Inviting Joy In OR Here’s to Pecan Turtles!

December 14, 2020 ~ Sue Downing ~ Leave a comment

As I write this, I’m sitting at my dining room table, looking out the sliders to my deck. A light snow is falling, and I’m watching the chickadees and finches and sparrows and titmice make forays to the feeder I’ve put out for them. The blue jays have already scooped up all the peanuts I put out on the deck earlier, and a squirrel has already gone through its gymnastics to access the suet feeder for a morning snack. All is right with the world. At least from the birds’ and squirrels’ perspective. At this moment.

But if the birds were to think back to the scene that unfolded yesterday morning out at the bird feeder on my front porch, they might not have considered their world so cheery. That’s because yesterday morning a juvenile red-tailed hawk stopped by. It began visiting us last week. The first time I glimpsed it, it was perched on my porch railing, about three feet away from me. We were separated only by my kitchen window. What a gorgeous bird! And a real treat to see it up close. It even looked in my direction at one point. It returned the next two days. I continued to delight in its presence, grateful for such a close-up view of this raptor.

Not surprisingly, the birds didn’t share my enthusiasm: One day a few years ago, when we had a particularly harsh winter, I saw a hawk swoop down onto my back deck and pick off a junco. The other birds stayed away from the blood-stained snowy deck for the rest of the day. Now, too, when the hawk shows up, the songbirds clear out. So do the chipmunks that gather the seeds that the birds drop.

Yesterday, the hawk chose to perch on a bush at the corner of my front porch. Had it spied the chipmunk that had run off the porch a bit earlier? Or was it just hanging out and waiting, having learned that breakfast was to be had in this area? Who knows. I don’t even know whether it’s ever caught anything out there. I haven’t witnessed the murder of any of the little critters I adore, but I’m not so naïve as to think that if I don’t see it, it’s not happening.

And what about the birds? What awareness do they have of the possibility of danger when danger is not yet obviously present? They must have some awareness of that sort – that must be what urges the chickadee to fly off to the cover of a pine tree with each little seed it plucks from the feeder, instead of lazily munching on it right out in the open. But here’s the question that comes to mind for me: Does knowing that danger is possible prevent that chickadee from enjoying the seeds it eats? Or dilute the squirrel’s enjoyment of the suet? (I’m convinced that it wouldn’t show the same enthusiasm for a piece of bread, so I’m going to conclude that when it chows down on suet, it’s experiencing whatever we call “joy” in non-human creatures.)

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the chickadee and the squirrel just experience that joy whenever and wherever it shows up: in a sunflower seed here, a suet feeder there. I think that even though part of their brain is scanning for danger, another part is also scanning for joy. And when they encounter it – in the form of a millet seed or a mouthful of suet – they totally go for the gusto and squeeze every possible bit of joy out of it that they can. They say “Yes!” – not only to the life-sustaining nourishment of the food, but also to the joy that comes with eating it, even though they know on some level that a hawk might be circling above them.

It seems to me that we humans operate differently than my friends on the deck. Because we have these big, reasoning brains, we get far more distracted than they do by thinking about past or possible dangers. If I were a junco – but with my human consciousness – and if I’d seen a red-tailed hawk devour a flock-mate before my eyes, I would never, ever, EVER want to visit that birdfeeder again. But I imagine that if I did visit it again, because, well, I needed to eat, my mind would be so overwhelmed by fear that I’d be unable to enjoy my meal at all. The terror of the memory of the hawk would crowd out the joy.

It seems to me that this crowding-out-of-joy happens so often to us humans. We get preoccupied with whatever unpleasant situations are playing out in our lives or in the world (i.e., hawks, from the perspective of a bird or a chipmunk), and, before we realize it, we’ve eaten an entire chocolate pecan turtle without having properly soaked in the caramel-chocolate-pecan yumminess. In other words, we’ve just squandered an opportunity to invite joy in.

So, what I’ve been thinking about lately is that, because we are such thinking-oriented creatures, we humans need to make a conscious effort to bring joy into our lives. More chocolate pecan turtles, fewer “hawks”. I’ll admit that it’s often not easy to choose to focus on what’s joyful, instead of on what’s upsetting. I know this from my own experience: I was writing about myself earlier when I mentioned the pecan turtle. And yet, I find that when I consciously shift my thoughts away from a potential or past or present difficulty, and toward doing or thinking about something pleasant, I can experience so much joy!

