Finding Joy

What Does it Take to Enjoy Life More?

Inner Work — Is It Really Worth Doing?

People fear the inner work. Understandably. It can feel like a nightmare in there…

Emotions. Painful ones. The ones we’ve avoided for decades and more.

All lurking inside us, waiting to tear us apart…

How often I hear people say… ‘I don’t want to start exploring that stuff. I’d start crying and I know I’d never stop.’

I felt that way myself, for years.

How many of us choose death by slow addiction, rather than facing that inner world? We’re frightened of painful emotions. They overwhelm us. They seem to threaten our very survival.

Maybe we reach a point where we can no longer avoid this inner work. We reach out for help. There are so many approaches and who knows which approach is the best fit for us? It’s bewildering. We’re lost in a world we don’t recognise...

What if you were the one who knows? The only one who knows…

What if you were the expert on you?

I don’t mean we don’t ask for advice or information. Of course there are others who know WAY more about the world of emotion and trauma than we do.

But what if we had infallible inner guidance inside?

Do You Ache to Enjoy Life More?

Do you know it’s an inside job?

Those who ache to enjoy life more feel a sense of loss

Mostly, they describe it as an ‘outer’ loss — a loved one has died; health is impaired; they’ve lost purpose or sense of direction…

The more they look outside themselves for relief, the worst the ache becomes. If I could only have… be… do… then I could feel good…

Loss does that. It makes us believe that we’re incomplete without that which we crave so badly.

Herein lies the rub.

Joy is an inside job.

Always.

What Kind of Knowing Keeps Us Upright?

Where do we find a knowing that gives us sure footing as the waves of change roll in all around us?

“Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment I know this is the only moment.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh

What if all strength and steadiness came from the simple knowing of now?

“There is a universal, intelligent life force that exists within everyone and everything. It resides within each one of us as a deep wisdom, an inner knowing. We can access this wonderful source of knowledge and wisdom through our intuition, an inner sense that tells us what feels right and true for us at any given moment.” — Shakti Gawain

Ask not, ‘Is it true?’ but ‘Does it feel good?’

Lest Ye Become As Little Children...

Want to enjoy life more?

Are you desperate? Are you ready to do what it takes?

What if it were as simple as picking up a straw and blowing paint across a page?

I know, I know. When you’re not enjoying life, you want to slap the one who says, ‘Lighten up! Have more fun! Be kind to yourself…’

I remember nurses saying “Look after yourself,” as each visit ended, over the four months I nursed my husband from his diagnosis of brain cancer through to his transition.

For three months at home we had no medical support, (until the last 10 days) apart from a district nurse visiting once or twice a week. There was no care package in place. No sitters to offer a break.

Friends were mostly at a distance. Those close by were wonderful, bringing prepared food and warm company when we could manage it. All were so very, very loving. Their kindness filled our hearts each day with soothing messages and funny videos and visits with sweet doglets and more…

But the minute to minute care of my beloved who couldn’t communicate his needs in any way, that was down to me. As the nurses directed me to look after myself, I wanted to say, “And just how, exactly, do I do that?”

When reality is a tsunami of troubles and traumas, the ‘enjoy’ word may seem insulting. The simplest act could hold within it a promise of joy, but we can’t get near it.

Reality Consists of Two Dimensions - The Finite and The Infinite

Today’s been tough. Emotions all over the show. I found myself envying the Queen her letting go of all of life’s struggles recently…

Yes, a tougher day today than of late.

But one thought runs like a lifeline through it.

“Come to the infinite dimension.”

From a dismal beginnings it’s become like spending a day with The Ancient One! (Ninja mystic monk-sorceress in Marvel’s Dr Strange.) Beaten up regularly but always restored. Life being ruthless, yet kind…

Have You Arrived? Are You Home?

In the here, in the now…

“Have you had a good day?”

A friend texted that question to me a few evenings ago.

I hesitated before replying.

