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Chapter 1
Some Things That Really Matter
Joy
• The Nature
of Joy, and how to align with it
• Joy is
available in good times and bad
• You can
awake to more joy in your life; more intensely, and more often
• We have to
let go of our self-obsession to experience joy
• Here are
the simple first steps to more joy
Once in a
very great while, more often if you’re incredibly lucky, joy will drop
into your
life. It may be a simple thing, such as seeing an exceptionally beautiful
flower, or it
might be one of life’s peak experiences, like the birth of a child, that
triggers the
emotion of joy. Whatever brings it on, take immediate action. Notice
it, stop
everything else. Breathe it in, listen to it, touch it, taste it, smell it,
revel in
it, roll
around in it, suspend time and ignore everyone else. This is too important
for manners,
for civilized, polite behavior. Joy is elemental, real, and rare.
When Kesla,
the first grandchild, came into this world, I was in San Francisco,
attending a
meeting of a group I had worked very hard to be welcomed into. We were
all so
self-important, so potentially powerful, and our meetings so very informative
and elegant,
that they must have thought I was stupid or crazy, or both, to abandon
them in a
rush, shouting over my shoulder, “She’s just been born!” I ran for the
parking lot,
raced to Fresno, dashed into the hospital room, and held her for the
first time. I
remember promising, “Honey, when you’re ten, we’re going to Paris!”,
although I
had never had that thought before, and don’t remember why I said it.
Probably it
was some kind of altered mental state, induced by joy.
Years later,
that same joy came back to visit, although it didn’t look that way at
first. My
daughter Heather had a hard time when Carson was born—back labor,
they said.
She was so exhausted, so tired from all the hours of pain. Her husband
12
Linda Abbott Trapp
Mark was
wonderful to watch with his newborn son—a giant of a man so tender,
so loving and
so clearly awed. But the best moment for me was watching when he
first handed
the baby, a few minutes old, to Heather. Her outstretched arms and
tears of joy
are inscribed forever on my brain.
Sometimes the
grace of joy comes in time to heal a hurt or keep us from making
a mistake.
When we first moved into an unfinished house in Mexico, we suffered
through the
learning process of construction in a different culture. There were times
I really
hated it and regretted our decision. One day, after several days without hot
water and
other comforts, I was just fed up! I stormed from the house in a rage,
heading for
the street, ready to just keep going. Just then, a flock of 50 or 60 beautiful,
chirping,
wild parakeets flew just over my head and settled in the tree across the
street. I
looked up and said “OK, God, I get it; it’s not about the hot water”.
It’s not
always the big stuff that brings joy, although often it is. I’ve felt it
praying,
and I’ve felt
it watching puppies play. It’s been there when I gazed at a mountain
range, heard
a lovely symphony passage, felt the closeness of holding my Dad’s hand
when he was
old and sick, watched a child learn to trust her own abilities, studied a
masterful
painting, or listened to a friend offer understanding and comfort. In each
of these
experiences I was caught up, taken outside of myself and my daily concerns,
and set
right. Joy has come in good times and in hard times, in the midst of a loving
family or
group of friends, and it has come to me when I was alone and afraid. The
trick is to
be ready, be willing to give it its due place, learn from it, and be grateful.
It has its
reasons, and they are not ours to predict or understand. It’s a precious gift,
not something
we can plug in and turn on whenever we want.
One time soon
after my husband Alan died, I was driving to Nevada, where
I had agreed
to work for a few days. I was sad and frightened about many things.
Even so, I
couldn’t help but notice how beautifully the lowering sun had washed
transparent
layers of pink and purple over the mountains, and they were crowned
with a light
frosting of snow. In my loneliness and frustration I spoke out loud,
“Oh, Alan, I
wish you could see this!” Just then, I heard him say, in the clearest,
sweetest
voice, “You should see it here!” The rush of joy told me he was fine, in a
better place,
and I could let go and move forward. I never heard that voice again,
and I never
needed to.
We are all,
every day, standing on holy ground. Most of us never notice. But
when we do,
oh, when we do take or allow a break in our constant self-involvement,
our repeated
mental murmurings about wanting and needing and hurting and
being angry,
tired, and treated unjustly, then, just then, joy has a chance at us.
We can be
fully alive, then, nailed to the moment, bleeding tears of gratitude,
expanding so
quickly that it hurts and forces us to inhale sharply. There’s a book
called
Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman, a past president of The American
Psychological
Association. In it, he encourages us to savor joy and to fight against
habituation—which means, roughly, getting so used to something that we don’t
think much of
it at all. Savoring is like rolling something around in your mouth to
get all the
possible taste from it. Simply, it means paying attention. So for example,
the next time
there’s a gorgeous sunset, stop what you’re doing and look, really look,
at it, and
say thanks. If you practice studying these mountaintops of joy very closely,
they will be
easier to recall when you’re in a valley of sadness or discouragement. If
you remember
them well, you can begin to plan a path that takes you back to those
mountaintops.
I’ll be waiting for you there.
Workbook Questions:
1. Write a
few words describing three experiences that have brought you joy.
2. Has joy
ever surprised you by its sudden arrival? What did you focus on then?
3. What
activity takes you outside of your normal self-involvement? Have you
ever
experienced joy through that activity?
4. What other
activities might help open you to experiences of joy?
5. The next
time you sense that joy is about to happen for you, what can you
do to more
fully experience and savor it?
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