This morning I wrote ENJOY LIFE on the inside of my palm to remind myself throughout
the day to choose joy, over fear or stress or nerves or anxious thoughts.
I think this new year's focus for me is JOY, creating a space for it,
choosing it and maintaining it, no matter what. The Fun-A-Day challenge
has definitely helped open the waves of creative energy and expression for me
and I am in the process of creating an excellent daily outlet for my creativity
now. But something is still getting in the way sometimes of my joy.
What is it? So I dived in and explored my inner self to see what I
could find out and how I could bring more joy into all aspects of my life.
I discovered darkness in the form of fear
that has been gurgling around and partially clouding my joy at times. In
order to move through these difficult feelings, I need to own them and
communicate more openly about them. Instead of braving these grizzly
bears all alone, why not share what I’m feeling anxious about with trusted
loved ones, like my husband, my mom and my best amigas. For example, I've
been feeling anxious lately about my car and having to take it into the
dealership to find out how much more life it has left. I am very proud of
this car, I purchased it all on my own and it was quite a struggle to find, so
I want to be able to enjoy it for as long as possible, and enjoy not making car
payments for as long as possible. As a result, I haven't called the
dealership yet to make an appointment. I don’t want to receive bad news.
I’m scared of what they might say. So instead of continuing to beat
myself up about not calling yet, I talked with my husband, who already knows
how I feel about this car, and we are going to go together this weekend. An
easy solution once I decided to take action and communicate what I was afraid
of.
I’ve also been procrastinating about calling
and making some routine yet necessary doctor's appointments. Why? After
reflecting on this a little, I realized that it is probably because of all the
trauma from my surgeries in 2012. I’m still scared of what they might say
or of being misunderstood. The after effects of a traumatic health crisis
like that last much longer than the actual physical wounds. I think this
is what has been holding me back from making a few simple phone calls.
Now that I am aware of this, what has been holding me back, I hope I will
be able to move forward and make these appointments finally.
What about my resistance to going through the
boxes in our bedroom? I know in part, it’s because I don’t know where
I’ll put the things that I want to keep from the boxes. But that shouldn’t be
stopping me from going through and throwing out, recycling, and/or donating the
rest! I can easily put what I want to keep back in the box and condense
it all into one box even. Now there’s a solution!
Any other parts of my life that I feel
resistance? Well, I know the gym membership is way more complicated than
just not wanting to fork over the money to buy a 2-year membership from Costco.
Instead, it has everything to do with my last gym experience a year ago when I
tried 20 minutes of zumba and was in pain in bed for the whole rest of the day.
I LOVE zumba. It hurt my ego and pride and soul to not be able to do it. But
now a WHOLE year has passed and I am stronger and ready to give it a try again.
I can do it. I can dance now! The jumping may hurt, at first, but I can just
bend my knees until I get the rhythm of it back again and until I feel more
comfortable and don’t feel pain as a result. I can adapt my dancing to avoid
the painful aftermath. It shouldn’t stop me from dancing all together. It’s
been a full year and almost a month since my wound healed completely. I can do
this!
So as we approach the midway point of the
first month of this new year, it’s a good time to examine what has been holding
us back from doing the things we hope to do. Why aren’t we doing them
already? What’s stopping us? Sometimes it’s as simple--and as
complex--as fear. But once we can own that fear and name it and share it
with someone, we can then move through it and experience what’s on the other
side, which is JOY.
I’m left with a song that has been repeating in my
head all day from the Seattle Unity Church.
Joy, joy, joy
I’ve still got joy
Joy, joy, joy
I’ve still got joy
Joy, joy, joy
I’ve still got joy
After all I’ve been
through
I’ve still got JOY!
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