Do I talk about the tears? The aching? The longing for some tangible message or meeting with Michael as I sit in a quiet cemetery wishing for Home?

No.

Instead, I wash through my day, sending love to all those moments of loss. All in my imagining… Dissolving my tears in an ocean of joy, I sit, while life breathes on through me.

I can’t feel it yet, that ocean of joy, but that’s ok.

Simply intending it is enough.

Now, in the stillness of this moment, I find Home. Right here, inside me.

Want to Know How to Get at Life's Goodies?

Ask a squirrel — they’ve got it sussed

Experiencing the extremes of life after loss is bringing me all kinds of goodies, often in ways unexpected. In moments where grief overwhelms me, these fragments of goodness find me. They soothe me back into alignment.

A lesson I’ve learned recently from three squirrel kits brings steadiness to my yearning for joy.

Here’s how…

Squirrels are expert in going for the goodies… and getting them!

Picture the scene. A metal bird feeder — a tall pole, with a shallow basket 2/3 of the way up. A plastic, cylindrical seed dispenser, designed for small birds only, hangs from an arm at the top of the pole. The base of the dispenser is a good foot from the basket, roughly at the same height…

I’m sure you can imagine what comes next.

Why You May Struggle to Enjoy Life - Even When You Know You’ve Got It Good…

How loss can bring joy in its wake…

When faced with loss of any kind — loss of a loved one, loss of direction, loss of function or identity…

…We find ourselves in a world gone grey. A world without meaning, without sweetness, a world where problems are the only reality and we’re too worn down to face them.

If we have lost our power to imagine, we have nothing to bring to a landscape of loss. We’ve no hope of rainbows… or so we think.

“A rainbow is a prism that sends shards of multicoloured light in various directions. It lifts our spirits and makes us think of what is possible. Hope is the same — a personal rainbow of the mind.” Charles Richard Snyder

I think joy works likewise. I think joy is more accessible than we imagine, when facing the infinite grey… I think joy works like a prism of the mind.

Pristine focus is the prism. Align it with the light and a rainbow forms. Brilliant. Shimmering. Heavenly.

But the slightest misalignment and the rainbow is gone. As if it had never existed. And never will again.

The focus required is absolute.

A Mantra Can Save You From a Mind Run Amok

Avoiding the perils of a puppy-dog mind

A mind run amok — mine, a week ago last Sunday

Curled up on the couch I was. Crying again.

Lord, when will it all end?

The day had started well enough. A day without structure. A day just for me.

No events booked. No people to see. No pressure, no fuss, no muss…

I crave days like that, as life becomes busier. I love time to myself. To be free.

But, sure as mustard, my day took a nose-dive. It ditched me right into the sea. The ocean of misery swallowed me whole.

Again.

Seriously. Enough already. What’s with all this sobbing?

Maybe you’re grieving, as I am, the loss of your soulmate, your reason-to-be.

Perhaps you are struggling to find light to live by in times that seem unbearably sad.

Or you could just be noticing you’ve not smiled so much lately, your forehead creased into slight frowning...

Whatever ‘amok’ your mind may be running, I hope the following helps — my journaled reflections as I took on the perils of my puppy-dog mind.

The Rule to Grieving Is... There IS No Rule

Ok, perhaps there’s one — ‘No Clinging’

No clinging to flotsam to stay afloat on the ocean. It’s all going under eventually…

A shipwreck in a ruthless storm, that’s a pretty good metaphor for my early experience following the death of my soulmate.

I was going to say a ‘killer’ storm, but this storm doesn’t show that much mercy.

I don’t die. Much though (at times) I’d like to. The ocean buffets me around like an orca tossing a seal it has no hunger for — I’m grief’s plaything, a cruel amusement…

“I cannot think too much; I dare not think too deeply, or else I will be defeated, not merely by pain but by a drowning nihilism, a cycle of thinking there’s no point, what’s the point, there’s no point to anything.” — Chimamanda Ngazi Adichie

Grief is oft described as being adrift in stormy waters. Those waves of emotion hammering us; holding us under; sucking air from our lungs; pounding our limbs. Coiling us round in their primal roiling. There’s no sense of the surface, when you’re the toy of the undertow…

But for me, that’s not the whole story.

