Note: this newsletter has snippets of a past newsletter I wrote on April 11, 2023 entitled “What is Joy?” I’ve used some of the same ideas and quotes, but have edited it to be a 2-part series on joy that will go out this week and next week. This is part one.
Hi hi,
How’s your breath? How’s your heart?
The All Parts crew has begun another 15 day practice…this time themed around Grounded Joy. Confession? Many times these themes are not coincidental; I usually pick themes that feel close and important to me at the time. Some might call that self-centered. I call it embodied.
Joy is something we all crave, because hello, we’re human and our world is harsh. Especially now. I’ll resist the urge to list out the many things happening in the world right now. I know you know. Instead I’d like to talk about joy. Not as a way to bypass or bury our heads in the sand (although that does sound pretty appealing at the moment). No no.
Let’s talk about grounded joy as the only way we’re able to hold our grief and anger.
One thing I’ve come to know about joy is this:
Joy is not the absence of pain. Joy allows us to hold everything, all at once.
Dr. Edith Eger is an Auschwitz survivor with an incredibly gut-wrenching story of trauma, survival, recovery, and growth. While reading her story, the question that came up for me was, "how does one develop an inner fortitude to survive in the face of the worst kind of atrocity known to man?" She tells a story of having a "boob contest" with her sister and other prisoners at the camp. Yes, it is exactly what it sounds like. While prisoners of the most infamous concentration camp of WWII, these young girls took their shirts off, danced around, and judged who had the best rack. Eger explains that it was this child-like play that kept her alive. She says, "we can choose what the horror teaches us. To become bitter in our grief and fear. Hostile. Paralyzed. Or to hold on to the child-like part of us, the lively and curious part, the part that is innocent."
Joy enables a fortitude that even the most evil cannot break through. When this is developed and practiced regularly, we begin to realize that the goal is not to “be happy all the time.” We understand that the safety that joy provides us in times of struggle doesn’t keep out the pain and the suffering. Instead, joy is the container in which we have more capacity to deal with the inevitable suffering that life entails.
Author Cole Arthur Riley says, “joy doesn’t replace any emotion; it holds them all and keeps any one of them from swallowing us whole.” Joy is the container in which we can explore all other parts of our Selves. Joy is the vessel that allows us to heal.
We often hear that joy is the antidote to suffering. If only I could let it go and be happy, then the trauma of my childhood wouldn’t affect me so much. Riley continues, “When [society] tells us to find joy in suffering, it is telling us to let it go, to move on, to smile through it. But joy says, hold on to your sorrow. It can rest safely here.”
Joy is not the antidote to suffering because news flash: there is no antidote to suffering. As any Buddhist will tell you, life is suffering. But we can take a nice long exhale when remembering that joy has the capacity to hold even the most intense moments of our human suffering.
The best news in all of this is that joy is not a genetic trait. It’s a practice. A daily devotional practice steeped in curiosity, compassion, and mindfulness helps make room for all of who we are, even the darkest parts. It’s these practices where we are reminded we are alive, and isn’t that a miracle?
A practice that helps to embody joy can be as simple as dancing in the kitchen to your favorite song. It can be more structured like with our 15 day practice (it’s not too late to join, by the way). It can be finding a playground and playing on the swing, feeling your hair moving through the wind. It can even be a boob contest with your girlfriends.
We mustn’t forget our childlike curiosity and access to joy. What once made us most vulnerable to threat and injury - our child-like innocence - becomes one of our most powerful assets as an adult. By rekindling the connection to this innocence, to our bodies, we find the kind of sustained joy and contentment we seek.
How are you practicing joy this week? What is the suffering it’s helping you to carry?
More next week,
The part practicing joy
Awesome
This is a really beautiful perspective I'd not thought of before; thank you so much for sharing. Also thank you so much for recommending my publication :) xx