Take watching the birds and squirrels on my deck. When I gaze out at that scene in a frame of mind that is clouded by this or that situation that’s weighing me down, I may see the birds, but I don’t really see them. My mind is preoccupied with what’s bothering me. But when I can set all of that aside and really look, here’s what I might see: a junco doing its hilarious two-footed hop on the deck, or a chickadee tapping a sunflower seed on the branch of a nearby tree. That’s when I find myself smiling, grateful that these tiny birds’ antics have just filled me with so much joy. And marveling that all it took was a conscious decision on my part to mentally invite joy into my life for a visit.

So, I as we approach the end of this crazy year, I want to take the opportunity to wish you many, many moments of joy. May you have the wish to focus your attention on what will throw the door of your heart and mind wide open to joy. And may you have the courage and perseverance to make this wish a reality, a new habit that will guide and infuse your life as you enter 2021. I’d like to offer a little mantra, too. This helps me stay focused on inviting joy in, instead of on dwelling on what bothers me: Fewer “hawks”, more turtles.

Much love to you all.

* * *

And to give you a bit of practice at inviting joy into your life, here’s a guided meditation for you. (The transcript follows the recording.)

Inviting Joy In – Guided Meditation

Let’s start by finding a way to sit that will be comfortable for about ten minutes. Or, you can lie down, if you prefer. Close your eyes, if that feels good to you. Otherwise, just lower your gaze so that you won’t be distracted by your surroundings.

Let’s take in one nice deep breath, and then let it out, slowly.

Then do that two more times, at your own pace.

We’re here in our virtual Club Joy, taking a break from everything in the outside world of our life. And I think we’d all say that there’s some area of that life that we’d like to be experiencing more joy in. So that’s what we’re going to do today- invite Joy into one part of our life.

If you were here with us last week, or if you listened to the recording of the guided meditation from last week, then you’ve already come up with an image of a door for yourself, a door that opens up to Joy. If you already have an image of that door, imagine it before you now. If you haven’t yet created a door that opens up to Joy, for now, just imagine that you’re standing in front of a door. It can be whatever kind of door you want. And on that door is a sign that says, “Joy”. This sign is there to show you that Joy is right on the other side of the door, and that whenever you open that door, you are opening up to experience Joy.

So now, take a moment to imagine your door. This is your personal door to Joy.

Now imagine that you’re holding a different sign in your hands. This sign is blank. But in a few moments you’re going to decorate it or write something on this sign, so that it will indicate the part of your life that you’d like to invite Joy into. Then you’ll be hanging that sign on the outside of your door to Joy. That way Joy will know exactly which part of your life it can enter once you open the door.

In your mind now, hold this blank sign out in front of you. What color would you like the sign itself to be? Go ahead and imagine making it that color.

Now let’s go ahead and start the process of choosing which part of your life will be represented on this sign. You can be certain that whichever part of your life would like an infusion of Joy has been waiting for this moment since we began our meditation. Maybe it’s already standing in front of you, one arm raised in excitement, calling out, “Pick me! Pick me!” If that’s the case, then you already know what will go onto your sign.

But if no particular part of your life has occurred to you yet to focus on, that’s okay. It’s just being a little shy. To encourage it to make itself known to you, start by imagining once again that you’re holding that blank sign out in front of you. And allow a message to appear there from whichever part of your life would like to have a visit from Joy. It may appear as a word on the sign, or as a word or phrase in your mind. Or as an image of some part of your life or person. Or you may simply know without seeing or hearing anything. Take a minute or two now to gaze at your sign and to allow yourself to become aware of which part of your life this is, in as much detail as possible.

Now that you have a sense of which area of your life is calling out to have Joy come for a visit, take a moment to express that on your sign in some way – in words, or in an image. So that Joy will see it and understand where to it’ll be heading once you open the door.

Okay. Now it’s time to hang this inviting sign on the outside of your door to Joy. Go ahead and imagine doing that right now. And take time to look at your sign and admire it, once it’s hanging on the door.

Great. Now you have a door that clearly tells Joy which area of your life it will enter when it comes through this door that you’ve created and labelled. So, now it’s time to actually invite Joy to come through the door and into this part of your life. We need to do this consciously, because Joy doesn’t want to just barge in, uninvited. Think of it this way: It’s like having a little sign with your name on it next to your front door, so that a visitor who comes to your house will know who they’ll find on the other side of the door. But that sign isn’t an invitation to come in. It’s just there to let visitors know they’ve come to the right place. They still need to wait on the doorstep until you open the door and say, “Come on in!” It’s the same with Joy. It sees your sign – right at this very moment, in fact! – and knows which part of your life is behind that door. But it’s waiting for your invitation to enter that space.

