"Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius."--Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Genius is born of love. Love transcends social and economic order. Love is something that every human being is born with regardless of their financial or social station. If we can transcend what does not really matter, if we can attach our self to love we can cleave to a higher order and achieve genius.

How can we achieve love? By realizing that true love is unconditional. It is a birthright that is not born of ego, self-absorption or entitlement. Rather it is a place of purpose, passion and meaning that starts with reclaiming our joy. How can we reclaim our joy? Embracing joy starts with deciding to begin each day by taking out our personal garbage.

What is personal garbage? It is the negative stuff that the normal wear and tear of modern life brings us. It is that ugly, smelly stuff that holds us back from experiencing joy and meaning. It is what we find when we want a quick fix, an easy pass to fulfillment, or a scapegoat for disappointment.

Where do we find personal garbage? Everywhere. Personal garbage festers in our ego, in the demands of others, in the negativity that surrounds us, in just turning on the tv and being barraged by violence, in deciding to live life without meaning, in forgetting to hear our voice, losing our authenticity, in getting too busy and too distracted to listen to our heart. Garbage grows as we ingest more and more junk, more and more emotional toxins.

People and incidents can throw garbage at our feet or in our faces, but we have the personal power to start each day by taking out our garbage. Find the garbage removal steps that work for you. Rid yourself of rancid, negative, emotional toxins. Experiment with a different garbage removal step every day. Most importantly, learn to begin again each morning, to jumpstart your love, your genius, by getting rid of your PERSONAL GARBAGE. Here are some of the steps that work for me:

1. Start your day by just taking the garbage out. Decide to let go of what you cannot change and just embrace what you can do today to bring more love, more satisfaction into your life.

2. Decide to get happy. Get silly and embrace your inner child. Jump out of bed. Make funny faces in the mirror. Remember and recite the first joke you every told anyone. Do whatever brings you back to the happiest day you had as a kid. Get happy!

3. Chose to get active with your personal joy. If you are sad, then there is even more reason to get out of bed, take off any clothing and just jump naked in joy. Jump for joy. If you run or exercise in the morning, try doing your morning routine with a smile.

4. Share a joke or a smile with someone that you do not know today. Pass joy along and see it come right back to you.

5. Appreciate someone in your life whom you do not usually recognize. That's right; tell your colleague, your spouse, your child, your co-worker something about him/her that you appreciate.

6. Put stress and trash on hold. Take pause a couple of times a day. Put your brain in what science tells us is our most creative state, the alpha state. Find a place where you can sit for 3 minutes undisturbed. Sit in a chair with your palms up in your lap, your back straight. Close your eyes and start to breathe deeply from your diaphragm. Breathe to the count of five slowly through your nose, and breathe out to the count of 10. Do not let any thoughts enter your brain, just concentrate on counting in to 5 and out to 10. If a thought gets in there, just gently push it away. Try the pause twice a day. Embrace a state of not thinking of just being one with your breath, with your life force.

7. Embrace a human moment, a higher moment, and give something away. If you are having a particularly difficult day, or you are feeling sad or depressed, step out of the comfort zone, move past self absorption and give something away. If you are having a good day, move forward and make it better by giving something away. Your time, a donation, a smile, a hug, your help. Give it away with no expectation of gain. Yours in service and in joy, Irene

'Just Joy' is a free weekly newsletter that comes from the heart with the sole purpose of spreading a joy chain from one continent to the next. There is no gain to writing and spreading 'Just Joy' once a week except paying Joy forward. I would so appreciate it if you could help me pay Joy forward by spreading 'Just Joy' to friends and colleagues who would appreciate a weekly infusion of joy. Subscription to 'Just Joy' is on the front page of my website or by emailing: justjoy@justcoachit.com.

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