When Your Mind Tries to Scam You…

Hang up! Then wash your mind out…

I was sitting at my sister’s kitchen table while she made a work call from her office. I’d had the most wonderful three days with her and her lovely husband. Three days without a wobble. Not a moment of sadness. Ne’er a twinge of worry. Wall to wall sunshine, inside and out. What a delight!

I’d lost sight of my puppy-dog mind for a while. Clearly, it had enjoyed the break too. Lots of happy distraction from the soothing of sweet company.

Now, however, we were headed home, my puppy-dog mind and I. And as I sat at that kitchen table, my inner mischief-maker found itself a toilet roll to shred…

Take Your Mind Where YOU Want It to Go

So, here I am, it’s 3 am and fear is playing its game with me again.

Tears. Worry. Anxiety.

Powerlessness presses the air from my lungs.

My puppy dog mind has diarrhoea, I think to myself.

The reframe brings some relief. I imagine a ‘loose’ pooping puppy making a heck of a mess in my mind…

I sit on the side of the bed and let the tears flow.

It’s ok. It’s ok. You’re safe. We’ve got you.

“Really?” I say to the voices I’ve practised imagining in my head. “Because, I’ve got to say it feels FAR from ok and I SO don’t feel safe!

Do you understand the concept of money running out? No steady income? And not knowing what I should be doing every moment of the day to allow myself to align with the abundance I seek? And the exhaustion of constantly second-guessing myself?

Do you actually KNOW what that’s like?”

I all but spit the words out to the Dream Team of my mind’s creating...

Fortunately, they can cope.

“Not really, no, Amanda. You have us there. But that’s because we’re here, where all your abundance IS.

We can’t feel your fear because we know that it’s all working out for you.

We’ve got every desire boxed off. Truly.

Your every dream come true. It’s all here.

We’re bending over backwards to bring you to it.

But you’ve got to make your way here.

There’s no bringing it to you, as you know…”

Facing Our Reality Might Seem Sensible - But it Stops Us Imagining a Better One

No wonder we feel so stuck!

There’s a time for acknowledging current reality, for sure. But what happens when we focus on a reality we don’t like and don’t know how to resolve?

Every system in our world is geared towards magnifying the problem.

We obsess over it.

We tell and retell the story of it.

It becomes all-consuming in our efforts to resolve it.

We’re scolded if we don’t ‘face reality’. We’re branded ‘Pollyanna’ with eye-rolling and exasperation if we dare to defy the advice of those rooted in problem-focused thinking.

The problem soon becomes huge in our experience. Our power diminishes as we try taking action to fix the ugly issue, or distance ourselves from it — the thorn in our side.

How often do we act and fail, only to set ourselves up for more of the same misery, or worse?

Or perhaps we become utterly hopeless like dogs so repeatedly punished that they no longer attempt to leave their cage, even when the door is left wide open…

And then, after a life time of disempowerment, of ‘knowing’ our innate futility, loss finds us, in some major form. Loss of a loved one, loss of health or wealth, loss of direction, loss of anima.

We find ourselves in a world gone grey. A world without meaning, without sweetness, a world where problems are the only reality and we’re too worn down to face them.

If we have lost our power to imagine, we have nothing to bring to a landscape of loss.

"Joy Arises When You Come Home."

“Joy arises out of our very core. Joy is not dependent on other people or outer circumstances. Joy arises when you come home. Joy is to enter into your own inner being, into your own self.”
― Swami Dhyan Giten, The Call of the Heart

Joy arises out of our very core

What kind of core is that core?

It is the still, silent, unchanging core. The core that is motion in stillness, laughter in silence, unchanging and yet never the same for even two heartbeats together…

What if There Were No Past, No Future? Only Now?

What if there were no past, no future? What if there were only now?

