When You Are NOT JOYful

There are times, perhaps like today, when things don’t flow. 
Something breaks. 
You stub your big toe. 
You step in sh*t — literally. 
You spill your coffee. 
Maybe someone even dings your car or you leave your jacket on the train, bus or plane. 

It’s a day when
Your spouse (or boss or tenant or friend) disappoints you. 
You leave a window open and the rain pours in. 
You sit on a soggy seat only to look and feel like you peed your pants. 
You frown more than you smile. 

You feel — heavy. 
Angry even. 
Just plain pissed off and you think — WTF. 

It’s as if you woke up in an Alanis Morissette song — Isn’t It Ironic — and feel like the world is suddenly against you.

You allow doubt to creep in. 
You wonder if you’re on the right path. 
You may even want to stomp your foot and scream — WTF. 

And maybe that’s all you need. A good scream. Perhaps an ugly cry. Or just a moment alone to hyperventilate. 

Have you considered that? 

Have you paused for just one moment during those times in life where nothing works, flows, aligns or goes your way and thought —

I just need a good scream or maybe a good cry.

And no, don’t you dare say cookie, as that tends to come with what caused this build up to “bad” in the first place.

A stuffing of the feels. 

We habitually have spent our lives NOT feeling the feels, if you’re like most of the population. 

We stuff them down. 
Some medicate.
Others avoid.
Maybe you negate.

And then there’s one cookie, two cookie, three cookie — gone cookie. It’s that sudden awareness of an empty bag or box and feeling even worse than the first delicious, numbing bite, which you now can barely even remember. 

What happened to the moments of clarity, the transformation, the wins in the self-development merry-go-round you’ve been on?

And if you’re like me, you might even be staring at yourself in the mirror, hair going every-which-way, silently scream-asking — where did my f-ing peace go? 

You might even go so far as to offer a curse-prayer, as we human beings tend to do. Where is the God-Damn JOY!?

Well, when you put it like that it probably ran for the hills along with all the little creatures. 

So this is where we pause and stop scaring the children. (Said with a smile).

I’m here to say something incredibly wise. 

This backstep, into a bad mood, into a pissed-off-ness, is normal. It doesn’t make you broken, lacking, f-ed up or wrong. Instead, it seemly is a neon sign flashing a message of 

Welcome To Being Human!

So when you have these days — and you will — we all do.
Yes, me, too.
We can do one of two things. 

We can fight the day. Or we can sink in. 

We can resist and push against it. 
Or we can flow into all the chaos, drama and unrest. 

I choose to allow.
I choose to seek out specks of peace like a search for one rose-colored pebble in a sea of gray rocks. 

I choose to touch gratitude, speak gratitude and feel gratitude even as all hell breaks loose or technology may crash around me.

I choose to get quiet for a moment. 
To press pause.

Yes, even as the twin (goats) scream 
and the construction saw roars 
and the cell phone rings
and the house phone goes off with a shrill tone that normally doesn’t pierce my very soul 
and a text ding alerts me it’s way past time to turn off the bloody notifications and silence something. 

I choose to start by silencing my mind. 
Because I can…and you can too. 

It starts with a breath. 
Just one deep inhale 
— hold it — 
and an exhale of all that crap,
all the suffering,
all the unnamed, stuffed down, bottled up... 

Let. It. Go.

Another breath 
and a deepening awareness of the wind drifting through the open window to caress my face in gentle waves. 

Another breath 
to ground into the sound of little chicks and a clucking mama hen close by. 

Another breath 
to feel the cotton of my tee-shirt, the loose strands of hair on my neck.

Another breath 
to listen for my own heartbeat even as a car zooms by blasting a heady Jamaican beat. 

Another breath 
and I sway to my own music… and sigh. 

I choose to acknowledge that I am more than this moment. 
I choose to see that I am greater than a reaction.
I choose to know that this too shall pass. 

All is fine. 
All has always been fine. 
All will be fine again. 

When I simply pause,
take a breath, a beat,
and count
1-2-3.
And do it again.
I can recalibrate
To JOY. 

When I simply sink into the moment 
and stop running from it all, 
I can let the tear fall 
and feel the sad, 
the frustration, 
the angst, 
the disappointment, 
the frustration, 
the humanness of this moment…
and stop the need to judge it. 

For that is me. Human. 
That is all of us. 
Growing, learning, searching, seeking. Yes.
Evolving, sure. 
Transforming, always. 

Allowing… now that is an art that takes practice, does it not? 

 You. Got. This.

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