Don't let societal beliefs rob you of joy and happiness

Don't be afraid of joy

If arachnophobia is the fear of spiders and hydrophobia is the fear of water, what on earth do you call the fear of joy?

I grew up with cautions about not getting too excited, because “the other shoe will fall.” Believing the bad would always follow the good became a pervasive superstition, as maintaining caution was advisable when things were going very well and feelings of joy arose.

I’m sure we all know, or may even be, one of those people who refuse to get excited and happy about the good things in life, instantly scanning the horizon for doom and gloom when things are going well.

These societal beliefs are rampant today and they rob us of experiencing our joy and happiness.

Adopting this belief caused me to mute my feelings for many years and I often felt foolish by “getting carried away” by feelings of gratitude and happiness. I felt immature when joy filled my being because it didn’t seem like the “adult-thing” to do.

Really? Is joy just for kids? I think not. We all want to be happy, to live happy and joyful lives. It would seem to follow that allowing ourselves to experience our joy would be easy and natural, something we’d all seek. Yet it seems it might be more difficult than we might think.

Researcher and author Brené Brown calls our tendency to mute joy “foreboding joy”. Foreboding joy is the human tendency to squelch feelings of joy out of fear the good many not arrive or continue.

According to Brown, allowing ourselves to experience joy requires a degree of vulnerability. We’re afraid of feeling hurt or let-down. This all-too-common protective mechanism arises out of a need to protect from disappointment and, shielding feelings of vulnerability, prevents us from being a whole-hearted people.

In understanding this, I’ve really questioned the cost of this ingrained habit of protection. While it may protect me from experiencing feelings of disappointment, it also robs me of life’s sweetest gifts and the ultimate prize of happiness and joy. It robs me of recognizing the pleasure the simplest things in life offer me on a daily basis.

I’m grateful to have awakened from this insidious belief system that kept me locked in a world of muted tones—a beige-coloured world—and has offered me the experience of experiencing life in technicolor. I’m willing to be vulnerable.

Multiple studies reveal one sure-fire way to increase joy and happiness is to, first, be grateful.

I’ve had both a formal and informal gratitude practice for years. It’s no coincidence I began to experience more joy as I actively and consistently engaged in practices of gratitude. As Brown’s research reveals “the relationship between joy and gratitude is an intriguing upward spiral.” This upward spiral, Brown goes on to write, is, “such a great antidote to the downward spirals that we always hear about, and unfortunately, sometimes experience.” (Atlas of the Heart, p. 206).

Our happiness matters, as happy people tend to:

• Be healthier, with stronger immune systems

• Have better relationships

• Experience greater vigour and energy

• Have a better sense of humour (I crack myself up)

• Live longer (and maybe we want to because we’re happy)

Practicing gratitude boosts the production of neurochemicals and hormones that support well-being. The research on gratitude is compelling because our brains, bodies, and relationships all benefit from practicing gratitude.

We can re-wire our brains for gratitude and joy, and the benefits are real. When we engage in gratitude practices over time, there are lasting changes in the brain, particularly in areas associated with decision-making and learning. I’ve found the good far outweighs the bad; I just used to give the bad more attention than it’s worth.

Even if we can’t find anything to be grateful for, the mere practice of stopping to look for something to be grateful for creates a shift. I attest to this because, for me, it’s been a beautiful upward spiral of growing happiness and joy for me.

You can increase the power of gratitude to improve happiness and joy. While merely listing what we’re grateful for is helpful, thinking about why we’re grateful for the items on our list enhances the benefits we receive.

Try this out for yourself, paying attention to how you feel inside. Think of something you’re grateful for, pause for a moment, and notice how you feel. Then list the reasons why you’re grateful. How do you feel now?

I experienced joy vicariously though watching my children, but had been conditioned to be ‘mature; and not drink it in for myself. As I practice gratitude, joy builds and I feel lighter and more youthful, I have more energy and find there’s far more to be grateful for than dread.

As our world re-emerges from a time of great change and fear, remembering to be grateful for what we may have taken for granted, spending time in this feeling through a gratitude practice, may be one of the most powerful things you can do for yourself, your loved ones, and your life.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.

Forgiveness is about us letting go of our pain

Forgiveness starts with us

Live life to the fullest — whatever that is for you

Living a full life

If I’d known how much fun life as an elder would be, I would have done it earlier.

The reality of aging is far removed from any misconceptions I held as a younger woman. I’m delighted to find my youthful view was sorely mistaken. It’s the best time of life.

I watched my parents as they aged and wondered, what was the purpose of it all. Each day was filled with the same activities, the same routine, the same, the same, ad nauseum. To my young mind, they seemed to be the living dead, just living out their days in a repetitive routine.

They’d spent their lives dedicated to supporting and raising a family, but they’d not spent any time discovering or following their own passions. I clearly remember my workaholic father sadly telling me in his senior years, “If I’d only known how little it (work) mattered, I’d never have lived my life the way I did.”

Sadly, in his later years, my Dad recognized the error of not finding and following his own passion and purpose, of not finding his own unique brand of creative expression. There were so many things he wished he’d tried, but he never found the time. I didn’t want to make the same mistake.

Henry Ford one said: “If you keep thinking what you’ve always thought, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got.” A new experience of life requires a new idea.

I decided to follow my heart and returned to college when my children were young. I wanted to be a nurse. And, so I did. I thought my evolution would end there, moving from housewife and mother to a staff nurse in a hospital. But again, I was wrong. The adventure had only just begun.

One day, a colleague arrived at work filled with excitement. She was lit up. Her exuberance filled the room as she excitedly shared pictures and stories about her pottery classes. Her sense of aliveness and vitality were contagious.

