My mother-in-law, Barbara, is one of the most joyous people I have ever met. She has been receiving cancer treatment away from home in Salt Lake City, Utah. The doctor recently gave her two options. One was to fight through another round of chemo. The second was to return home and enjoy the rest of her life. Barbs chose joy. My husband talked to her on the phone the day she decided to return home and listened as Barbs went on about how lucky she was to have the most STUNNING Spanish doctor at her bedside. Barbs can always find joy in even the most cruel of circumstances.
Barbs has this gift of pulling other people into her joy. She can make common objects seem spectacular. Barbs often draws joy out of me by bringing my attention to everyday things that I otherwise would have overlooked. In her dainty South African accent, she refers to me by ‘Kitty’ and says,” Isn’t that the most GORGEOUS sunflower you’ve ever seen?” I pause and look. “Now that you mention it, I guess it is.” Her commentary about the food she prepares enhances its deliciousness. “Guys! Aren’t these golden potatoes absolutely DEVINE?” With my mouth full, her question signals me to slow down and experience the potato’s crisp, earthy, and sweet flavor. “Yes, these really are divine.”
Barbs encouraged me to keep writing my blog despite my doubts. I hadn’t written in a long time and needed an outlet after the death of a friend. I wrote my thoughts on paper and posted it on social media. I heard from Barbs shortly after. She said, “Kitty, you need to write more! Your piece is poignant and what everyone loves to hear, just saying…” So I started writing again and rediscovered all the joy it brings me.
Her joy extends to the people she meets, whether they be lifelong friends or complete strangers. She often comes home from running errands around town- something I dread doing- and tells us about all the LOVELY people she encountered at the grocery store. She speaks about her exchanges with strangers as if she had spent the afternoon relaxing with childhood friends. And her joy doesn’t end there. If you hear Barbs talk about her granddaughters, you may assume the oldest is on course to be the next Gordon Ramsay, and the youngest has the potential to be the next Piccaso. It doesn’t matter what Leo might do with his life because Barbs thinks he is just as STUNNING as her Spanish doctor, even amidst his toddler tantrums. And who’s to say she’s wrong about any of this? Because sometimes all it takes is another person’s joy to help us realize our own potential.
Somewhere along the way, Barbs must have discovered the secret to creating more joy in her life. She knows not to spend her time seeking things outside herself like the most delicious potatoes at the grocery store, the perfect sunflower, or a doctor who resembles Antonio Banderas. Joy is not for sale, nor does it come from the outside world. It is a way of being. Joy is an infinite source we can intentionally tap into by choosing how we wish to think about the world and life’s circumstances. It is a feeling we create from within and one we can choose despite what is happening outside of us.
I create joy for myself when I think about how diligent and caring my husband is. He makes time to play music with Leo and carefully grooms his thick hair despite having had a full day at work, where he gives hundreds of students his full attention each week. I feel joy when I think about the uniqueness that is Leo. He resembles Joe and I in some ways, yet is his own little person. I feel joy when I look at my dog and remember how lucky we are to have her, even though it meant suffering the loss of two previous dogs before her. I feel joy when I think about my own challenges over the past 3-years and how becoming a mother, starting the Yoga Shack, and changing jobs, has helped me grow.
Creating joy for ourselves feels phenomenal. And yet, we often choose to do the opposite. Our unconscious, automatic thought patterns require less effort on our part. We have to work at intentionally pausing and interrupting our negative stream of thinking when interacting with life. This effort is an essential component of joy. Joy comes from our relationship with ourselves and our beliefs about the world. If we believe that the world is a place of beauty and wonder and reflect on the abundant aspects of our lives, we create a sense of joy. Conversely, when we think the opposite of these things, we will experience the opposite of joy.
Perhaps no one ever told us that joy comes from within. Most of us have had no formal schooling on how to create joy. Instead, our consumerism society instills in us a belief that joy lies outside ourselves. So we live our lives striving to make more money, buy fancier things, plan our next big adventure, or endlessly work toward a perfect body. And in our efforts to do so, we are left with a sense of unfulfillment and dissatisfaction. We go on thinking about how busy we are, how much we don’t have, or ways we wish our lives were different. There is no joy here.
We may doubt that joy can reside in moments of despair. Perhaps joy seems impossible after receiving the worst news of your life or experiencing the loss of a loved one. But joy never leaves us. We can bring joy alongside any challenge by stilling our minds and remembering we will be okay no matter what life presents us. This inner sense of ‘okayness’ requires faith and trust. It requires us to focus our minds on remembering that all is how it should be even if we can’t quite see life’s plan. As Eckhart Tolle says, “Through allowing the “isness” of all things, a deeper dimension underneath the play of opposites reveals itself to you as an abiding presence, an unchanging deep stillness, an uncaused joy beyond good and bad. This is the joy of Being.”
Rather than run away with our thoughts, we can look up at the sky whenever we notice ourselves all wound up and connect with the infinite space above us. We can merge with the endless sky while remembering it was here before us and will resume when we are gone. We can see our life as an opportunity to overcome our sense of separateness and grow our capacity to love and be loved. Perhaps we can even let go of our agendas and adapt to life’s circumstances rather than attempt to control the vastness of this unconditional space. There is joy here.
At any time, we can pause and ponder how incredible it is to be here. We can spend our days eating tiny root vegetables and admiring people of all different shapes and sizes while sitting on a planet spinning around in the middle of absolutely nowhere. There are endless opportunities to connect with others and the world simply by finding joy in the “isness” of all things. The magic of joy can flourish and spill into the lives of others by accessing it within ourselves. And just like Barbs, we can bring joy into everything we do and connect with all the STUNNING, GORGEOUS, LOVELY, and DEVINE qualities of this life.
