Reconnecting to Joy by thomas Blog entry

Blog: Journey of Light
by thomas

Reconnecting to Joy

How Often Do We Go Through the Motions of Our Daily Lives and Forget to Stop, Be Present Within Ourselves and Reconnect to Our Joy?

Date: 3/17/2006 10:50:23 AM ( 18 y ) ... viewed 2776 times

All of us have said at one time or another that we cannot believe how time flies. One minute your buying presents and gifts for the holidays, the next your getting ready for Passover or Easter and enjoying the rebirth of spring, then it’s the joys of summer fun and vacation which of course is inevitably followed by the after summertime blues, Halloween and Thanksgiving pass in quick succession until it’s that time again, time to buy the presents and prepare for another year of holiday festivities. Time passes and somewhere along the way something is lost. We aren’t always clear or sure what we lost but we usually know it’s something. Well I believe that part of what we lose is our connection to joy.

This happens to be an important lesson for me at this time. Within the last couple months I have been in motion. I have been within the apex of that flying time feeling. Several months have gone by which feel no more than a couple hours. If you would ask me what have I been doing with all that time, I’m not sure that I could provide a good enough answer to equate with that amount of time. But that is neither here nor there at this point. However, the one answer I could give that would explain it in generalities is that I was in motion. I was doing. I was living by doing. The problem for me is that I find when I am in a state of living by doing I become disconnected from those things that bring me the greatest amount of joy. A perfect example is the writing of this blog. I have received so much joy in writing this blog and expressing my thoughts and feelings on spirituality and yet I have not written a message in some three months. And this is just one example of this in my life. Another would be painting. I started a new painting probably a month or so ago. I worked on it for about two days and haven’t touched it since. Yet, painting is another outlet of mine for expression which in turn provides me with tremendous joy.

What is even more fascinating to me is that one of my goals is to add more joy to my life and it wasn’t till the other day that I realized the complete and utter irony of this situation. I want to add more joy to my life. When I engage in certain things in my life I receive tremendous joy. Logic follows that if I have a desire to add more joy to my life I should engage more and more in those things that bring me joy such as writing and painting. Now this may seem quite obvious and I agree that this isn’t rocket science, but I truly believe that it is the simple things in life that are often overlooked the most. I guess at time we all need a good knock on the head to make sure we are awake and paying attention. Well I can definitely say that I am now paying attention and thank God for that.

There is an even greater example of this lesson in my life than the ones I mentioned above. Ever since I was a young child I loved to sing and perform. I don’t know if it was just something I was born with or I developed it from watching too much Fame as a kid but irregardless it was always there. Whenever we had a concert in school I was always ready and willing to give a performance. In both middle school and high school I was in the choir and for a couple of years in high school I was a member of a select group of acapella singers called the Madrigals. After high school I really didn’t have the opportunity to sing and admittedly I didn’t take the time to make opportunities. I took one class, voice for the non-music major, in college and then several years later I took a couple of singing and acting classes through an adult enrichment program near where I live. The last class I took was two years ago now. Trust me. I can’t believe two years have passed by and I’ll say it right here, time sure has flown by.

So again this is just another example of the complete irony of wanting more joy in life and having the means right before you and not taking advantage of them. I guess you could envision it as a drowning man who has the life preserver right in front of him but he is so concentrated on going through the motions of staying afloat that he never realizes it is there. You could also twist this example a bit and say that he knows it’s there but chooses to ignore it. Ah. That makes it even more interesting doesn’t it? I actually like that better. That makes more sense and I think people while hesitant to admit it realize that’s the truth.

I admit that I was that man. There are plenty of things in my life: painting, singing, writing, photography, reading, etc… that bring me tremendous joy. There isn’t just one life preserver there are hundreds. I imagine that if we all stop to think about it and reflect we all have hundreds of life preservers out there. They are out there just waiting for us to embrace them. So often I think it must be difficult for God, the angels and our loved ones who have passed to see us struggle here on Earth knowing so well that all we truly desire is right here, within us, surrounding us.

Now I am sure there are people out there who will say, “I don’t know what brings me joy.” Well I am sorry but I have to say that I just don’t believe you. Each one of us knows at our very core what brings us joy. There is a feeling of excitement, an extremely positive energy flowing throughout our very being producing a childlike giddiness when we experience joy. There is no mistaking it. It is very difficult for me to believe that there is someone out there who hasn’t experienced this in one form or another at some point in there life. We all know what it is and yet most of us are afraid to express what it is and even more of us are afraid to completely embrace it.

So the question becomes why. Well I think the answer is rather simple. It is pretty much the same thing that prevents us from receiving any of the other things we desire in our lives such as health, love or abundance. Basically, it is all the lies, false and limiting beliefs and negative thoughts we have built up over a lifetime of living in motion. We may believe that we are not worthy of being joyous. We don’t desire greater joy in our lives. Who am I to be joyous all the time? These are some of the blockages that are created against allowing the joy. But it may also stem from fears or false beliefs concerning those things that bring us joy. For example in my situation one of the things that always stopped me from singing was that I never thought I was good enough. If only my voice was stronger, if only it was this, if only I could read music better, If only this were different. There are hundreds and thousands of these that all of us have used to block joy from our lives. It may also be that we are afraid of others judgments (which interestingly enough are mere reflections or mirroring of our own judgments). Some of these could be things like singing is not for you, boys play sports they don’t sing or you could never make a profession in singing so why even try. These are just a few examples but there could be hundreds more.

The point of all of this isn’t to focus and concentrate on all the false beliefs, limiting thoughts and all the other stuff that I will simply refer to as the junk. We don’t want to concentrate on all this we just want to get rid of it. What you concentrate upon is what we create in our life and none of us want to create more junk. It’s time to drop all that junk in the cosmic dumpster. That’s where it belongs. Not in our lives and not in our consciousness. Once we are aware of the junk and are willing to part with it, we can free ourselves of it.

So now that we are at a stage that we acknowledge our desire and right to receive more joy and we clearly see and accept those things that bring us joy, it is time to take action. As the captain of any of the Starship Enterprises would have said: ENGAGE. Immerse yourself within them. Stop the cycle of unending motion and doing and take time to be present within yourself and devote your time to being joyous. It is all right there for the taking. Put on the life preserver. I have.

Within the last two weeks I finally decided to take some more classes through the adult enrichment program. I actually had my first class on Monday. It is a musical performance class and I have to admit that although I have only gone to one class I am already enjoying it and looking forward to the ensuing weeks. All those things that have held me back in the past are being left behind. I no longer desire to carry them with me. What’s even more important is that I do not intend to fall back on old patterns and allow myself to get caught up in the motions of living once again. My writing this blog right now is another indicator of that. At this moment I am fully immersed in the joy of writing and expressing myself and that is a wonderful feeling. So I encourage everyone to stop, be present within yourself and re-connect to your joy. You are worthy of joy, you deserve joy and joy is waiting to be seen, to be experienced and to be acknowledged within your life. Don’t let your friends, your enemies or yourself (which can be both a friend and an enemy at times) from fully accepting and allowing joy into your life.