Oddly, I felt panic rising in my body, I recognized my life had been so filled with work and doing what needed to be done, and I’d never found or cultivated my own passion. I was soon to turn 40, a big year. It was time for a change.

Memories of my father came flooding back and I knew it was time to wake up and find what would light up my world. This was a pivotal moment for me. There was so much I felt I had to do, but nothing I loved to do.

I started to check within, asking myself what I loved to do and who would I love to be. You can’t ask questions of your soul without receiving an answer—and then listen and take action.

Since that day more than 25 years ago, my life has become an epic journey of discovery of who I am and what exists inside of me. Breaking the mold I thought was cast for me, I started to take risks. I started to follow my own heart’s calling. In doing this, I have lived a life uncommon, and I’ve loved every minute of it.

My heart’s call has led me on an adventure of a lifetime. At times it maybe didn’t make sense to the world but it has made sense to me.

When I write about something making sense, I’m not referring to the logical mind. For something to make sense for me, it makes my senses tingle. It’s a knowing that transcends what the mind understands. It feels right. It makes sense.

Following the deep-knower within, I’ve never been led astray. I’ve travelled an unusual path, but it’s always been right for me. l feel more alive than I ever did in my youth. I remain amazed as I discover new abilities, talents, and passions as they emerge.

These are my harvest years; harvesting all of the wonderful fruits of the bounty of my life and, sharing them with the world, as only I can. You can’t learn this stuff in a text book. I believe a secret to a rich life is spending myself with passion. In the spending, in the giving, I am fed. And you don’t have to wait as long as I did.

This spending of my life’s harvest draws people into my life who seem eager to partake as I express myself through teaching, speaking, ministry, and writing.

Stretching myself outside of my own comfort zone has been essential. Comfort is over-rated and it’s been years since I’ve been comfortable. I’ve learned “perfect” is just a word in the dictionary, and often it is an imitation of what someone else has done.

Creativity is not doing what others have done. It’s not copying and coloring within the lines. It’s making something new, as only I can. Life isn’t one-size-fits-all.

Within each of us lies a seed of creativity that’s unique to each one of us. It’s the seed of who we’re here to be. The evolution of our creative capacity expands and changes through life as we open to new ideas.

What’s something you’d love to try? What’s stopping you? Maybe stretch yourself a little because life begins at the edge of your comfort zone.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.

Living a more conscious life

Dealing with emotion

How are you feeling today?

Often, we answer questions about feelings with a response from the head, or a thought. We’ve been so conditioned to value the brain and thinking over our feelings, that often we’re out of touch with the emotions we’re experiencing.

When we’re out of touch with our emotions, afraid of what we feel or in self-judgment about our emotions, they run or limit more of our lives than we may be aware of.

I know because I lived much of my early life unaware of my emotions. I was like a walking head, oblivious to what I was feeling inside. I was the queen of ignoring and suppressing emotions for many years and was confused or embarrassed when I’d suddenly explode or lose it in a situation.

The emotions I was unaware of became wrecking balls when the pressure of them became too great and I’d react and explode, often totally out of proportion to what had happened. I was suffering and didn’t know it.

This way of living created a lot of complexity and unnecessary damage for me and others in my life.

We’re seeing that all around us these days with the many events in the world—unconscious emotions resulting in violence and people acting out. Anger is often a cover emotion, protecting some of our more vulnerable feelings like fear, grief or shame.

While we may think we’re a very logical and head-centred society, those suppressed emotions are running or inhibiting more of our lives than we might recognize. Bringing what’s unconscious to consciousness is possible, and we can learn to make wise use of all of our emotions, even the difficult ones.

I remember the irritation, years ago, when a friend asked me where in my body was I feeling the anger I was expressing. Feeling? In my body? I had no idea. Following my initial irritation, curiosity grew about my emotions and what I was feeling.

Our emotions help us and our bodies move toward self-protective action if needed. They’re primal, unconscious body responses offering us information. The key word there is unconscious; they just happen as we experience the world and our thoughts.

We’ve all been taken out by our emotions at some point in our lives. Powerful emotions can knock out the thinking part of our brains; we may do or say things that are out of character for us.

It can leave us feeling ashamed or embarrassed and, over the long-term, affect our health, relationships, and happiness. Gaining insight into them, learning how to be with them is what’s essential to living a conscious life.

Emotions are energy in motion. The only problem for many of us is, we only let a couple of emotions surface and the rest we suppress, based on our history and what we learned was acceptable in childhood. It’s collective and individual at the same time.

We learn to suppress our emotions until they build and explode out, often looking quite unlike what they started as. I call it “packing the cannon.” And it can take one tiny thing to ignite the fuse of a loaded cannon.

This makes it hard for us to allow the energy of the initial emotion to simply pass through and let us know what’s going on inside. But the energy has to go somewhere.

So, what to do? I believe being human should come with an instruction manual.

Researchers reveal emotions will only last 60 to 90 second unless we suppress them or feed them with a thought. They may return but they’ll come back with less intensity if we learn to allow the energy of the emotion to move. Learning to soften and breathe when we’re experiencing a powerful emotion is much more helpful than locking-down on the feeling.

The goal is to be aware of and experience our emotions and feelings, but not be run by them, using our emotions for the information they give us to make wise, conscious decisions that incorporate the heart and the head. We do this by learning pause and breathe deeply and slowly at least three times, without judgment, becoming gently curious about what we’re feeling in our bodies.

This simple act helps dissipate the intensity of the emotion and invites the thinking part of our brains back on-line.

With practice, we can learn to no longer suppress our emotions, or paint them over the world when we explode. We can learn to curiously and compassionately turn toward what we’re experiencing and instead of suppressing or judging them, or simply reacting, allowing the feelings to lose their intensity and receive their wisdom.

When we do this, we learn to live a more conscious life.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.