I’m used to hearing the sound of police sirens at night. But the constant peel of ambulance sirens is another unsettling reminder that I am living in a Pandemic. In the midst of this present darkness and sitting in my own gloominess about life, I said this out loud, “Joy, I invite you into the room.” Though I didn’t notice it much when it arrived, it was there nonetheless.
I like to listen to the radio show “This American Life.” They aired an episode that I listened to a few weeks ago about joy. In the episode they interviewed an author who spent a year noticing and recording what brought him joy. It struck him how simple those things could be and also that the more he paid attention to joy the more he experienced it.
One day I recorded in my journal an my attempt at noticing glimmers of joy. I realize often, especially in times of sadness, it’s nearly impossible to notice joy. I journal entry right after something happens is usually the closest we will get to experiencing joy in the sadness. Yet I believe the effort will eventually produce joy in the midst, no matter how simple it is. Here is the journal entry:
It’s a curious thing beginning to find joy sprouting up in the midst of physically feeling unwell. I by no means have found the secret. Let’s be clear also, I am not jumping in a river of it as happiness and pleasure often make joy out to be. No, joy mostly accompanies the suffering if they look for it closely.
Being physically sick for nearly a month does something to your psyche. The mantra “This too shall pass” begins to feel untrue. Resentment creeps in unaware.
Today was like any other day. I woke up, ate breakfast, took a shower, put on make-up, and attended my acting class through Zoom. In class, my teacher hurt my feelings. She rebuked me for not studying the scene better and I felt totally humiliated.
I was holding it together until one of my classmates who knows me texted me asking how I was feeling. He reminded me that my teacher does that because she believes in me not because she thinks I’m stupid. Then he offered to be there if I needed to chat. The gesture forced me into admitting how I felt and (thankfully muted and off video) I spent the rest of class in a puddle of tears. After I did call my classmate and he consoled me some more.
Next I physically rested. My head hurt so I pulled a blanket over my head, put earplugs in, and concentrated on my breathing. I realized I spend so much time physically balled up from pain and from stress. I found myself totally not on purpose visualizing a cat comfortably asleep.
Finally I ate, texted some friends, cut a pineapple, and at that point my self pity was almost totally diminished. Though my head still hurt I had determined next to complete a relatively simple to-do list. Just as I was about to begin an idea occurred to me and the idea brought me joy. I’m always reading self-help books which is probably one reason I don’t read very much. But I just finished a spiritual formation book so I got excited thinking of the stories I was suddenly interested in reading.
I wrote this in my journal (maybe I knew at this point that I was going to share this with you all), “So the question remains: why I am I more joyful than this morning? My circumstances have not changed in the slightest. I’m still quarantined at home with a splitting headache, still fairly confined to my bed from exhaustion. What changed?”
Release
…or grieving, or processing through, or letting my feelings out needed to occur. One of the paramount things I have learned from my acting class (and really over the last 7 years) is to have my feelings about things. We are taught growing up to avoid expressing emotion in order to survive. As a result we often bottle it up, judge ourselves for it, rationalize out of it, avoid it, or apologize for it. These actions don’t change the feeling, it just moves it elsewhere and it causes more pain.
When I was encouraged by my classmate that it was ok to be upset even though it wasn’t true what I was believing, I was able to release the pain of not only being hurt by my teacher but also probably a lot of other pain I’d been feeling in my sickness and alone state.
Being Seen
I struggled with the idea of putting this one in here because it isn’t exactly active. When my classmate texted me I hadn’t had much connection to the outside world. I had been on long social media detox and I felt extremely isolated from others. Sometimes it just takes that one person to reach out for you to feel totally seen. I will say the active reverse of this is whether or not someone reached out to me, the truth remains that anyone feeling seen brings joy. Therefore, in hindsight I could’ve reached out to others and would have probably made them feel seen as well as myself.
Self Care
I actually do hate how this term is thrown around (maybe one reason for that is because I do not like to take care of myself). Napping was the best thing I could do for myself when I wasn’t feeling well. I have found being sick that sleeping is the best thing I can do and often when I’m not sick and I’m emotional I just need to sleep. Caring for your own body, soul, and spirit is the most joy producing thing one can do. (Writing this now I'd like to add how I really do like cats so if visualizing cats brings you joy, it ain't a bad idea either.)
A Joyful Routine
I enjoy crossing things off a to-do list. For me it’s also about working towards something. For instance, the menial tasks of finishing an art project are far less exciting than the beginning inspiration. Realizing that in the end I will complete something beautiful brings me joy.
Something New
It actually brought me joy to walk to my living room and pick out the books I want to read, stack them in the order of completion and carry them to my bedside. The thought is that if I put them there when I’m feeling sad or bored I will feel encouraged to read by their immediate accessibility.
The idea to put the books next to me by my bed totally caught me by surprise. Nothing in life is exactly as it always is. Ask the question, “What’s different about today?”
This may seem like a trite post in a time of loss and tragedy. Being sick certainly has not been easy. But I wanted to invite joy in the room. Now I’m finding Joy’s comfortably nestled next to me as I write, reminding me I really enjoy writing blogs.
