Joy: a reflection

I was honoured to be invited to run a session on Joy for She Leads Change with the ever brilliant orchestration and collaboration of Nicola Millson as the last of a series on big emotions. I followed two brilliant women, Verity Owers who ran the session on Grief and and Kate Hammer on Anxiety. Tough acts to follow. Clearly, my critical voices chimed in loud and clear. Who am I to run a session on Joy? Am I truly living my life joyfully, freely, openly? Am I really creating joy on a day to day basis??

Those critical voices are bellowing as I post this, but having finished the session, I can now honestly say yes! I am a human being, and I like you, I am a joyful one!

The participants who joined me on the session were insightful, brave, open and generous with their ideas. It was a pleasure to facilitate. Any write up can't do it justice, but I hope I can share some of the insight from the session with you.?

During the conversation itself, I came to see joy as a river constantly running underneath everything that I am, everything that we are. I just need to stop occasionally to look at it, connect to it. Sometimes to dive right in and swim around. I see that I, like many of us, am so busy running over bridges to “get things done”, that we are often missing the ‘river of joy’. So perhaps what I want is less creating joy and more stopping and letting the experience wash over me. I found that freeing as a concept.

Six primary human emotions - Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust, Surprise and Sadness which mix and combine like a colour palate to create a whole emotional spectrum, including the learned emotions love, guilt, shame and so on. Joy is different from pleasure. Often, it follows periods of difficulty.?

Zadie Smith wrote on Joy “The thing no one ever tells you about joy is that is has very little real pleasure in it and yet, if it hadn’t happened at all, at least once, how would we live?”?

Joy is definitely contagious, and I have come to realise that spreading joy is actually a service. In a world where over 350 million people suffer with depression, other people’s joy depends on yours.

I was inspired by 'Mission Joy', a beautiful documentary about His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The Dalai Lama talks about foolish selfishness vs wise selfishness

“Being foolish selfish means pursuing our own interests in a narrow, shortsighted way. Being wise selfish means taking a broader view and recognizing that our own long-term individual interest lies in the welfare of everyone. Being wise selfish means being compassionate.”

This is the best permission to be joyful I have heard.

I realised that the aim of caretaking anyone, but it is most clearly seen when we take care of children, is bringing them to a state of joy. Joy, to quote the Dalai Lama again, is our birthright.?

The eight pillars or building blocks of joy come from the mind - Perspective, Humility, Humour, Acceptance; and from the heart - Forgiveness, Gratitude, Compassion, Generosity.?

We reflected that joy is temporary, like all things in life. Perhaps we need to trust, and that is enough. If we have faith that joy will flow again at some point, we can free ourselves from clinging to spaces, places, experiences or people that spark joy, and in turn can experience more.?

JOY by Madison Morrigan

“I was convinced life was meant to be hard.

Relationships like sandpaper

Joy- fleeting

Pleasure- sinful

My body- bad

Ease- not to be trusted

Rest- earned

I crumpled up those beliefs, threw them in the fire,?

watched them burn bright until they were nothing?

and began again to claim my joy."

I choose to believe Heaven was always here.”

By making space, we can allow more room for joy.?

Joy is not passive. It is active, current and we have agency to create it ourselves. We don’t have to wait for it to tap us on the shoulder. Some practical advice I shared is:

• If suffering is ‘like velcro’. Negative experiences are apparently 2.5 times as impactful as positive experiences. Perhaps the key, then, is to actively look at joyful experiences 2.5 times more than negative ones?

• Scientists have tested bloods and found that acts of kindness have a demonstrable positive effect on health.
• Desmond Tutu tells us that living from compassion and gratitude is the start.
• Joy is spontaneous and natural. Find the spark of joy in every situation. We can take ourselves too seriously.

• Start small - According to Deb Dana, a licensed clinical social worker specializing in complex trauma and author of "The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy,"Glimmers refer to small moments when our biology is in a place of connection or regulation, which cues our nervous system to feel safe or calm. We're not talking great, big, expansive experiences of joy or safety or connection, these are micro moments that begin to shape our system in very gentle ways.

• Cognitive reframing - His holiness the Dalai Lama was happier as a refugee than in Lhasa, despite the destruction of his country, living in exile, and witnessing the pain of his people. He sees that there are more opportunities to learn and spread his message, and therefore sees the worth of his situation.?

To explore joy during the session, I asked a series of beautiful questions, and I invite you to answer them for yourself:

1. Where have you found joy (in the past)?
2. Is it different to where you find it now. Joy is seasonal, it evolves and changes.?
3. Joy often comes from times of adversity. Can you identify a painful or difficult episode in your life that has also brought joy?
4. What practice/practices could you bring to your life?

Suggestions that came from the session inspired me, and I hope they will you:

• Widen up the glimmers
• Ask - in this situation - where is the relief?
• Create space by setting boundaries
• Purposefully pay attention
• See Joy as a service, to others and to self
• Listen to music you loved as a kid
• Design a joy compass and make choices on how you spend your time
• Use reminders of joyful experiences I can see regularly
• Remember joy is somatic - get into your body - be there - allow / accept it?
• Remember you deserve it
• From the 1000hours outside podcast -? create a fun list of 8 activities you really enjoy and use one when an opportunity arises
• From Polyanna - play the glad game. Find something you can feel glad about in a terrible situation.
• Consciously make joy a constant way of being
• Don't create a back to back schedule. Leave space.?
• See joy as infectious, contagious and consciously pass it on
• Start a 'God box' - write an intention every day for self or someone else

With thanks to all the participants who came to the session with open hearts and a willingness to share their joy and the journey towards it. With special thanks to the alchemist who is Nicola Millson , I leave you with this beautiful poem.

Don’t Hesitate – Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate

Give in to it.

There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be.

We are not wise, and not very often kind.

And much can never be redeemed.

Still, life has some possibility left.

Perhaps this is its way of fighting back,

that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world.

It could be anything,

but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins.

Anyway, that’s often the case.

Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty.

Joy is not made to be a crumb.

If you would like to work with me, on creating more joy or anything else, please do get in touch.?