Joy Portfolio
How to build a Joy Portfolio
A ritual for celebrating and amplifying the good.
“Why hurry over beautiful things? Why not linger and enjoy them?”
Clara Schumann
Imagine coming across that one poem or quote that you’ve read many times because it is so inspiring. Or a favorite song that lifts your mood each time you hear it. Now imagine that you pulled your favorite items together in one place, as a portfolio of inspiration. What a treasure trove that would be! You will likely feel grateful and happy as you go about collecting your favorite things, and you can bring forth joyful moments each time you visit your portfolio.
Simply put, this ritual is about curating and storing items that inspire and bring joy. The collection can include anything you’d like - letters, photos, poems, songs, videos, or other items that lift your mood when you run across them. While this is a ritual for your initial round of collecting inspirational items, it is an activity that you can recreate often, as you continue to build your collection.
To sustain our wellbeing, we all need boosts of inspiration. An easy way to feel inspired is by spending time with the very things that we know from experience will lift our mood. The ritual of collecting our favorite inspirations is designed to help you curate the many and varied items that serve as sources of uplifting emotion.
Creating a Joy Portfolio
1. Find a space where you can immerse in creative time for at least one hour. The space should have a flat surface as a holding space for your collection. If you’d like to include photos, songs, or videos from your phone or computer, have them ready, too.
2. Set an intention for this ritual. Here’s a sample: As I collect my favorite things, I center on my desire to live a good and happy life. I will set aside troubling thoughts or worries, as best I can, and let myself be joyfully inspired.
Adapt the intention above to your taste, or disregard it entirely to create your own.
3. Begin this ritual with inspirational music. Select a favorite song and play it on whichever device you prefer. As you listen, tune into your experience. What are you feeling? What does this song bring to mind? Why did you choose this one? Dance if you dare!
If desired, continue with music throughout the activity. You won’t be zeroing in on the songs as deeply (unless one strikes you as something to put in your portfolio), but it is nice to set a pleasant mood with music you enjoy.
4. Decide on the type of your portfolio you wish to create. You might choose one genre (family, music, nature), or an inclusive portfolio that contains anything you find inspirational.
5. Next, decide on a way to hold or capture the inspirational mementos: both physical and digital. You might use a decorative box, a scrapbook, a computer file, a printed compilation, or a hybrid. You’ll need your computer for the digital files. If you don’t have a container in mind for any physical items, that’s okay. You can put them in a safe place until you do.
6. Begin to fill your portfolio. Possibilities include: letters, cards, poems, photographs, works of arts (or links to them) quotes, lyrics, scents, objects, pieces of nature from a special place, links to songs, videos, etc. You can make the collection any way you’d like to, as long as the items inspire.
You may wish to confine your collecting activities to one area of your home/computer for this first time of building your portfolio. This may reduce overwhelm and help you to put time boundaries on the activity. You can expand your search at any future time. A portfolio of inspirations is a living collection, you can add to it at any time, as desire strikes.
You may find some items that render a bittersweet feeling. These are usually tied to happy memories, but also perhaps to a loss, or an event that wasn’t completely joyful. These can often be good sources of inspiration, and a way to reflect on the whole of life. It will be up to you whether or not to include these types of evocative pieces in your portfolio.
7. If objects/files that are a bit more difficult to locate come to mind, keep a running list. Better to look for them at a future time, than to spend too much time searching for any one thing in the initial phase.
8. Be open to serendipity! Sometimes you may seek one item/file and find something even better. Notice when this happens, and appreciate how complex we humans can be!
9. Once the time is up for this round of collection, take a moment to reflect. What emotions arrived during the creation of the portfolio? How are you feeling at this moment?
10. The last step is to save files and/or to place physical items in a safe place. As you do, you may wish to express gratitude for the world and all its inspiration.
Notes on Use of the Portfolio
Once you’ve begun your collection, plan to visit your portfolio frequently, especially in the first few months. You can access the portfolio regularly for inspiration, or you can have it at the ready when times are hard, and you need a happiness reset. Make the experience of visiting the portfolio a new ritual by viewing at a special time, at a meaningful location, and/or with a candle or cup of tea.
Add to the collection, as desired. Let your portfolios grow over time. When the portfolio “loses its charge”, store it away and think about creating a new one, perhaps with a different theme or differing media. Engage with your portfolios mindfully, intentionally, and without over analyzing them. Ask yourself, “What could I do to cultivate more of this feeling?”
Adaptations
Have a few collections, each with a different theme (family, nature, travel, etc.) or different modalities (online, scrapbook, photos, objects, etc.).
Make this a family activity. Have each person contribute items to the portfolio of inspiration. Create a special time for experiencing the items together. Continue to build out the portfolio over time.
Create a display shelf or home altar to regularly view joy-invoking items. Rotate as desired.
More Information About This Ritual
Barbara Fredrickson, who runs the Positive Emotions Lab at the University of North Carolina, has found that when we experience more positive moments than negative, it can foster “upward spirals” of flourishing. Her research (and that of others) has shown that positivity makes us more open-minded, more creative, and more open to positive future possibilities. In addition, positivity is not only a reflection of positive experiences but a catalyst for them, too. Rather than a permanent state of bliss, which would be inauthentic to the full range of human experiences, positivity appears in distinct and fleeting moments. Best to find ways to encourage positivity, and the Portfolio of Inspiration is a good place to begin.
Notes from Positive Psychology
Barbara Frederickson’s broaden and build theory of positivity substantiates two claims: first, that positive emotions open us to more creative, flexible, and unpredictable ways of thinking, and second, that positive emotions act as an emotional “savings bank”, a build-up of emotional resources that will keep us afloat or help us bounce back when times get tough.
From broadened perspectives, we tend to build intellectual, physical, psychological, and social resources that support us in a variety of ways. For example, when children play together they are building social skills that will later facilitate successful relationships. When we experience small bursts of pride at a job well done, we build self-esteem to survive later and inevitable failures.
Additional Resources
Book: Positivity by Barbara Frederickson
Online test: What’s your positivity ratio?
Article: Broaden and Build Theory