Entering our Lives
"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom"
- Anais Nin
In what ways do we "put a lid on" our own joy, and the joy of others?
How do we keep ourselves and others out in the cold, away from the warmth of our heart and hearth?
How might we fully enter the life we have, and discover the joy that is already here?
What would it be like to let that joy out of the bag?
Sometimes I think we humans are more afraid of joy than we are of suffering. I know in the past that has been true for me. Somehow it seemed easier, safer perhaps, to identify with the pain and the struggle than it was to take my life into my own hands and allow myself the joy I felt I was missing.
Do you know the story of The Little Match Girl? I'm sure many of you do. Living a life of poverty, she was sent out by her family to work in the streets selling matches. It was grinding, bitter and soul-destroying work. She would walk past homes and buildings where she would look in through windows on other people's lives. She would see families, food, warmth and nurture, and she would wish she was inside those rooms, those other lives. She died out in the cold as she lit her matches one by one, each one containing a dream of a life with warmth, comfort, love and support, and each one burning out, her life disappearing with them as their flames extinguished.
It's a sad story. I remember coming across this fairytale as an adult and recognising myself in it. The feeling of being poor, destitute and lacking in the kind of warmth and deep nourishment that my heart yearned for. I began to see that I was living as if I was outside my own life, looking in through windows and the flames of fantasy images, wishing I were "there" instead of here. The distance between the life that I had and the life I more deeply wished for was intensely painful. Also somewhere in me I held a belief that I didn't really deserve to be happy - that I would always be out in the cold, that I could never actually experience that warmth and joy and feeling of home. So I fantasised and idealised, but struggled to make it a reality. Eventually I realised it was the very act of fantasising that was keeping me fromentering my actual life and making the changes I needed to make.
Many people live as though outside of their lives, because of earlier pain that kept us from fully inhabiting our bodies and hearts. Unfortunately that also keeps us from fully experiencing the joy and satisfaction that is ours to live now.
As I undertook my own embodiment journey, I learned to re-enter my actual body and inhabit my actual life. I discovered that the power to create the life that I dreamed of lay nowhere else but within me. And the joy that I was seeking could only be accessed by relating to my life, taking responsibility, and beginning to craft with my own hands. This was terrifying! And empowering. So began a painful, necessary, and ultimately fruitful learning process, that continues to this day!
Entering our Lives
The entry point is always literally right here, in this very moment, however we actually are. It's not an idealised version of ourselves - how we wish we were - but how we actually are, that opens the door to the love, the fulfilment, and the joy we seek. Whether we are angry, tired, anxious, afraid, depressed, ashamed, inspired, or whatever, our primary task is to relate to our present experience with as much honesty, warmth and curiosity as we can muster.
When we soften into relating to ourselves here and now, we CONNECT. We enter this moment, connect with ourselves, and we begin tofeelthe flow of life that is already happening within and around us.
When we're connected we are ENGAGED. We are willing to work with what we've actually got. We are motivated to develop the skills to meet the lives we have and the world we live in. Our eyes, hearts and hands are open.
When we are engaged we feel ENERGISED. We are in a flow of giving and receiving. We are participating, offering our skills, and learning. We are part of the conversation and the ongoing creative collaboration of life.
When we are energised, there is JOY, aliveness, and a sense of satisfaction that we are doing something purposeful, meaningful and essential with our lives.
It doesn't mean things are easy. Again, to remember and cultivate joy is not to deny or ignore the painfulness of life. But we're not put off by that. In fact, the more connected, engaged and energised we become, the more joyous it is to work with difficult situations for the benefit of the whole. So joy arises not in spite of, but because of, the pain and struggles we all go through. It's a paradox, but it's true. And so the people we see who are the most joyful are the ones who are the most connected, engaged, and energised by their commitment to the world and to making it still worth living in.
If this possibility speaks to you, I warmly invite you to join us for Meeting with Joy, next Sunday December 10th. We will enter through the doorway of whoever and however we are, with friendliness, warmth, curiosity, and openness, and make space for joy to come out of hiding and take up residence within us! Let us head into the end of the year with our hearts alive!
Wishing you connection, engagement, energy and joy!