Speaking of JOY
ContentmentSatisfactionDelightWonderPleasureBliss EcstasyI love words. I find it thrilling to learn new words and super sexy to hear or to say something with clarity and authenticity and, on occasion, with wit. In an ultra-geeky way I’m tickled when playing with words that name and describe emotions. Which may explain my reading list choices and on-going involvement in therapy. . .It has been argued that while we exalt and esteem logic, even boasting that we are logical and rational beings, the truth is that we are emotional beings who occasionally have rational ideas (that we use to explain our emotional responses to those who lionize logic!) This often includes ourselves.
Emotional Beings
As emotional beings, it’s confounding, surprising and downright frustrating how little attention and care is given to building our emotional vocabulary. Unless you are someone who studies and teaches emotional literacy, like Marc Bracket or Brené Brown, or you are an intentional student of this language, talking about the emotions you notice in yourself is like speaking a foreign language — difficult and very awkward.This weekend I’m facilitating the first (but probably not the last) Joy Academy mini-retreat. (If you’re interested in future dates CLICK HERE to subscribe for updates.)Speaking of joy, synonyms for JOY are rolling around in my mind as I prepare for the event. A start is in the list above. I compiled this before checking an online thesaurus, so this is just a beginning.
Here’s my question
How do you feel (or what do you think) about those last two words?
Pleasure & Ecstasy
Speaking of pleasure—as a woman in a cultural environment that praises sacrifice and overextending, selflessness and denial of personal needs and wants in service of patriarchy and capitalism—is a hot topic that will wait for another day. So let’s go right to ECSTASY. Aside from scenes depicted on screen or lifted from bodice-ripper novels, how familiar are we with this electrified iteration of JOY in our lived experience? Where have we ever seen it?Images may help us just now.Let’s start with Contentment and work up to Ecstasy with a little slideshow. I've made word suggestions, but the feeling that comes up for you is true and valid too.
Embodied
Notice a common theme in each of the images? Take a moment. (This is not a trick question.)
The through line for each image is The Body.
Joy in all of its iterations involves the body. Touching, seeing, moving, sensing (not to mention tasting, hearing, smelling) the world as it is in the moment. We can experience joy as a memory or as imagination, the thought of an embodied experience in our past or our future, but before we can re-member (or imagine) we must first "member" (know in real time).
The roots of our joy are in our bodies.
One of the writing prompts for Joy Academy asks the writer to spend time remembering delight, comfort, bliss, contentment, and so forth through their embodied memories from childhood.
To find our way back to joy we must find our embodied wisdom from a time early on when we may not have had the vocabulary, the emotional literacy, to name what we felt. But we KNEW joy through our own senses.
Surrender & Trust
Here's one purpose for creating JOY ACADEMY. To find our way back to JOY means we remember how to surrender to the present (here and now) and trust the knowing of our bodies.
In the way a dervish whirls in ecstatic worship in dizzying collaboration with a group, or a single saint opens her heart to the divine.
If this elevated spiritual experience is too rarified then consider the way that a cherished child surrenders to the wonder of the moment, and feels safe to ask for what they want and need.
We will save Want and Need for another day. For now, let's stay with the words shared above. Ponder them at your leisure. Leave your comment and feel free to share this short essay with a friend.