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There is not much I can say with certainty, but this—our life is a conversation. We open the door, and the world that walks in is for our eyes. The persistent fears, patterns, and feelings are our friends, here on time to talk. Otherwise, they wouldn't be. One of my favorite lines is, "if it's happening, it's necessary."
One conversation I have deepened this last year is with what researcher and writer Brené Brown calls "one of the most terrifying and difficult emotions we feel as humans" —Joy. Our joy often comes weighted down with the fear of loss. The consequence of allowing joy its full expression is to eventually meet our disappointment and the bottomless hole of grief it helps to carve. The more we let in, the bigger the fall into the maw of pain. Shame comes with joy too. Being too joyful, too exuberant in the face of so much suffering, is to be seen as tone deaf or worse, someone who makes others feel deficient or inadequate, a repellent. The curious thing about joy, which is just another name for love, is that it is looking for us in every moment. It is the rushing stream inside offering us a cup to drink. It is who we are.
I've been speaking with it more lately because it's starting to infuse every inch of me, and where and when it stops is what makes me curious. I've had to inquire why there is a ceiling for it. I want joy to do as joy wants for me— to live in all corners of my being, but something in me is attempting to sabotage this, to mutilate this possibility, And so begins the conversation.
What in me is stopping you, Joy, from taking up more space in me and my life?
What in me finds you terrifying and difficult?
I had a podcast interview the other day where I was asked why we bother looking so deeply at our lives when there are hard things in us that we don't want to recognize or admit. Can't we leave it alone? I can't think of a scenario where ignoring ourselves, meaning even the harder-to-love aspects, is appropriate. No, we don't want to wallow inside what we find, but we want to acknowledge and name what is. Why? Because it's here, it's happening, it's necessary. Ignore it all you want, but it lives on, bruising you from the inside and putting pressure in places, causing discomfort and dis-ease.
In this perfect sentence explaining why we remain estranged from ourselves and joy, Macrina Wiederkehr says, "I disappear for a while because I cannot bear to embrace the brokenness and uncertainty that is a part of the process of homecoming." Disappearing to me means lying down when all life wants is a dance partner, someone to talk to, to look upon with love. Disappearing for a while because we do not know how to begin the conversation means we remain stranded from joy. It means we ultimately refuse our life and its process—all of this I can understand. There are many conversations that I have not had and many feelings I have taken years to inquire about and understand. The human dilemma is that we are packed to the brim, and to begin looking seems daunting, overwhelming, and frightening.
When we reach the root of something hard, we often find the contents startling. Dark even. Some might even say ugly. If you've ever seen the sea life in the depths of the lightless ocean, you know that things that grow there are often the hardest to behold, let alone look at without squinting our eyes and scowling. I've brought up the monstrous, the eerie, and the strange, and not one I shy away from any longer. I am most undoubtedly afraid to announce they are part of my experience, but even so, I'm getting used to it, for I have seen and heard how my honesty sparked a certain kind of healing in millions of people. Fear lessens when you understand the long tail of goodness and freedom inspired simply by saying, "hi, I see you. I'm listening." And I don't mean freedom from these things in us, but freedom within them to live with them openheartedly and honestly.
I'm going to share a tender conversation with joy from a journal entry, which began by acknowledging and inviting the part of me that has been refusing it. Joy has been coming for me. Even when I'm sad and worried, I can catch myself smiling. As I stow away the pants my youngest son has outgrown, I cry in love and gratefulness. But also present is the paradox. Another part of me senses an excruciating feeling of being crucified if I move toward more joy. I can see my grandmothers and grandfathers on both sides, inside me, telling me the risk is too great and the ground is not solid enough to stand on. But I am a pioneer. I feel the push to move past the edges, I hear the call from the other side of the valley, and I have to follow to call. I have to go. So I look with love at my family, which is the family of humanity, and say, thank you for caring for me, but I'm going now toward this trust I sense belongs to me. I grab my journal, and I begin.
I use flow writing to connect because it removes the censor and allows the gut, the root, to purge what it's been holding to. This practice is what I call 'opening the floodgate,' and it is the essential step. It is diving deep and coming up. You can choose to have the conversation, by inviting this resistant part of you, by allowing it its complete, uncensored expression. And then, like most things, allowed and heard, they quiet and settle. They recede, still present and part of you but tamed by your loving attention and sincere care. Steadily and surely, you begin to carve back the walls of sediment between you and your joy.
So I’m going to share with you my uncensored conversation with joy now, It begins by saying:
"I severed a tie with joy. Cut the cord and yanked out what thread was left. Life has poured milk and starlight into my bowl, and I've pushed away the bowl.