Before you go ahead and open the door to Joy, though, let’s take a moment to decide how you want to invite Joy in. Is there a certain phrase you’d like to use? A gesture? A sound? A song? A dance? What feels right to you at this moment as a way to invite Joy to enter your life? Take a moment to consider your invitation.

Now, go ahead. Open your door and offer your special invitation to Joy. Invite it to enter and join you in the part of your life you’ve chosen.

Imagine now that Joy really is stepping into this space where you’re standing now, and that this space represents the part of your life you chose to invite Joy to enter. Maybe you’ll see Joy, or hear it, or feel it, or simply sense it. But know that it is coming in. After all, you gave it a lovely invitation, and Joy is a very enthusiastic visitor! Take a couple of minutes now, just to rest in the awareness that Joy is now present in the part of your life that you indicated on your sign. Allow yourself to receive this awareness in whatever way it arrives. And I’ll let you know when we’re finished with this part of the meditation.

Wonderful. No matter what you experienced in this last part of our meditation, I invite you to inwardly give thanks to Joy for visiting. Even if it seems to you that you didn’t experience anything at all, know that Joy has entered into that part of your life that invited it to visit. In fact, it’s still there. It intends to stay for a good, long while. And if you ever have a moment when you doubt that it’s still there, go ahead and open the door once again. Consciously invite Joy in again. You can even ask Joy to give you some kind of sign that it’s really there.

You can also feel free to create a new sign for your door, if you want to invite Joy into another part of your life. And don’t think you have to take down the first sign when you do that. You can fill up the outside of your door to Joy with invitations. That’s because Joy can be present in more than one part of your life at once. There’s plenty of Joy to go around.

So, I hope you’ll enjoy your visits with Joy, and I wish for Joy to be present in every nook and cranny of your life.

Now we’re going to start gently and gradually returning our attention to where we’re gathered together.

As you’re ready, I invite you to open your eyes.

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Opening the Door to Joy

November 30, 2020December 5, 2020 ~ Sue Downing ~ 2 Comments

As I wrote in a previous post, when I created my Garage Club, it wasn’t long before I developed the feeling that its real name should be “Club Joy”. That’s what felt right. And not long after this realization, I found myself reflecting on what, exactly, I think “joy” is.

I used to think of joy as something that popped up in my life. Joy has always seemed different to me than happiness, which I’ve tended to see as a more or less enduring state that results when a certain set of external or internal circumstances comes together. By contrast, I thought of joy as a momentary experience, like the blink of a light in the darkness.

As for how we come to experience happiness and joy, here’s how I used to distinguish between the two: Happiness comes on gradually. It’s something you consciously create, by setting an intention to build it. Then you take certain steps that you believe will move you toward your goal of a state of happiness.

What about joy, then? I used to feel that joy just, well… happens. It’s something we receive, not something we create. Either it arises, or it doesn’t, and we have very little control over whether that happens.

I tended to see joy as akin to a total stranger who knocks on your door and then, when you open it, both totally surprises you and presents you with pure delight as a gift. You never imagined this scenario, and yet, here’s Joy, showing up on your doorstep.

Then, somehow, just as inexplicably, Joy fades away, vanishes into thin air. Sure, this visitor will most likely pop by again some other day. But you’ll never know when to expect it. Joy isn’t the kind of visitor who gives you a heads up so that you can mark your calendar and look forward to its arrival.

And because we never know when Joy might show up again, a thin layer of disappointment can settle over us once our unexpected visitor leaves. “Come back!” we want to call after it. But it’s gone, and it didn’t leave us a phone number or an email address. Not even a snail mail address. And that’s too bad, because if it had, we would definitely mail off a note, probably even an engraved invitation, and invite it to drop by again soon. “How about next Tuesday? Is 3:00 good for you?”

Seeing Joy this way – as an unpredictable, even unreliable, guest, whose visits we are powerless to control, can take its toll on us. We want to spend time with Joy again, but we don’t know how to go about making that happen. We’re left feeling that we have no agency – that all we can do is wait passively until Joy deigns to knock on our door again.

In reflecting on this over the years, I concluded that, indeed, we can’t make Joy show up on our doorstep on command. Even so, I believe that we do have a certain kind of agency in our relationship with Joy: We can enter into a kind of collaboration with it. We can initiate this collaboration by creating a welcoming space in our heart and mind. Think of it as a cozy, peaceful guest room with Joy’s name on it.

