It invites me to notice. Here. Now. Or after an experience.
I write them into my Roam Research daily planner.
Why?
My nature is to notice contrast and seek to respond and improve. But, that can get out of balance.
Joy, like a simple uplift, says “this is part of thriving for me, and it’s HERE!!!”
The question seems to activate a “noticer” part of my being: “Oh! We’re to notice the joys!”
It acts as an antidote (often tho not always) to when I feel a bit grumpy and unsatisfied.
This is an evolution of Memories I used to record. I removed that after awhile because it felt like a “have to” – if I don’t record the memories, does that mean they were not important?
Emotional energy for me is weird like that. Something useful can fall out of favor… until it evolves again. My hope/sense is that “Hmmm, where is my joy?” can both open awareness and nourish my felt sense of thriving.
(Yeah, I can be thriving without feeling it. Same as I can be around people who love me and not feel connected or loved. Right now that makes me smile with how energy and awareness in me calls to be “crafted” and not just stay when it defaults.)
This is very common for me. It leaves me questioning whether the times I felt at peace or enjoying a moment- like a sunset at the beach- are real and why they are limited to those moments. Why can’t I experience those feelings any time?
And why do we feel disconnected and unloved around people who, apparently, love us. Why do I not believe it to be so?
In my experience everyone has blocks to joy. Sometimes an experience has so much awe and wonder that it get “through” or “over” or “past” those blocks. Does that make sense?
When my energy is suppressed or depressed, the same love that is around me can almost feel “offensive.” Heck, I see this with Adira! 2 years old and if she’s despairing about not getting something she just KNOWS she NEEDS, a loving touch she flicks off with anger.
So maybe we’re born with it…
This next three month focus is grounded in what I feel is real human experience. It takes WORK to allow joy, or feel love. While perhaps there was a time when those things “just happened” it is time for us to recognize that “modern life” asks for us to evolve.
If we want to feel joy, we’re going to need to redefine it not in the way “advertising” depicts it – or even the Holy Awe and Wonder of a sunset or sunrise (although those can count). There’s a spectrum from subtle to ecstatic. Across that spectrum can be “real joy” – just like we can actually know we’re okay even while also not feeling energized and “up.”
Thank you. Yes, it does make sense. It brought up for me this sense of powerlessness I feel over my own emotional world and emotional experiences and a block to the idea of WORKING to feel good. I do want miracles to happen and things to just ‘be better’. I think I have a lot of wishful thinking. Which leads to a lot of despair, self judgment and self criticism.
Despair leads to magical thinking and then we’re susceptible to fairy tales and then the fucking glass slipper doesn’t fit and the cinders still need to be cleaned from the fireplace and…
Our heart WORKS, constantly. It also can feel so much… not just heartbreak but also (sometimes in the same hour) deep healing.
Our mind is constantly working, and yeah, sometimes it is off working in ways that do not serve our thriving. Indeed, our whole sensory system, hormonal system, blood system, and organs are, well, 24/7 working.
The work changes. My heart rate during just one mile walk can go from 60 beats per minute to 143 beats per minute. My brain, too, 60 thoughts per minute to 1430 thoughts per minute (fast brain, sometimes freaky revved up).
I’ve been redefining my relationship with “work” to include those essentials and also that almost nothing I value “just gets better.” Meaning, if I don’t want to be a delusion person, I can embrace the work.
Dance is work. Noticing is work. And dang, if you saw all the work happening at the most ecstatic moments of joy and wonder, you’d think your cells were building the 8th wonder of the world!
