Huna Article

Huna International

Joy of Life
by Susanne Weikl

Last September, my nephew Finn (19 month old) and I were in the garden to collect ripe pears from the ground in order to put them in a bucket. My motivation was to do something together with Finn and I was looking forward to having fresh pear juice.

Finn was motivated, because collecting pears was something totally new for him, an adventure. Carefully he selected one pear and tried out how to hold it in his little hand, so that he could carry it. Then he headed for the bucket, a big smile on his face, with infectious enthusiasm and full of confidence in his ability to walk. With a full swing he threw the pear towards the bucket. No matter where the pear landed, each throw was accompanied by a shout of delight. Beaming with joy he headed for the next pear, the next adventure. Most of the pears landed right beside the bucket.

He just couldn't get enough and he told his mom in the evening, full of enthusiasm, about his pear collecting adventure. He is an adventure shaman full of infectious joy of life.

Joy of life? Finn hardly even hit the bucket, what a poor result. Why was he happy and excited? It would be like me being happy and excited when I would make a mistake at work.

Joy of life is an expression of confidence, unswerving faith in oneself. For children being confident is quite natural. They expect that they will succeed one day and hit the mark. Till then they enjoy and have a lot fun by trying things out and making experiences. Adults have this confidence as well, as a natural potential. We only have to bring it into our conscious mind and believe in it.

That means it is possible for me to enjoy my life, despite the fact that I have made a mistake or had a controversy, because I am also in training and I trust myself that I will succeed some day.

Joy of life is natural for us. It is the expression of our true nature to live our life happily. It depends on our scale of values how much joy we can express. When do I think I am good? When my boss pays me compliments for my work or when my cake was the best at the party? Or am I good when I keep my focus on the joy of life and experience a lot of moments of joy during the day?

Do I have to evaluate whether I was successful or if I failed at all? Wouldn't it be better to release the dramatic aspect and to give the failure a different meaning? I just gather experiences by acting and isn't the most important thing how I deal with the experiences?

I was deeply touched by the joy of life that Finn radiated. I decided immediately to open the door and express and live my true nature of joy of life in a very sparkling way.

This is how I decided to think about it:
1. My thoughts affects my experience. Now I believe that life is the act of living and that I have a natural habit of being confident and enjoying life. I let my joy of life radiate around me.
2. I act with laughter, sparking eyes and enthusiasm. The more joy I have in the actions I take, the more relaxed and the more creative I will be. Joy of life is infectious!
3. From now on doing things with joy and enthusiasm is very important for me. Especially when I realize that I am acting stubbornly, I change my perspective and follow the lane of joy of life. It is just a question of training myself to do it. I also watch happy people to get ideas on how they deal with life.
4. Joy of life is in every moment, sometimes hidden, but it is there. I develop my skill to feel and express it in every moment. Joy of life is also in unpleasant situations. It depends on how I handle it.
5. I praise everything that I am or others are good at. I feel the joy of life inside of me, in others and in nature.
6. I trust myself and I am able to live happily and to deal in a healthy way with unpleasant things. I reactivate my memories of my enthusiastic activities as a child and express my true nature of joy in a very sparkling way.
7. Living with joy increases the harmony inside of me and in my relationships.

Susanne Weikl teaches classes on Huna and Shamanism, and works as a healer, counsellor and therapist. Her website is www.susanne-weikl.de.