Joy

Joy is the most terrifying emotion. For me, feeling joy means that at some point I will also feel anguish. If I allow myself the thrilling experience of joy I can feel the difficult emotions as well. 

About a year ago I was watching a Netflix special that featured Brené Brown. In this special she talked about joy. She said "when we loss our tolerance for vulnerability joy becomes foreboding." She used the example of when a parent is looking at their sleeping child and they are overcome with how much they love this child, then within seconds the parent thinks of something awful that can happen to the child. We dress rehearse tragedy so we can beat vulnerability. It's a way to beat vulnerability to the punch. A way to remain in the middle. If things don't work out we won't be devastated. If they do work out then it was a pleasant surprise. It's a shutter that runs through us after we have had a joyful moment. Or simply a happy one. The shutter that says don't get to comfy here because the other shoe is going to drop. 

I have been here. In this space of not letting myself feel joy. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

Rory died and everything (and I mean everything) I thought I knew about life came crashing down. I was left surrounded by the pieces of my crumbled "reality". When we found out I was pregnant with Addison I thought "This is going to be a good thing. I've experienced the worst so nothing else can happen" Ha! 10 months later we experienced a different kind of heart ache. The ache of having a child who is sick, who isn't healthy, who isn't this perfect angel you anticipated. I laid in a hospital bed next to my baby who had a feeding tube, cpap machine, and other lines poking out of her, and I was angry. I was angry at God. The world. The injustice of it all. I told God all this too. I told him that I deserved more than this. That He owed me something good. Something whole. I believe in a God who is big enough to hold my raw emotions. A God who doesn't want me to hid. So as I wept in that hospital bed I poured my heart out to God. In those moments somewhere deep inside I started building my wall. The wall that was going to protect my vulnerable side. The wall that would allow me to be angry. That would give me an excuse to not feel joy.  

When Elias was born I had already begun some much needed healing in my heart. I was slowing breaking down my walls. As some of you know he was born more sick than Addison was. And those bricks went right back up. 

My point in all of that is that I stopped feeling. I stayed in this state of fear. Anytime I felt good about my life I would not allow myself to move passed that. I would think things like "well don't get too excited that the the cardiologist said Elias' heart looks good because tomorrow he could catch a cold that could send us right back to the hospital." "I know Addison hasn't had any issues with her liver in over a year but you better not enjoy this extra long afternoon nap because it could be a sign of ill things to come."  Rational? No. Taking the edge off of joy? Absolutely.  

So I mentioned the Netflix special. Did it change me immediately...no. But it planted seeds in my heart. I knew I wasn't in a healthy place. I knew that I needed to find a way out of this prison I built around my heart. 

In May of 2020 Andrew Tolson (a pastor at our church) preached about joy. One thing he said that struck me was "Joy is a lifelong journey of discovering, understanding, and experiencing it in greater and greater ways." He went on to talk about how our circumstances do not determine our joy. That nothing should change the joy in our life as we have an understanding of who God is in our life. That yes sorrows will come but that does not determine our joy. 

This was when that seed that was planted started to be watered. It started to get the nourishment it needed. I began to journal, to look back on the last 5 years of my life and find the things that I could be thankful for. I wrote them out. I wrote why I was thankful for them. And my seed of joy started to grow and blossom. 

In the studies that Brené Brown has conducted on joy she has found that the most joyful people are the ones who practice gratitude. Not just the corny "have a grateful heart" but people who kept gratitude journals, who spoke aloud every night the things they were grateful for that day, the people who fight the fear of joy with gratitude. Practicing gratitude invites joy in. I learned this tool several years ago when I was participating in a workshop Grief Release led by Joanie Dwyer. I just didn't actually apply it to my life. Guess you can't just read about how to change your life. You actually have to do something about it. Go figure. 

Things can go wrong in our lives. Like really wrong. We are allowed to feel the emotions that come with that. We are allowed to say this is not right. While we are holding that in one hand we can also hold the gratitude. Now, don't go and tell someone to look at the bright side of a situation. Don't tell them well things could be worse. Do not tell them to find the good. Many situations have no good. And remember it's their journey. How they are processing. I am just saying we are allowed to hold both. 

When Andrew talked about joy being a journey that stuck with me. Because I am on this journey of joy. I am learning how to be in the midst of joy. To fight the fear with gratitude. To let myself be vulnerable in joy. I am also learning to trust God. To trust his love for me. To trust that I can be in my honest and raw emotions with Him and know that doesn't change His love for me. 

 My two little joys