The first step in creating a guest room in our mind and heart is to let go of any disappointment we might be feeling at Joy’s absence. Then we place our focus on reorganizing and spiffing up the space in our mind and heart. This process is similar to what I did with my garage when I was working on my physical Garage Club/Club Joy. I started out with a dusty, unkempt garage, full of unappealing garage items; some genuine garbage that needed to be gotten rid of; and stuff to be recycled or tossed in the compost bin. I had a vision in my mind of how I wanted Garage Club to look, and I kept my focus on that, as I rearranged the contents of my garage and added new, more lighthearted elements to the décor.

I don’t want to give you the impression that it was all smooth sailing, setting up Garage Club. I was really discouraged at first, right after I hung up the string lights on my bare garage walls. There was no way that struck me as fun or welcoming. Would anyone really enjoy sitting there? I could have obsessed over how disappointing it looked, then slipped into concluding that it would never look right, and then end up by abandoning the project entirely.

But I didn’t do that. Instead of focusing on what was wrong with the space, I kept returning in my mind to my vision of how I wanted Garage Club to look. And, little by little, it came together. Now I love the space, and my visitors seem delighted by it, too. I think it seems like such a surprise to them, this moment of joy that’s popped up unexpectedly from behind a garage door. And yet, Garage Club – Club Joy! – did not just happen. I had a vision for it, set my intention to create it, and then methodically went about moving toward my goal.

So, how can we go about creating the internal equivalent of Club Joy, a space in our mind and heart where Joy will feel like plopping down in an easy chair for a nice, long visit? The very first step is to create a door in our mind and heart that we can open up to Joy – like my garage door, just in your mind.

This is such an important step! The door to Joy’s guest room is a special door: a portal that will make it possible for Joy to join us. So, in our mind, we consciously create a door, and express a strong, clear intention as we’re doing so. Something along the lines of, “I’m creating this door so that I can open it up and invite Joy to come visit.”

Setting our intention this way is like hanging a lovely sign on the other side of our door that says, “Coming Soon! Joy Guest Room!” Maybe it even makes note of some appealing perks: “Three meals a day included. Plus unlimited chocolate”. As soon as we do this, our intention – to welcome Joy as our guest – filters out beyond the door, out into the space where Joy is roaming around, doing whatever it does all day and night. And Joy thinks, “Hmm. This is intriguing. What’s going on here?” From that point on, Joy’s going to make a point of stopping by every so often, to see whether your guest room is open for visits yet.

Once you’ve stated your intention, you can begin working on creating the interior of this room for Joy. And, based on my own experience setting up my physical Club Joy, my advice to you is this: Don’t wait until everything feels ideal and perfect inside your mind to open the door.

Don’t think you have to have a perfectly calm and peaceful mind and heart in place before you open the door to your Joy guest room. If you put that pressure on yourself, you’ll never change the sign on the door from “Coming Soon!” to “Open for Joy!” Make peace with the fact that, if you’re at all like me, there will always be mental or emotional cobwebs in your mind, just the way my garbage pail and all my garage-y things are still in my garage.

When I was setting up Club Joy, I didn’t have the goal of taking all of that distracting stuff out before I invited visitors in. I knew that was neither practical nor possible. Instead, I just set up a cute wooden screen at the back of my garage. Sure, anyone who comes by knows that the screen is there for a reason: There are things behind it that I don’t particularly want people to see. Not because they’re bad things, but because having to look at them might distract us from our visit with Joy. Putting up the screen also conveys my intention: I choose not to focus on all of that stuff right now! After all, this is Club Joy, not Club All-The-Stuff-You-Associate-With-A-Garage.

And so, my physical Club Joy is open, and no one seems deterred by all the unappealing clutter behind the screen. Folks come right on in. And so does Joy. Joy heard there was a club with its name on it, and it headed right over.

So, as you’re creating your internal Club Joy, you don’t need to worry about all the odds and ends that are knocking around your head and heart space, either. Just take the first, intentional step of creating the door that you can open up to Joy. And Joy can’t wait! It’s so excited for Opening Day.

* * *

Because creating a door and opening it to Joy may feel a bit daunting, I’ve recorded a meditation/visualization that will guide you through that process. (And the text of the meditation follows, below the audio player.)

Guided Meditation: Opening the Door to Joy

Opening the Door to Joy – Guided Meditation

Let’s take in one nice deep breath, and then let it out, slowly.

Then do that two more times, at your own pace.

Now, imagine that right in front of you, there’s a door. You can imagine it in your actual living space, or just in your mind, or in your heart – wherever you want it to be. Imagine whatever style of door appeals to you.

