Silver linings is where you can find your joy. This blog article is all about that. You may remember the Silver Linings Playbook movie that came out after Julie and Julia that not only happened around my first blog and inspired this blog and this cranberry sourdough recipe. Sourdough and tart cranberries are a divine pairing.
And nothing better than cake bread (aka brioche) that gives you the best of both worlds. This one is inspired by a Baking with Julia cookbook. Sourdough can be added to breads, pancakes, and any bakes. It can be sweet and not just sour.
Sourdough Cranberry Brioche (Bread or Cake)
Ingredients
- Sourdough starter
- Frozen or fresh cranberries
- Baking powder and baking soda for cake
Instructions
- For bread, you can use the proofed starter as the leavening agent. For cake add baking powder and baking soda (or an acid like lemon juice or apple cider vinegar). These are for easy weekend bread cake that you can enjoy.
- Add sourdough starter to flour of choice (all purpose flour works best but for healthy you can use gluten-free flour, almond flour, and/or a mix of flours).
- Add fresh or drained frozen cranberries.
- Add additional flavors such as nuts, bananas, chocolate chip swirl if you desire. Think of the flavors you like to add to pancakes. Blueberries would be healthy divine too!
- Bake as you would for golden brown cakey-bread.
And if your current situation or circumstances aren’t ideal, or you’re not at a point in your life to feel happy (or may apply to someone you know), you can still confidently get daily joy that is better than happiness…
Because joy is constant and reliable. Happiness is not. It’s black and white.
Joy is guaranteed when you know what lens to look out from. It’s about YOU and your self-development.
And relying on joy can help you wean away from happiness that we learned at a young age to strive for. Back then, even all the board games like Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land, and the Game of Life were setups for winning as happiness. When someone wins, another loses.
Those myths hurt the development of our lives. I know before I had work-life balance I could not find the joy.
The problem with continuing to believe happiness is dependent on outcomes and situations is that when there is a let-down disappointment, our ego is crushed. And that can create sadness and a roller coaster of emotions.
That’s where joy and happiness can be at extreme odds…
They’re not interchangeable emotions. They have completely different meanings. And for children, joy is not yet a concept that can be grasped.
Having experienced both sides of the coin, I know Happiness is fickle. It’s a feeling that’s as reliable as the wind. The ego in any of us can trick and spin the truth to make us believe what we think we want that’s not the best for us.
The problem isn’t the once-in-a-while ego meter going up, it’s the person who’s drowning in egoism who never looked in the mirror to see who they became. And that hurts them the most.
They’re lonely and sad under the hood, and bitter about certain topics because they didn’t take the effort to self-develop and be self-aware. They don’t see what the world sees about them that hurts relationships. It’s an individual choice to live an abundant life or a limiting one.
And when the ego is running healthy, it keeps us fully living, productive and protects us a little from getting hurt in the world.
Getting your what-is-true barometer on is healthy.
And as part of being true, that’s how I learned happiness feelings never last. It’s always temporary…
Yesterday’s memories fade. Tomorrow always has some uncertainty for all of us. So then what’s left is today.
What we do today is all that matters. If we focus on the past, that builds up our unhealthy ego where the pain is. A book I always recommend on this is The Power of Now (by Eckart Tolle).
Staying past or future-focused can egg on our unhealthy ego especially if it lands in our selfish behaviors that end up hurting other people.
So when you look at the flip side and the good easter egg side of things of today, then you’re on the better JOY track. The feelings of Easter celebration can be lived out daily, year-round! 🐣
Sometimes it takes external happenings and stimuli… to light up any one of our 5 senses… to get the internal sommersault mind-body feelings… to then turn the salty tide in our day or weekend… but that’s all healthy compared to the alternative.
Then when you’re back to your healthy self, you have the opportunity to catch on in observation and awareness to how joy works for you…
Another way is to mindfully focus on the silver linings of your situation. A positive outlook can get you through quicker. And through is the fastest way.
Letting go of how things will shake out is letting go of the ego that wants to be in control of everything good and bad. I know from experience because that was one of the lessons that took me the longest to learn. And I’m glad I went through.
I did so with time. Gradually, I could see why what I wanted initially for some things got re-routed and turned out better in the end and on the other side of the process.
You don’t usually see it right away, but give it enough time, years, and decades, and it’ll become apparent. 🌈
That’s where wisdom is that outwits ego and what looks good on the outside.
In wisdom, if you’ve ever been shielded from a situation only to learn that had you been part of it, your life would have been impacted and lessened, then those gratitude moments in the silver linings can help you to see that life is on your side… and has been all along.
Believe that doors shut are silver linings for a better future you can’t see today. It’s easier if you believe that what happens is meant to be. And find out how you can use your current situations (and not the someday dreams) to be healthy, improve yourself, and do good in the world.
Not dwelling on self-pity avoids letting the ego have a field day with negative thoughts. It works the same with gossip…
Gossip is the optimized ego doing the negative talking. So if you want to practice quieting the ego, step out of those partisan conversations to quiet the mind.
And if you practice more daily joy and gratitude instead, then you can better discover the healthy ways. Sounds pretty easy, but most people (…maybe besides you and me 😊), don’t try to help themselves and their day because it requires change.
…But for anyone who’s trying and wanting to know how to (and maybe desperately) get more joy, they could start with asking: what brings simple joy to me, like a simple but effective cup of tea or a nature walk? That’s easy stuff.
And then in joy overflow (or tea in hand 🍵) gradually move towards reflecting on what their (or your) life is becoming as a subtle reflection of who they (or you) are becoming.
It takes seeing how the fruit in their life is growing today (and not living off the memories of the past).
The daily fruits are ones we can measure and witness. And we can help grow these from the internal fruits of the spirit or fruits of growing character that we’ve gathered.
“Character is power.” -Booker T. Washington
And anytime someone feels stuck, they can always open up to the miraculous Universe that’s always ready to listen, unlike our human being species. And reaching higher out can help build internal fruit to produce more external fruit. 🪐
Know What Brings You Joy and Calm
So when you know how to activate the skill of daily joy feelings without fail, that’s something you can pull out of your back pocket anytime you need to for instant day improvement.
When I have joy I know because I sing along with songs playing 🎶or else I listen to certain songs to create the joy. Or I’m in Dancer yoga pose.
Which btw, if you’re feeling joy, you’re also feeling calm.
Calm lets you be present enough to find joy.
The opposite is worry or anxiety, anger, or even excited nervousness.
Calming down first and not being preoccupied with emotional turbulence allows you to tap into your joy which takes mindfulness and active present state participation.
Hearing the sweet sounds of your surroundings, such as birds chirping, palm trees swaying, and soft ocean breezes could be indicators of your present state (and part of the silver linings in earthly living).
For someone who doesn’t have calm and inner peace, the external sounds of constant dogs barking, babies crying, or motorcycles roaring, can be disturbing and perceived as extra loud. For someone who’s in a state of peace, those sounds represent life and are less affected. Just something to consider. And when you have your calm that can help produce more joy.
…And that’s what I had to share this week. But I didn’t want to leave you on a sour note♩… I baked sweet pancakes with tart cranberries 😊.
Btw, if you want to see more of my healthy food photos and created daily inspirational images, you can always follow me on my Pinterest channel.