Re: Hanging On To Pain

The article raises a TON of issues, really!

I like taking the attitude that just about everything is a choice. I do, however, accept that there are accidents - billions of people all exercising free will is bound to create an accident here and there.

I find it difficult to talk to people who lay blame for their circumstances outside of themselves. They've given up - through choice - so much of their power that they don't see where they are responsible, and how things can be different for them, stuck in their own invisible prison.

As for joy, while we can make a choice to be joyful, we inhabit a physical body that can limit our capacity for joyfulness. Right now my liver is clogged. I wondered where my vitality had gone to, why I was depressed and no longer making plans, until I got my bloodwork results and saw elevated liver enzymes and high cholesterol. Duh! :) So now after a flush I'm much more joyful. :)

Our own nervous system can limit our ability to be joyful. If we're constantly living in drama, such as meeting deadlines, gossip, road rage, obsessive dieting, etc., then our neurons learn that to survive they must have plenty of receptor sites for anger, frustration and pain, and fewer for nutrition and joy. Our cells downgrade and remain downgraded until we give up our addiction to drama. That is why Eastern philosophies teach detachment first. You're not meant to stay detached! Just long enough to get out of the tension/denial/rage-gratification-relief and redemption cycle. Then we go through a kind of Depression until the neurons upgrade again.

So if you're finding joy hard to find, don't think it is all a failure of the heart and mind, attitude and mind-set. It could be low physical vitality. Tweet