July Roundup: Our First Month of Tokimeki Questions
July 2026
In early July, our Art of Tokimeki social accounts went live, and we kicked off our very first Weekly Tokimeki Question with a video of Marie asking:
What is one thing in your life that sparks joy right now?
She answered first, as she does every week, and for her it was about tea, along with all the small choices that go into her ritual, from contemplating where the leaves were grown to choosing the teaware that suits the moment.
We had been working toward our launch for months, and we were very excited and a little nervous about how the new accounts would be received. Then the answers to that first question started rolling in, and we were completely overwhelmed with joy. Thousands of people around the world answered, sharing photos of the people and things they love along with their thoughts and feelings about them.
Our whole team was in tears reading through your responses. We had hoped people would connect with the idea, but we never expected so many of you to open up the way you did. It felt like people resonated with Tokimeki the moment they heard about it, and so many of you were excited to share a piece of your lives with us, which we're incredibly grateful for.
By the end of July, our posts had reached 4M+ impressions across Instagram and X, and multiple questions had trended on X for over twenty-four hours. More than 11,000 people had signed up for our email list, and we gained over 8,000 new followers. The metrics are not really the point, though. It's about the feeling, and what we'll carry from our first month is how it felt to read each of your answers. Each one sparked Tokimeki in us, and we've watched that feeling ripple outward ever since, from you to our team and back out to you again in every piece of content we make, which is about as clear an example of Tokimeki in action as we could ask for.
This is what makes Tokimeki an infinite energy source. When you share, it inspires someone else, which in turn sparks more Tokimeki in you and in the world around you, and the cycle keeps going from there.
This is the first of our monthly recaps, where each month's weekly questions and a highlight of some of our community's answers get a home that won't scroll away in the feed. July's questions and answers are below. We're so grateful for your participation, and we can't wait to see your responses in the months to come.
Your first Tokimeki responses
We asked you, "What is one thing in your life that sparks joy right now?"
"Playing mahjong with friends," Anne wrote, "the slowing down for those two hours, the curiosity, the friendships found around the table are sparking joy for me right now."
Meera chose her afternoon cup of chai, something she looks forward to every day and says feels like "a 10 minute vacation."
Answers like these hold so much feeling in a sentence or two. Both Anne and Meera knew exactly what it was about the thing that lifted them, whether that was the slowing down or the looking forward to something. Marie's tea works the same way for her.
"Each small decision sparks joy," she said, "one after another."
You can see more of the first week's answers in our community collage.
The color that calms you
For the second question, Marie asked which color gives you that small lift, and suggested wearing it or keeping it in mind for the rest of the day. She chose white.
"Wearing white calms me and refreshes me," she said, "and it feels like it's easier for me to hear my own voice at the moment."
Ifunanya chose purple, because
"it feels like peace wrapped in a color, and every time I see it I slow down and smile a little."
Ana chose forest green, the color of hiking under leaves that move in the wind like ocean waves.
A color sounds like a small thing to ask about, and it is, which is part of why it works so well as practice. We believe that as you start small and practice noticing, your sensitivity to Tokimeki grows stronger over time. Once you become aware of the color you reach for, you start catching it in other places, on a walk or in a shop window or in the shirt you pick up first in the morning. The more you notice, the more it becomes second nature, and the more joy you'll start to feel around you. We've written more about this in our blog post: Sharpening Your Tokimeki Sensitivity.
You can see more community responses in our week two collage.
Thank you, notebook
Our third question was about gratitude. Marie asked you to close your eyes, go back over your day, and pick one thing in your life you want to thank.
Erika thanked the notebook she carries everywhere, which:
"holds random ideas, lists, to-dos, and helps me reduce my mental load." Writing things down means she isn't "trying to keep all the tabs open in my brain."
Aulia was grateful for her work on wedding decor, which reminds her that:
"even a small part of what I can do can become a part of someone's happiest memory, and that truly sparks joy in me."
She puts her joy into making someone else's wedding day beautiful, and seeing them happy brings that joy right back to her, the same infinite energy cycle we talked about at the start.
Thanking the things in your life has been part of Marie's method for years, and seeing so many of you do it in one week felt like watching a small habit of hers travel around the world. More of your thank-yous are in the week three collage.
Your Tokimeki in three words
For the last question of the month we tried a different format. We shared a list of words and asked you to read them slowly, notice which ones made something in you stir, and choose your top three.
