“Joy and pain, sunshine and rain” -Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock (late 80s)
Opening to the Wide Band of Emotions
As some of you may remember, each year I identify a quality I want to cultivate more of in my life. This year it’s JOY, and I’m orienting toward cultivating deeper pleasure and delight in my days, whether they be at home or through experiences I plan. This winter, my husband Jon and I went on a dream trip to visit our daughter who is studying abroad in Copenhagen, then on to northeast Finland where we cross-country skied 150 kilometers on the Russian border with friends, followed by a solo visit to Lithuania to see friends.
It was wonderful trip, really, full-of-wonder. My heart was full of love in seeing Alina thriving living on her own in a new place, noticing the aliveness of my body when I fully dunked into the icy water after a post-ski sauna in Finland, and then pure delight in sharing a long evening of drinks and singing with my Lithuanian girlfriends in the countryside. Then one afternoon I visited the Ukrainian Center in Vilnius, where they provide a variety of cultural and psychological services for the Ukrainian refugee population. I was brought into an auditorium where a children’s choir prepared a song for me. (See the clip below) I found myself overwhelmed with grief and sorrow for all the devastation the Russian invasion of Ukraine is causing, and I did all I could to keep it together and not burst into tears in front of these children. I felt ill-equipped to handle it, and I left wondering how to cultivate joy while not shutting down to all the suffering and pain in the world.
Here is the deal. I can’t have it both ways. It’s the cost of being human. If I want to experience wonder, joy, and awe, I have to be courageous enough to feel vulnerability, fear, grief and sorrow.
Brené Brown, professor and author writes: “You can’t say, here’s the bad stuff, here’s vulnerability, here’s grief, here’s shame, here’s fear, there’s disappointment– I don’t want to feel these. I’m gonna have a couple of beers and a banana nut muffin.’ … You can’t numb those hard feelings without numbing the other affects or emotions. When we numb those, we numb joy. We numb gratitude. We numb happiness.”
Brown asserts that joy is the most vulnerable emotion that we feel because it’s beauty, fragility and impermanence all wrapped up in one experience. When we can’t tolerate it, it becomes foreboding joy and, afraid to be blindsided by pain, we start dress-rehearsing tragedy- waiting for the other shoe to drop, as self-protection. We end up pushing away joy preemptively and thereby also lose the possibility of building courage and resilience to face the inevitable ebb of that feeling.
What does she offer instead? In her research she shares that those people who expressed a deep capacity for joy had one thing in common, which was practicing gratitude. As a practice, that might mean sharing what you’re grateful for at dinnertime, telling a colleague what you appreciate about them, or journal three things for which you’re grateful at the end of the day.
In reflecting on my situation, here are some other learnings for the future:
Prepare myself- I didn’t center and ground myself before entering the refugee center. It would have been helpful for me to prepare for the experience rather than walking in without a mindset to hold what I would witness.
Stay present- There was a moment when the children were singing when I became overwhelmed thinking I had to fix it and take away all their suffering. Taking some deep breaths, feeling myself in my body, and noticing that those children were no longer in a war zone and seeing all the amazing staff and volunteers was helpful to give me a little initial space and perspective.
Practice compassion, rather than feeling everything- As someone who is very sensitive, I want to be mindful of meeting suffering and problems with care and empathy, but not taking the pain on myself. And I want to practice self-compassion as I work through it all.
Focus on what I can do, not what I can’t- There are more problems in the world than I can take on, and I need to choose how I’ll respond to those pressures. In the moment, I have to hope that taking the time to be a witness to their situation was valuable, to learn more and share it with people back in the United States. I made goofy smiles at some of the children that made them laugh, and I made a financial donation afterward. I continue to pray and send positive energy to those impacted by war, and I continue to keep my focus on Ukraine advocacy and occasional fundraising.
Tap into something greater than me for strength- Staying connected to spirit and maintaining nourishing practices is critical for me to feel resourced.
I choose the live the wide breadth of life. And that will mean feeling the raw grief when a loved one dies, to open myself to my deep sadness about injustice in the world, and bravely face the day when I someday get a diagnosis or awareness that I’m coming to my last chapter.
But it also lets me tap into the joy of noticing the click when I clip into the pedals for an early spring bike ride, of letting tears well as I watched the totality of the eclipse in Vermont recently and relishing in the warmth and laughter with a circle of friends.
What about you? Any words of wisdom or perspective to share? Drop me a note, I’d love to hear.
PS Ten points for you if you knew that throwback song “Joy and Pain”- listen here. Email me a virtual high-five!
PPS If you want to donate to the Ukraine Center, see here.
Great Link
A powerful example of experiencing awe- Yosemitebear Mountain Double Rainbow. Went viral in 2010 with over 51 million views. (3:30)
Reflection Exercise: Moving from Theory to Action
This quarter I offer something a bit different. I’m offering a virtual Abundant June Challenge. Think about it as a way to bring more ___ (you fill in the blank) into your life:
Do you find yourself wishing you had more time to do things that bring meaning to your life?
Do you have some tech habits that you know don’t serve and would like to change?
Do you want to get more out of this summer season and the opportunities it offers?
Learn more here.
Quarterly Quote
Discovering more joy does not save us from the inevitability of hardship and heartbreak. In fact, we may cry more easily, but we will laugh more easily too. Perhaps we are just more alive. Yet as we discover more joy, we can face suffering in a way that ennobles rather than embitters. We have hardship without becoming hard. We have heartbreaks without being broken.- Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Book Review
Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life
by Dacher Keltner
Having just finished this book, I can truly say it was awesome. Ha! All joking aside, it was an interesting and delightful deep dive into a single emotion, explaining how, when, and where we feel awe. Dacher Keltner spent twenty years researching awe around the world, to conclude that there are eight main sources of awe: 1. Moral beauty (Taking in the kindness and courage and strength of others), 2. Collective effervescence (group synergy like dancing, music or sports event) 3.Nature, 4. Music, 5. Visual design, art, and architecture, 6. Spirituality, mysticism, and religion, 7. Life and death, and 8. Epiphany (an ah-ha moment that rocks one’s perspective). Moral beauty and nature seem to be the most likely to induce awe. He also shares how to cultivate more awe in one’s own life. Spoiler alert- it’s mostly about being present to the wonder in your daily life. An inspiring read that piqued my curiosity about how to access awe more in my life.