December Focus: Slow Joy

Slow and joy are both favorite things around JoyBody Studio, as you all know. But as we have entered the holiday season, I notice the same old frenetic energy mindlessly taking over. And even when we try to resist, it can feel like we’re caught up in a tsunami of to do lists and shopping and cooking and baking and well… people-ing.

And we’re supposed to feel all fa-la-la-la-la about it but that just feels like yet another added pressure.

On top of that, if you’re into Christmas and advent, it’s supposed to be a deeply spiritual season of entering into your own fecundity and seeing what is there, waiting to be born into the world when the light returns. So hurry up so you can get to your meditation/prayers/mass/whatevers.

AND one more … on top of THAT, so many people are pushing year end workshops or certifications or specials on their products/classes, etc., and the idea that if we really hustle, we can make some freaking magic in our work or our small businesses before we get to breathe for a few days around the year change. At which point, you BETTER have some damn good ideas about your goals for NEXT year because it’s COMING IN HOT!

My god. That exhausted me just writing it.

So here’s another idea: SLOW JOY.

Stop the madness. Put down the pen and paper (unless you’re journaling or writing poetry but if you’re making yet another freaking list… put it down and walk away!).

Part of this practice will be the act of saying no.

Take a moment and look around and decide what actually really truly matters.

Get rid of the rest.

Then for the rest of the month, it’s SLOW JOY time.

Every day, moment to moment, just notice the little things. Just notice. You don’t have to write them down or make art from them or wax poetic … unless you want to and it feels like it’s part of the slow joy.

I want you to notice, too, the easeful things, or more like… what would the easeful thing be? And then do that.

Notice the soft and kind things. Take them in and also create them.

And notice the giggling things. We don’t do this even a fraction enough. Seek out laughter. But also? LET YOURSELF LAUGH. I see too many people stopping their laughter.

And spoiler: I think we should continue this, like, for the rest of time.

What will you regret?

I’ve told these two stories before but they’re important to me. They’re what I call “joy gems.” They’re touchstones and talismans.

One of the my favorite memories: I am about 4 and I am staying with my GrandAunt Ardelle and she’s in the kitchen making us dinner. I’m singing about that fact. When I stop, she yells, “MORE!” and I hear her laughing her laughter that was so full of love.

Another with her: I was about 13/14 (she would die when I was just 15) and we are visiting. I am sitting on the small settee with my mother, and Ardelle asks me what I think I want to be when I grow up. I know. My heart is full of it and has been full of it since I was so small, but I say, “I don’t know” and shrug in that teenager way, and she says, “OH! I always just thought you’d be a singer!” So offhanded, so SURE sounding.

I took those words and those memories and I stored them. Over the years, I learned to hide this part of me… this part of me that was pure and raw desire.

But I got too good at hiding it and the thing I loved most in this world — even more than dance (but thank God for dance) — this thing I loved most became this thing that I feared most.

I sing but only by myself in very limited and hidden ways.

And I lay awake at night some nights and I KNOW this is what I will regret.

I will regret this hiding of my voice… a hiding of a singing voice that results, of course, in a hiding of my larger truer voice in this world.

I think, even my writing voice is not yet my truest voice because I hide my song.

No more.

Monday the 14th at 5 PM I have a voice lesson — a half hour assessment to meet a teacher and see if we can work together and then I’ll start weekly classes.

Thinking of this MAKES. ME. WANT. TO. PUKE.

I want to cancel. I won’t cancel.

I think I might die. I probably won’t.

My heart races and my skin gets clamy even at the thought of this half hour on this coming Monday.

But I will go and I will report back.

And I want to know from you: what will be your regret? What small movement can you take toward eradicating it?

The Scent of the Past

Me with Nana and Pap in Florida

When we’re little, adults often tell us how much we will miss certain people or times when they are gone, and of course, we can’t possibly understand what they mean even when we are a tad bit more introspective than the average child.

We just can’t.

Until we do.

And then it’s heartbreaking.

There are moments in the last few years in particular (is it something about turning 50?) that it hits me (really HITS me) that I will never see or be around my nana, for example, ever again. That that was it. I can’t sit with these feelings for very long. They could easily become overwhelming in a negative way.

