things are left. All the best things are left, take away. Me leaving the house and all the best things are still left. So it depends, right? We all have our own things. The things that I love, the things that feel like little luxuries to me are quiet mornings to myself with my T dogs, especially watching my dog have joy when we play in the yard and I play catch with him. He's just so happy. It's like nothing better in the world. My tea, my coconut tea with coconut milk, clean drinking water. Oh my goodness. It's so amazing that I can have clean drinking water whenever I want it. Hot showers, reading electricity. Oh my goodness. Electricity. I love you. If you want more joy, what brings you joy?

What are you focusing on? I like to practice thinking about joy first thing in the morning. Something to just get me on a roll and I especially like doing this. If I wake up groggy and feel a little grumpy because you know, you wake up and maybe you didn't get enough sleep or you just had a bad dream, whatever it is. If you just focus your attention on something that you're grateful for, something simple like thank God for a coffee or I love you water. Thank you for being here for me. Those simple things will get you on a roll. We all get in funks and right now is prime time for funks. We're being bombarded by the news and social media and a lot of us feel less control in our lives. When we focus on what we do have control of, when we focus on how we think about the world and where we focus, our thoughts, that makes us feel better, and we do this in coaching all of the time.

Whenever I coach a client and they come to me and they have these thoughts and they're out of control, thoughts, their thoughts like, I can't do this. I don't know what's going on, I, I don't know how to handle this, whatever that it is, and it always comes down to where they are focusing their attention and how they can refocus it over and over again. That's why this is called practicing joy, not just how to get rid of all the bad thoughts so you can suddenly feel joyful. No, you've got to feel all the other feelings in order to understand how to work through them and refocus your attention. I want you to try this exercise on that I'm going to give you right now. It's a litmus test for your life in this moment. Ask yourself the top three feelings that you feel every single day, the top three.

I want you to write them down right now and if you don't write them down, say them out loud. Okay? You get bonus points. If you say 'em out loud, it brings me joy thinking that you're talking to me on this podcast or just talking to yourself. It's, it's fun. So you got them. Now I want you to ask yourself the top three feelings you want to feel every single day. What are they? Write them down or say them out loud. Do you got them? Are they the same ones? Maybe, but my guess is probably not. Now your work is to see where you can focus more on the feelings you want to have and find ways to shift your focus in your life. Shift your thoughts in your life to create more of that in your life. For example, maybe you're feeling more worry than love in your life.

What are you worrying about? What's the worst case scenario? Go back to episode 98 if this is where you're struggling. My favorite question to ask myself here is whenever I'm feeling worry is what is good about this problem? What's good about this problem? Your brain will get to work. It'll get to work, finding evidence for you. It will get to work. Finding all the reasons. This is the problem you need right now. In this moment, we are where our attention is. Remember that, and you can choose to have more joy, more love, or any other feeling you want more of in your life. The next episode is really special to me. It's a really special one. It's episode 100 so I hope you will join me for that. I'll talk to you soon. Bye. Hey, if you enjoy this podcast, I offer one on one coaching using my be a better lawyer framework. That's where we rewire your brain to help you create the life and the practice that you want. Go to Dina cataldo.com to schedule a strategy session.