Now imagine that there’s a sign on this door. And the sign says, “Joy”. What this “Joy” sign on the door is telling you is that, right on the other side of that door, is Joy. It’s there right now.

I invite you to imagine your door once again. What color or colors would you like your door to be? Now, imagine that painting the door that color. And if you’d like to take the “Joy” sign off while you’re painting, that’s fine. Go right ahead. Just imagine taking it off and setting it down on the floor next to the door. Joy is still there on the other side, even if you take down the sign.

Go ahead and paint your door, using whatever color or colors you’d like.

Now that it’s painted, would you like to decorate your door in any way? Add a design? Or a picture of a person or an animal or a place you enjoy? Take a moment now to decorate your door.

Now, take a step back, so to speak, and take a look at your door. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t finished decorating it. You can come back another time and do more. The door that you can open up to Joy is a work in progress.

Now, let’s look again at the sign that says “Joy”. I invite you to hang it back up on the door, if you took it off earlier, and make any changes you’d like to the way it looks. Or, you can get rid of the sign entirely and just write the word “Joy” directly onto your door. It’s up to you. The main thing is that when you’re done, you should be able to see the word “Joy” on the door really, really clearly, even from a distance.

So, go ahead and take a little time to label your door “Joy”, in whatever way appeals to you.

Wonderful! So now you’re standing before your beautiful door that is labelled “Joy”. Really imagine standing in front of it. In a moment, you’re going to put your hand out and take hold of the doorknob. But first, check in with yourself.

How are you feeling about opening this door to Joy? I ask, because this idea of opening the door to Joy can be trickier than it sounds at first. Maybe you sat down with the thought that you’d just throw that door wide open, then stand there in the doorway with your arms wide open, and shout, “Come on in, Joy!” Maybe that’s how you’re still feeling. But maybe it’s not. Maybe the idea of opening the door to Joy leads us to put a little or a lot of pressure on ourselves. We might feel pressured to not just open the door to Joy, but to feel Joy, once the door’s open. Thoughts might come into this lovely room we’re starting to set up here, thoughts like, “Okay, I have to do it now. I have to feel joy!” or “What if I don’t feel joyful once I open the door?” Thoughts like that can come into our mind space. That happens. But they can be a big distraction, and at the moment, we don’t need them here, not when we’re trying to focus on opening the door to Joy. So, we’re going to move them to another part of our mind space. That way they won’t distract us.

So, imagine a folding screen, made of whatever substance you like: wood, metal, ivy… Make it wide enough that it can stretch from one side of the space behind you to the other. Turn around and put this screen in place. Now, mentally gather up any worrying or pressuring thoughts into your hands. Then toss them up and over the top of the screen. Imagine the thoughts sinking to the floor behind the screen. They’ll sink because they’re heavy, and they’ll stay there, on the floor behind the screen.

Now turn your attention back to your door that opens to Joy. Spend a moment reacquainting yourself with the beautiful door you’ve created. Look at the details. Look at where you’ve written the word “Joy”.

Now let’s get ready to actually open your door to Joy. You can open it as far as you want: just a crack, or all the way, or somewhere in between. It’s entirely up to you, and any amount of opening is perfect. So now, in your imagination, reach your hand out and take hold of the doorknob. And open your door to Joy.

Now, no matter how far you’ve opened the door, just rest in that openness. And allow yourself to experience Joy, in whatever way it is present with you at this moment. Joy might arise as a feeling somewhere in your body, or as an image, or a thought. Or you might not notice anything at all. That is totally fine, too. No pressure. So let’s relax in this space of openness for a minute or two and receive whatever arises. And I’ll let you know when we’re done with this part of the meditation.

Okay. Great.

Take another look at your door to Joy. And, no matter what you experienced in this last part of our meditation, I invite you to inwardly give thanks for that. And even if it seems to you that you didn’t experience anything at all, know that Joy was with you in the space you’ve created. Know that Joy is always there, on the other side of that door that you decorated and labelled with the word “Joy”.

What you do now is up to you. You can leave the door open, or close it. Whatever you want. And remember that you now know where Joy is located: Right behind that door. So that now, you always have access to it, and to the Joy behind it. You always have the wastebasket, too, in case thoughts come in that want to distract you from opening your door to Joy. I invite you to visit your door often. Open it up and see how Joy appears to you.

Now we’re going to start gently and gradually returning our attention to where we’re gathered together.

As you’re ready, I invite you to open your eyes.