For me, a lot of these realizations come with a deep desire to smell something again. Weird, right? But then so much of our memory is tied to smell.

My Great Aunt Ardelle’s house smelled a very specific way. When I used to have a bricks and mortar studio in Erie, it was mere feet from where her house once stood, and once in a while, that scent would be on the wind. It would take my breath away — the flood of memory and the longing.

My papa smelled of fresh cut wood and coffee made in a percolator. My nana smelled of bread, sticky buns, fresh squeezed orange juice, and too many others to list. Together they smelled of Florida to me (even though they lived in Erie for a very long time) and sometimes the weather even in Ohio will make me say to Craig, “It smells like Florida after a brief rain…” and he says, Huh, not really understanding.

My grandmother on the other side smelled of church basements and gladiolas and a scent I can’t name that floated around anything she sewed.

Back to my Great Aunt, she smelled of the old school Oil of Olay which you can’t get anymore… I’ve tried. They’ve changed it too much. And she smelled of Mr. Bubble bubble bath which my sister and I would take in her giant clawfoot tub.

My Great Aunt and Nana both smelled of Christmas… well, the way I want Christmas to smell anyway and a way that it will never again. (And just writing that made me cry.)

There are other scents tied to grade school, especially the little round school I went to in State College for 2nd grade. There’s the smell of waxy crayons and sand from when we’d make those bizarre bits of art with colored sand in baby food jars. (Do you remember those?)

There’s the smell of fresh fallen leaves that every October takes me back to early grade school and certain long ago friends.

There’s the smell of plastic barbie dolls and Christmas gift baby dolls that came every year.

There’s the smell of the cheap paperbacks from Scholastic books and the newsprint that was the order form.

But mostly, to my point, it’s the smells around those people who were our whole worlds when we were little, so many of whom we’ve already said goodbye to.

When we’re little, we just can’t know. I think we’re built that way on purpose. The knowledge of so much coming heartache could easily steal joy from the little people we were … as yet unequipped to process that kind of loss and still so full of trust that it all will just go on and on…

Empathy isn't just for the hard stuff...

(I wish I could find the study I was reading because it was important but you know how … SQUIRREL!… And I’ve tried to find it again and just can’t. If I do find it some day, I’ll come back to this and update it.)

Onward… I was reading a study recently that came to the conclusion that perhaps — perhaps — almost 50% of the human population lacks the brain connections for true empathy.

Read that and weep. Or not.

If that stat is even close to true, it explains a lot about our world. It explains a lot about the seemingly endless struggle between people who focus on their own concerns and those who wish to better the world for everyone. (To put it all in compact and polite terms.)

That’s the macro look at it, but on the micro level, it can explain struggles we have with family and friends and even strangers when it comes to understanding motivations, the extension (or not) of care, the tangles we get in to over expectations, and on and on.

We are truly playing with different decks.

But with all of that, I bet in your mind, you’ve been focusing on the idea of empathy around difficult challenges.

There’s more to empathy than that and I’ve always sensed it but didn’t have the language for it.

It’s something I have been conscious of doing in my work since the beginning. I intuited that a huge part of what I do is really about making space for people to feel their feelings including BIG JOY.

That picture at the top… I love that moment between the two women on the right (Mara and Julie). They aren’t talking. They are simply finding shared joy in their playful embodiment.

Turns out there is language for this: Empathic Joy.

You can listen to a short podcast about the science of it right here.

Science, schmience… as usual it comes from an ancient philosophical/”religious” system: Buddhism.

And in Buddhism, it’s a practice. Of course, it is.

Mudita: sympathetic or unselfish joy, or joy in the good fortune of others. In Buddhism, mudita is significant as one of the Four Immeasurables.

(The other four immeasurables are: love, compassion, and equanimity. You can read more about them all over here.)

When someone gives us good news, do we start to think about our own lack of good news or are we just totally present to them, reflecting their experience back to them?

When we see a happy person out in the world, does that make us feel grouchy or judgy? Or do we take the opportunity to feel good with and for them?