Melinda chose movement, connection, and beauty, and explained all three with one scene: runs with her girlfriends around Launceston, Tasmania, which she said make her "feel alive and joyful."
Diane picked curiosity, nature, and wonder, because
"there is so much to wonder about in nature."
Across everyone who answered, the words that came up most were growth, creativity, self care, and learning.
This question asked you to point the same sensitivity you'd used on a color at something much bigger, the feelings you want more of in your life. The words were all different, but the same instinct sat behind them, and you could see people starting to pay attention to what actually makes them feel alive. We believe this is the heart of Tokimeki: trusting that spark and letting it guide you toward the path and the life that fits you best.
Alongside the questions
Between the questions, we spent July introducing the concept and exploring what it means. Tokimeki literally translates to "spark of joy" in Japanese, and our first posts traced where the word comes from and what happens when you carry it out of the house and into every other area of your life.
Takumi recorded a video on what he calls the Tokimeki Quotient, or TQ.
"It is the ability to choose things through Tokimeki," he says, "and then to make those choices your own right answer."
Our IQ, EQ, and TQ carousel put the same idea into one line: IQ makes you smart. EQ makes you kind. TQ makes you alive.
Our blog post on The Tokimeki Quotient goes through this idea in full.
We also began our 10 Disciplines of Tokimeki educational series, starting with the first three: that Tokimeki is an innate instinct, that your sensitivity to it sharpens with practice like a compass you learn to trust, and that "does this spark joy?" works in every part of your life.
We're continuing to go deeper into each of the 10 Disciplines one at a time, and you can read about all ten in our blog post on The 10 Disciplines of Tokimeki.
What your answers gave back
All through July we asked you to notice what gives you that small lift, and along the way we ended up feeling it more than ever ourselves. Reading what people love, one answer after another, left us lighter at the end of each day than we'd been at the start.
Marie described this in her launch video.
"As each person shares the Tokimeki they feel, and the changes that Tokimeki has brought about," she said, "the total amount of Tokimeki becomes ever more connected and grows larger."
Your Tokimeki is yours whether or not you ever post it. Once you start sparking joy for yourself, though, you'll probably notice that it begins to spark joy for the people around you as well, and from there it can reach much further than you'd expect. We think of it as moving outward in that order, from yourself, to your circle, to the world. There's a good chance someone on the other side of the world reads your answer on a hard day and feels a little better, because that's what happened to us.
The days when nothing comes
Some days the question won't have an easy answer. You sit with it and nothing arrives, or the first thing that comes to mind is tangled up with something that feels challenging, like a person you miss or a part of your life that isn't going well.
Answering in public takes real courage too, because writing down what you love under your own name leaves you a little exposed. If you read July's questions and answered only in your head, that still counts. The noticing is the practice.
A practice for this week
These prompts build on July's four questions. Answer them in your journal or notes app, one at a time, and try not to overthink them or focus on what you think you "should" write.
- Think back to the first question, "What is one thing in your life that sparks joy right now?" and the answer you gave, or the one you would have given. When did you last use, see, or feel that thing without stopping to notice you were enjoying it, and how does it feel to notice it now?
- Look around the room or space you're in and find something in a color that sparks joy for you. Is it something you see or use often, or something you've been saving, and how would it feel to bring it out this week?
- Which object helped you today that has never once been thanked, by you or anyone else? Thank it now, in your mind or out loud, and notice what shifts in you as you do.
- Go back to the list of words from the fourth question and think about the three you'd choose. Which one has the least room in your life at the moment, and what would it feel like to give it a single hour this week?
If you'd like something with a little more structure, set aside fifteen minutes at the end of this week and answer all four of July's questions again, without looking at what you said the first time if you took part. Then compare the two sets and notice which answers have stayed the same since July and which ones have changed.
Join us every week
Every Wednesday, Marie asks a new Weekly Tokimeki Question and answers it first, and then anyone who wants to join in can answer alongside her. A few days later we gather some of your replies into a community collage, and we'll keep bringing it all together in these monthly recaps.
Since July, we've focused each month on one area of life, which gives the practice something specific to work on and makes it easier to see how it applies to your own life.
In August the questions turned to Tokimeki at work, and you can read all about it in our August Roundup [coming soon!].
As always, you can follow along and find the latest question on Instagram and X, and read more at artoftokimeki.com.