Have You Lost Your Joy?
Take heart, it’s closer than you think
Prefer to listen? Here’s the audio recording.
Finding it tough to feel joy?
You’’re not alone. There are many just like you.
But from the outside, you’d never know it.
She smiles. Laughs easily enough. Her warm voice is kind and reassuring. She seems confident. Positively focused, she’s a supportive enthusiast. She does what she can to uplift others.
But she can’t feel it.
The joy.
From the outside, she looks happy enough. She’s always making the best of what life brings her.
But she can’t feel the joy.
When she tells others, they don’t really believe her.
They see her smile, even in difficult times. Her life is good enough… Perhaps she’s busy, overwhelmed even, but she’s clearly getting the job done.
On the outside, she’s an upbeat, happy person.
Inside she’s reaching for a reason to be.
Who is this person?
She could be you. She used to be me. I see her in so many.
So many struggling to connect with joy.
Straining to be positive.
Sound familiar?
The harder you try to feel good, the worse you feel.
Then you add self criticism, shame, guilt, or failure to the mix.
You push to do what it takes, to adopt the right practices, to follow the right teachers…
Until life feels empty and exhausting, a barren wilderness, where no seed of joy will grow. A history of trauma and the conditioning of your past seem to fill your cells with cement.
There’s no energy left. No passion for life. No purpose that feels worth pursuing.
You’re not broken
You’re on the verge of breaking through.
The drain, the struggle, the impossibility of joy, these are normal, healthy signals. They’re calling you Home to yourSelf.
When a client describes this total lack of energy, their struggle to motivate themselves, the grey dreariness of life, I celebrate their turning point. It registers as a soothing kind of shock… It’s the last thing they expect. They think they’re broken. They’ve lost their way. Gone WAY off piste.
But I know they’re in the perfect place to reach for their joy.
Because now they really want it. They’re ready to make joy important enough to let go of other priorities. They can see how impossible life will become without an energy Source that won’t be diminished.
Prioritise JOY
Connecting with joy and being there mostly, is easier when you’ve sorted your priorities.
What do you want more:
To do it right, or to be joyful?
To face reality, or be happy?
To get ‘them’ to behave better, or to laugh and dance regardless?
Do you want to live in conditional love, that says, I can only be happy if, or when… X, Y, or Z?
Or to be in unconditional Love with life, that says, Whatever happens, I can enjoy the desire this creates, I’ll milk it for the joy… even if it never shows up.
Unconditional love — ‘Love’ — prioritises joy above all else. Love without limits is the truth of who we are.
Love is not interested in what’s currently showing up, but in what joy calls us to imagine. When we are in Love — with life, with this moment, with the beauty of the now — nothing else matters.
Past and future fall away.
The tiniest, simplest moments fill us with delight.
We lose ourselves in the now.
But that doesn’t happen easily.
It doesn’t often happen overnight.
And we have to REALLY want it.
How much do you want to feel good?
There’s a story about a student of Socrates who asked his master, ‘How do I achieve wisdom?’
Socrates gave no reply but walked with the young seeker to a nearby pool. Socrates bade the boy kneel, and without warning, plunged the young man’s head into the water.
Socrates held the boy’s face under the water long enough for fear to take hold. Finally, he released his student, who spluttered and coughed at his feet.
The young man railed against his teacher, ‘What did you do that for?’
Socrates asked him, ‘When your head was under water, what did you want, more than anything?’
‘Air!’ replied the boy.
‘When you want wisdom as much as you wanted air in that moment, it will find you,’ — the powerful teaching.
The same might be said about joy.
What truly matters most to you?
My husband’s dying felt like that threat of drowning. It forced me to focus on what mattered most.
Joy — or the quest to find it — was my sole desire as I nursed Michael Home. It was essential, to be able to cradle him in Love right up to his translation.
Joy called me back to the surface of the wild, storm-broiled waters of grief in the weeks and months after he died. Again and again and again.
Hopefully, you will realise your desire for joy without an experience like that, but it’s worth stopping to appreciate life’s deep and sometimes agonising contrast. Those shadowlands have their gift to bring.
No matter how hard it is for you to imagine joy, it calls you. It’s a call that won’t be denied. The stronger the contrast, the louder the call.
Let the clear desire ring out into the void, even if you’ve no idea how to attain it.
Set your course towards joy. Seek joy first and foremost. Even if you’ve no star to navigate by on a dark and raging sea.
Make the decision to prioritise joy. Whatever that might mean.
All else will follow.
Navigating to joy takes you INWARDS
Why?