This is the practice: all day long, watching for those moments of knee-jerk reactions that are grounded in jealousy or malice and checking them and replacing them.

I love this.

If you're stuck, as I was...

IMPORTANT QUESTION AT THE END (and I would love to hear from MANY OF YOU):

There aren't enough words to describe how much giving into the joy of another kitten has changed my life.

The guilt I was feeling that kept me from moving on with this any faster is just gone. Because joy is never something to feel guilty about and once I entered into it again, I knew this on a cellular level.

Grief makes us forget ourselves; it makes us lose sight; it lies to us about the love that is still possible.

And I'm thinking about how this is related to how SHIT the world is right now...

Yes, the world is shit. But are you contributing to it by resisting the beauty and love and joy and peace that you CAN find/have/make?

I keep going back to my Holocaust studies and I keep going back to that time I presented a paper at a Holocaust conference in New Jersey. I was the youngest person there by far at about 25.

At lunch, it turned out I was sitting next to an older woman with a number tattoo.

What was stunning is that I would have never ever guessed she would have that tattoo because she was so SMILEY. She was so happy to have someone my age there. She was just radiating JOY.

It strikes me... people who go through the WORST are often the most joyful.

And I think that's the lesson we all need right now... that we CANNOT give up these aspects/pursuits in life.

As I've said before, the AWFUL PEOPLE DOING THE AWFUL... they NEVER waiver.

What if WE never waivered in bringing forth JOY and BEAUTY and PEACE?

There is room for grief but I'm afraid that I (and maybe you?) have spent too long in it and are stuck and wallowing. Then I got that kitten...

So what thing could you do to break free of it and move in the other direction? This is not a rhetorical question. COMMIT TO SOMETHING by leaving a comment or writing to me privately.

THE Question You Need

Years ago, when I was going through a massive transformation that was painful, I did one really smart thing. I don’t remember why and I can’t remember where this came from but…

I created a question that I lived from:

What does my heart need/want right now to open/remain open/open more?

That’s it.

And that question was utter magic.

I asked it every day in the morning and before bed as I did my rituals.

And I asked it throughout the day.

Recently I shared this question with a student who took the work of it seriously and she reported back that it shifted everything for her.

Here’s a warning about this question: it is tender and easily eaten by any kind of depression, grief, rage, despair.

This question is a sort of tending to your life but the question itself also needs to be tended to.

The second you start ignoring it in favor of feeding the heart-closing aspects of your current situation, this question starts to… slowly fade away.

You won’t notice because it will be such a soft leaving. And years later, something will happen and you’ll wonder whatever happened to that question practice that was changing you so much on a spiritually cellular level.

I know of what I speak. I lost sight of this question… I can’t really pinpoint when.

Did it happen when I got really busy being super happy? It can happen then.

Or did it happen when I hit a wall of despair after a bunch of difficult events? It most certainly can happen then.

It doesn’t matter, though. It happened.

And here I am, remembering because I knew someone else needed this.

Which is a huge reason for my teaching. You all help me to re-member so much of myself every day.

I’m going to rebuild practices around this question and I would love to know if and how you would be joining me.

Introducing BEGONIA YUKI

And just like that, life changes and is more joyful again.

This past Saturday, Craig and I drove a half hour south of Columbus to a really wonderful animal rescue to pick up our newest family member.

Craig had been looking for a while. I’d given him some parameters and told him not to include me in the search. It felt too sad to me and I still had mixed feelings about getting another white cat — or even another cat. I had been contemplating a dog because I thought then I wouldn’t put Peony expectations on them.

When he saw that she had two different colored eyes, he knew she was the one. Like Peony AND David Bowie were sending her to me.

To remind me of myself.

And I would have to write millions of words to try to describe how much this has changed everything.

I tried to write about it in the Sanctuary:

There are so many layers to what's happening for me since Craig brought Begonia Yuki into my life. I'm sure I will be writing about this here and there for some time.

But at some point this weekend, I wrote a note to a friend, saying that I realized I did not have an OUNCE of care or energy to point toward the negative, the "news," the crap of the world. I wasn't even thinking about it.