What difference would that make to you?

A few days ago, in journaled conversation with my Self* I asked for insight to lift my spirits. As ever, I received a thought that helped, swiftly. It has been a mainstay for the past week. It was, like always, a quiet, understated thought, slipping softly into my mind like the gentlest of sea breezes, blowing in from somewhere other than the shores of my own mind. From where exactly? Impossible to say. I know what I choose to believe…

But here’s the thought…

You Cannot Prevent Birds of Sorrow From Flying Over Your Head...

You Cannot Prevent Birds of Sorrow From Flying Overhead — But You Can Stop Them Making Nests in Your Hair

What a wonderful Chinese proverb!

Nesting sorrow birds. Hmm. Yes, I’d say the last few days have been rather too permissive of nest-building for my sad flock. But how to send them kindly on their way? Therein lies the rub…

The rub comes from wanting to send them on their way. And who doesn’t want to send sadness packing? It’s instinctual. We want to shoo misery away.

Unfortunately, in a vibrational universe, that desire backfires on us, BIG time. Attention, laser-like, paints a target by its frequency. The painted target attracts more of the same…

"This week, I ar' be mostly eatin' carrots!"

If you were ever a fan of ‘The Fast Show’, you’ll remember a great character, Jesse, who appeared every week. His one-liner, delivered to perfection, became part of our daily dialogue at home.

The camera would pan in on a dilapidated shed, with a subtitle along the lines of ‘This week’s nutritional advice’ on the screen. Jesse — played by the wonderful Mark Williams — looking like a hairy sack of turnips, would emerge from the shed, shuffle a bit, like an awkward infant on a nativity stage and then say to the camera with great seriousness, something along the lines of:

“This week, I ar’ be mostly eatin’ carrots.”

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If Failure Fills Your Rearview Mirror —  Check for Impostor Syndrome

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Keeping my head above water was all I’d ever known. I hadn’t realised there could be so much more to life…

I was somewhat overawed by the giant of a man sitting next to me at the wedding table. Evidently, he had lived an awesome life, in the deepest sense of the word.

Normally a fish out of water on social occasions, I was fortunate to have such a talkative table-mate. My gratitude for his willingness to fill the silence turned swiftly to captivation as the man’s stories poured out around our melon-sorbet starters and halloumi fillet mains.

He spoke with passion about the two women to whom he had given his heart. He spoke about the company he had fashioned, Zeus-like, out of the clay of his youth. He told of its subsequent collapse and of rebuilding from the rubble.

He described in detail the family he has sired and clearly dotes upon… His pale eyes filled up as he spoke of each child and grandchild in turn. His tenderness was beautiful to behold.

And then the dreaded moment came.

As summer fruits arrived for dessert, his blissful narration stopped.

He asked, ‘So, what have you done with your life?’

Ouch.

Jeezy creezy. How could I say, ‘I’ve survived it. That’s about as far as it goes’?

After a moment of absolute panic, I started to mumble on about something career-related to fill the void as best I might for a while but the question really hit home. Four decades and more I’d been on the planet. How tragic to look back on all that life and just think, ‘I’m surviving!’

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Is Your To Do List Torturing You?

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‘To Do’ Lists Made Me Ill.

Actually, that’s not true. It wasn’t the lists that made me ill, it was my failure to live up to them.

To Do Lists used to be a constant reminder of my inability to make the basics work. I knew they were proven to be a good thing. I knew the key elements of a good one.

  • Prioritisation.

  • Realistic timeframes.

  • Chunking down tasks.

I knew the To Do List instructions. I just couldn’t follow them. As soon as an item joined my list every fibre of my being seemed to rebel against the doing of it. A core ‘I’m inadequate,’ belief was calling the shots, colouring my view, forcing my hand.

I’d write the list with a sigh and then sabotage all attempts to follow it. I can’t tell you how often a day would end without my reaching number one on the blessed thing…

If your ‘To Do List’ is torturing you, I feel your pain.