Because that’s where the Source of your joy resides…
If you want LASTING joy, you’ll find that it comes from within. Not from the lover, nature, money, health and so on, but towards them…
You know this because you can have any or all of these things and still feel sad, or angry, or fearful. If joy came from outside of you, then you couldn’t be in the presence of ‘joyous things’ and feel bad.
In fact, some of our worst tangles come from this thinking…
But I have a beautiful garden/spouse/job/body… and STILL I’m not joyful. What’s wrong with me?
I hear this from clients, often. I heard it from myself, for years…
Your joy doesn’t come from the lover, nature’s beauty, the money, the health condition etc…
It comes from YOU.
Because it IS you.
The joy comes from within and pours out into the world, looking for sweetness to play with…
Inner world orienteering
When you are unfamiliar with your inner world, orienteering there can feel scary or hopelessly overwhelming. Many people, when we begin the practice together, say, in true despair, ‘I just can’t do it! I’m not a joyful person. I’m stuck. I can’t feel joy.’
If you’re reaching for joy and finding numbness or pain instead, you’re seeing yourself as needy. This is NOT the truth of who you are. Feeling lack will ALWAYS feel terrible, to alert you to the lie.
The masters teach us to Love ALL our emotions, not resist them. This is easier when you have a reassuring view of what they’re up to.
When you see your emotions as your GPS, guiding you Home, you want the bad ones to feel dreadful. They’re pulling you back to the truth of who you are.
You don’t feel bad because there’s something wrong, with you, or with what’s outside you. Your ‘negative’ emotions feel bad because you are at odds with yourSelf. You are seeing reality through the eyes of lack, or limitation. You’re experiencing the pain of conditional love.
Your inner being is in Love with life. All of it. Your core Loves unconditionally.
When you wander into the conditional, ‘I’ll be happy if/when…’ your emotions call you back. Be happy NOW anyway! they call.
When negative emotions arise, listen. What are they directing you towards?
If you’re sad, you want happiness.
Lonely — you want connection.
When you’re fearful, you want to feel confident…
Turn your attention towards these states.
For you, happiness is like… what?
Where is connection?
Confidence, what kind of confidence…?
Just set your course for those emotions and see how you begin to travel that way. Don’t ask for specifics. No figuring out what to do. Just deciding to head in that direction. Inside. Let the outside take care of itself…
One by one I see others wonder at the simplicity of the practice.
It works. It really works.
Reach to feel a little better. Joy may be out of reach for a while. That’s okay. Reach for joy but be content with even the slightest sense of relief.
That’s it.
Reach for relief.
Joy will come.
Four steps to guide you
Focus inwards to find your bearings, are you headed for joy? Or are you ‘facing reality’ in a way that makes you sad? Your emotions are your guide. Love them all. The painful ones are your friends, grabbing to pull you away from the cliff-edge.
Make adjustments to your course. Train that puppy-dog mind. Be soothed — your emotions will guide you. Focused journaling works. Try it. Let me know if you need help.
Set a heading for joy. Say things to yourself like, ‘I’d really love to have more joy. I’d love it to be easy to feel joyful. Wouldn’t that be nice? What if I could? That would be wonderful.’
Then LET GO. Sounds strange, I know. Make joy your first priority and then let go of it. If you don’t let go, you’ll find yourself in a tizzy of over-steer. Spinning and out of control. Trying too hard and making it worse… you know that spiral, don’t you? This is the point where you want to soften your trying…
Let go of your desire for joy.
Let go of all storyline.
Let go of it all.
Past. Future. Present.
Bring your attention into the now.
Come back into the moment. Into the now.
Step away from desire for a little while. (This track may help you.)
You’ll notice relief if you’re watchful — it creeps in on soft paws.
If you want joy enough, you will soon find this practice compelling.
When your outer world drives you inwards, you’ll find an inner peace there.
Don’t look for grand signs of alignment. Don’t expect relief to last. Not to begin with anyway. Especially if your reality is harsh right now.
No.
Return to the practice again and again. Find a little relief each time.
Get fierce about giving yourself time and space to do it.
If you can, find others to encourage you.
Stop.
Breathe.
Reach for a little more joy.
Sometimes, the best you can aim for is a tiny emotional improvement. The shift from fear to anxiety. From worry to blame. Many need a good spell of anger before joy comes into range.
That’s okay.
Wherever you are, you’re in the perfect place to reach for a little more joy.
Acknowledgement: My blogs, my life and my coaching are based on appreciating many wondrous teachings but most particularly those of Abraham-Hicks.
Yet again illuminating , very relatable to and a pure delight to read. There is hope ! Awesome thank you thank you for sharing your wisdom continually.