In was a Monday morning in the school for young souls. When the teacher came to sit with them it was immediately obvious that many were not very happy today, as when souls are happy, they shine, and there was not much shining going on this morning.
There were at least a couple of children who didn’t have any glow at all, and the teacher’s heart went out to them as she knew it was because they were having some difficult experiences that were making them particularly sad.
The little faces looked up at the teacher expectantly.
“Good morning everyone” said the teacher “We’re having a very special visitor coming to be with us today, called Joy…” The children seemed to glow a little at the prospect of a visitor.
“Joy’s favourite game is a version of ‘hide and seek’ but instead of just hiding, Joy likes to leave clues in all sorts of places about where to look to find her. So today we are going to play the game … it’s called Finding Joy. I hope you are all up for that?”
The children all nodded their approval; the prospect of playing the game was making most of them shine a little bit more already – except for the few who were sad as they could not find the energy to glow. The teacher smiled at them.
“I know some of you are sad this morning and that may make it harder for you to join in, so I’m going to suggest that any of you who are feeling sad, write down what is making you feel sad today. Then I want you to leave your sadness safely here, so that you can pick it up again if you want to when we are finished… is that okay?”
The children agreed and the teacher’s assistants helped those that needed it, to write down what they were sad about and put in in an envelope with their name on. When they’d finished each child put their envelope in the ‘safe place box’ to pick up later if they wanted to.
When everyone was ready, the teacher told them all how to play ‘Finding Joy’.
“You are all going to have an hour in the ‘Experience World’– you can go anywhere and do whatever you want to, as long as it isn’t hurting others of course. You should know that Joy is sneaky and has made the clues a little tricky to find, but I can give you some hints. The fact is that you are less likely to find clues if you spend your time looking for them; most of the clues are hidden in experiences of all different kinds, so just get fully involved in whatever experience you fancy, have a good time and be kind to each other. When the bell rings we will all come back here and share the clues you found and see if we can all Find Joy”.
“How will we know when we have found a clue?” asked one sensible soul.
“That is a good question.” said the teacher. “When you find a clue some part of you will start feel sort of warm and happy and that will start to show on the outside – like a sort of glow or glimmer at first. You may need to help each other, as sometimes it is easier for someone else to see when you start to glow more quickly than you will, as you might be distracted by what you are doing and not notice. When you notice you have found a clue, then remember what you were doing at the time, and what it felt like, so that you can tell us all and we can work out together what the clue was. You can write it down or tell someone else if you think you might forget.”
“When we start to glow, do we stop what we are doing?” asked another child, earnestly thinking there was a rule they should follow.
“You can choose,” said the teacher. “You can carry on with what you were doing or go and try something else. There are plenty of clues for all of you so you can find as many, or as few, as you want. This is not a competition for who can find the most – it is a team effort, so it doesn’t matter how few or how many each of you find. If you help each other, between us we are bound to find enough.”
When they were ready the teacher took them to the Experience World – where they could choose any type of activity, or experience, they want in complete safety … like a virtual reality world where experiences feel real, but cannot ultimately harm you.
The little souls spread out, sometimes in pairs and sometimes in little groups, all ready to look out for when each other showed some signs of shining. They all chose quite different things to do with their time in the Experience World. Here are a few of the different choices they made which made them glow:
- Some found physical things to do like a running, playing football, swimming, or dancing – when they found an activity that they particularly liked they soon began to glow.
- Some went to a place that was special to them, like the top of a mountain, the seaside, the park, or a river. Some went with their family, others with their friends and others with one special person or even alone. Once there they chose to spent time there doing whatever they liked – just looking at beautiful things and feeling the wind in their face, playing, or having a picnic.
- Some decided to make something – like a picture, a model, a necklace
- Some learned to play and instrument
- Some played a game with friends
- Some played with a pet
- Some sat and talked and listened to someone they liked to be with
- Some did a puzzle or solved a riddle … and some made up their own riddle or puzzle
- Some read or wrote a story – or both
- Some sang, and others danced to the tune
- Some made a present, or drew a picture, for someone special they wanted to say thank you or sorry to.
One sad soul did not know what to do and stood alone for a while. A friend saw how sad they were and went and picked them some flowers. When the friend gave them the flowers, they both started to glow and went off together to find new things to do and glow more.
Another soul was lonely and stood away from the others, not knowing how to join in. A kind soul went and took their hand and they started to glow; together they tried lots of different things, glowing more each time, until they had forgotten there had not always been the best of friends.
When the time was up the teacher, who had been waiting for them, called them back. Every single soul was shining as they sat down to tell the teacher about what they had done and found.
Each had a chance to tell their story and many of the stories included how one of the others had helped them, or noticed them glowing before they themselves had spotted it, as they had been so caught up in what they were doing that they had forgotten to look at whether they were glowing or not.
When they had finished telling their stories one little soul put their hand up to ask a question.
“But how does this help us find Joy?”
“You have already found her!” said the teacher.
“… but where?”
“You found her when you started to shine.” said the teacher. “It is Joy that makes you shine.”
“Ahh…” said all the little souls happily.
“So is Joy everywhere?” asked one soul.
“Joy can be anywhere, but she is not found by looking outside for her – she bubbles up from the inside when you do, or be, something that frees her … something that you ‘enjoy’”.
There was a mumble of understanding around the room. One very observant soul had notice something.
“Teacher I notice that you are shining now – what did you ‘enjoy’?”
“One of the easiest ways to find Joy is to give Joy to someone else – if you can give her to someone else it means you had her there all along” the teacher laughed … and shone even more. “I just had a wonderful day introducing you all to Joy.”
The children were happy too and that day when they went home from school, they were all shining a lot more than when they had arrived … even the teacher.
© Share D’All.
All rights reserved. 2021
Tales of the Universe 
Beautiful story…so profound…searching for joy isn’t all that hard. We just gotta look inside and make that Inside person happy. 🥰💖💖