How To Find Joy, In Any Moment, At Any Time

In Heart iQ, I use a five-step practice to explore connection and joy. It gives attention to feeling, acceptance, wanting, asking and receiving.

1. Feel your present moment experience

2. Accept and love where you are

3. Feel into what you want to feel better

4. Ask for what you need from others that would bring you joy

5. Let yourself receive the love and attention from life and others. Open your heart to being seen, felt and loved.

These steps are a practice rather than a promise of a particular state. Their value lies in returning to them in ordinary life, with room for the response to be different each time.

What happens in the recording

In the recorded workshop, a participant stands to speak about feeling stuck. She is frightened and begins to shake. Christian asks her to notice whether she wants to remain standing, and she says that she does. Her choice in that moment is part of this particular exchange, not advice to push through overwhelming distress.

The conversation explores the difference between discomfort and a sense that something is right for her. Both deserve attention. Fear may also be useful information about a limit or an unsafe situation; stopping remains a valid choice.

As she stayed with what she was feeling, the sensations shifted. She noticed the room felt lighter, and Christian pointed out that this wasn't only her own state changing, the group around her was also responding to her movement. This is a small but important observation about how emotional shifts in one person can ripple outward in a room, not because anyone is trying to fix anyone else, but because presence has an effect.

Noticing your relationship to a feeling

Christian asks her to notice not only the pain but also the judgement around it. This can add a useful layer of awareness, without implying that pain is unreal, self-created or always relieved by acceptance.

Asking and receiving

She says she wants to dance. Others join her, and afterwards she reports that the pain in her body has gone for the moment. That is her account of a change during the session, not evidence of a lasting treatment effect. The teaching follows how she noticed a want, expressed it and received a response.

Returning to the practice

The final point Christian made to the group was the same one made in the original teaching: this isn't something you do once. You do it for the rest of your life, as a practice. You feel into where you are, you acknowledge all of it, pain and all, you feel into what you want, and you dare to ask for it. Then you notice the possibility that you can actually have it.

Which step do you notice you have difficulty taking in your own life? Feeling, accepting, wanting, asking, or receiving?

Following the process

The Five-Step Joy Practice

1. Feel what is present in your body and emotions right now
2. Accept and make room for it, including any pain, without judgment
3. Feel into what you actually want to feel better
4. Ask for it out loud, even if it feels small or uncertain
5. Receive it, letting the love or response in rather than deflecting it