And she wrote back that Begonia is the light, because of course.

Here's the thing...

I can still hold -- with utter tenderness, vulnerability, and depth -- my grief over losing Peony Yuki. She will forever be with me.

BUT at the same time, I can see now more clearly the gifts she gave me because I am not drowning in my grief. Day to day, I was struggling to just keep my head above water...

And the biggest gift Peony gave me was JOY. My capacity for joy.

She opened my heart and there were nights years ago when she literally saved my life and then opened my heart ever wider.

To say I was lost when I lost her... I was in the labyrinth and I had no string or breadcrumbs to guide me out...

Or so I thought.

Grief can be so overwhelming, so overriding that the gifts we're left with are of no help.

Until another being comes along and reignites that.

I love the other animals in my life, but I (here's some woo...) seem to have some sort of soul connection to these little white/pink cats. (End of bit from the Sanctuary.)

Right now, as I sit here writing this, Begonia is in my lap, purring, content to just be with me. If I got up and walked into another room, she would follow. If I close a door and she’s on the other side, she cries. She is chattering to me regularly. She engages when I’m teaching or doing movement work.

She needs attention from me. And I needed that more than I even knew.

I can’t explain this even to myself and I don’t need to… I can just be grateful that a small white cat with big pink ears is the key to my wellbeing and my sense of centeredness and joy, because what a wonderfully simple and beautiful key she is.

These times seem to be for breaking hearts

I shared this meme on my Facebook business page in the hours right before we knew what had happened in Uvalde, Texas.

And that night there was class to teach. Which seemed ridiculous, right?

Until one student said, “I knew this was one of the safest places I could be right now for my mental health.”

Amen and thank you.

Community has always been such a huge part of the classes I teach.

I can remember when I first started teaching in my very own space in Erie, and how many times, new students would come up to me afterward and tell me they’d never felt so instantly welcomed and safe… that when they went to yoga spaces in town sometimes they weren’t talked to. ((WHAT?!)) Or that exercise spaces just felt too competitive and there was none of that in our space.

Amen and thank you, again.

It seems that that has not changed at all on Zoom and that feels like a little miracle to me. That we can meet from across so many many miles, and still, the main thing that happens in class together is that we are present to one another and we move in compassion, witnessing and being witnessed in whatever is happening for us in that moment, whether articulated with words or silence.

Movement is life, for sure. These bodies are built to move (in whatever way currently capable) and it’s all written in our cells and DNA that this movement should be, needs to be joyful and communal.

And yet…

The real reason for these classes and the real reason for movement is that the best way for us to bond deeply is through these bodies, engaged in nonsexual intimacies that are SEVERELY lacking in our current culture.

We are aching to be seen.

We are dying to be heard.

Literally.

Anger, hatred, fear… if you trace it back to its very origins, it always comes to this: these people who walk around every day with hearts of stone (who may or may not act on that in a directly violent way)… these people are screaming inside to be seen and heard.

They don’t have the tools to know how to simply ask for what they need.

They either weren’t taught, or when they were quite small, those tools were used but denied.

These times seem to be for breaking hearts… I mean this in so many ways.

There is a breaking that is good and healthy. It’s the breaking that happens when we’re very young and we’ve learned that we are safe and it’s time to venture out on our own.

It’s the breaking that happens when we lose someone we loved more than we thought possible and yet we continue on and their memory becomes the foundation of our strength and hope.

It’s the breaking that teaches us what we want and need by showing us what we do not want and do not need.

It’s a breaking that too many have hardened themselves against and so they stockpile — whether it be guns or cruelty or hatred or shame or power over others.

We must also stockpile…

But we must stockpile inner strength, compassion, love, empathy, and a soft willpower that gets things done without hurting others.

We will likely not live to see the new world that will evolve from all that’s been happening over the last six years, but we must keep healing ourselves of these broken hearts over and over again so that we can go out beyond ourselves, beyond our smaller and safe communities like the ones in my classes, and do the larger work that is calling for us right now, the work that is begging to be seen and heard and done.

If you need community like this, if you need support, if you need safety, June classes are starting on June 7th, and we would love to welcome you.