Training for Joy

It doesn’t come by accident.

image courtesy of adobestock

These days, I’m an expert at distraction, but I’ve completely lost track of how to enjoy myself. My muscles of enjoyment are beginning to atrophy. The day starts and already I’m dissatisfied, tired, dreading the tiniest irritations — and these muscles are particularly strong in my life. I work them every day.

But the muscles that let daylight in, that focus on kindnesses, the ones that let me feel loved by the people who love me, that delight in the color of an apple, or the taste of that first sip of coffee — they don’t get used enough. None of that data is making it to the brain.

Muscles atrophy from disuse. If I don’t use my inborn muscles for enjoyment, they will atrophy and I could be placed like a puzzle piece right in the center of a perfect life and be irritated at how the edges feel. I could get everything I want and only feel depression, malaise, a dull No at the control center, turning off switches left and right so I can’t love what’s happening right now.

Joy is not a blessing bestowed or withheld by a fickle God.
Joy is the result of us consciously training the muscles of enJOYment.

So today, I plant my feet in the day. I stand up into the earth of this moment, and feel the belly of my whole life against my back, hugging me…