joy: the missing ingredient in wellness
There’s a million mini opportunities to be joyful throughout a day, and yet, we run right past them. I wonder why, a lot, as we’re all simultaneously “in pursuit” of happiness.
The more I think on this, and get honest about my own fears around leaning into joy, and observe others, the more I realize that we need not just permission to be joyful, but training to notice it, and then EXTRA practice stay with it, and let it steep into our cells.
Tara Brach says, “Joy is an innate capacity, one of the primary expressions of an awakened heart and mind. Yet because of our conditioned patterns of thought and emotion, this capacity for openness, happiness and full aliveness can be obscured.”
So it’s true. This isn’t a me problem its a WE problem. We’re conditioned to fear joy and cling to worry.
It’s HARD to feel joy.
I know when I think of my own life, joy has been absent in places it was expected.
When I get honest with myself, I also see that I’m afraid to expand and collapse into joy fully, because there’s a big part of me that’s afraid it will be taken from me… Sound familiar???
Humans are WEIRD like that. Our protective mechanisms get all messed up to the point we over protect, and under-feel all the good available.
In realizing all of this, I’m seeing that where I’m finding it, and staying with it, is unexpected. It’s in the “big LITTLE moments” that are laced into the minutia of my life.
aka, the previously thought of as “boring”
It’s that first and last sip of my hot morning coffee.
It’s the sounds of my daughters foot steps pitter pattering down the hall.
It’s the smell of my room by way of my brand new candle…
Joy is mistakenly thought of at the finish line, but its true nature exists in the in between.
I designed the initial METREAT in 2023 to be intense- I even marketed it as an “intensive introspective immersion” because I wanted people to know that we’d be going deep, and fast, and that the “work” was serious.
But on the 2nd day of the METREAT, in the midst of a yoga class set to the song “calm down” by Selena Gomez a lightbulb went off for me: wellness isn’t ALWAYS so serious and JOY is the missing (secret) AND NECESSARY ingredient!!!
The first day, by design, was heavier- meant to help bring all the stored stuff up. It was meant to be individualistic and less “group work”
But by day 2, there was a collective feminine magic in the air- the separateness that divided and labeled us as strangers dissolved and we were just one group.
Laughter with mouths wide open, dancing without restriction…
On our yoga mats, we couldn’t stop laughing and thepractice turned into a mat dance party. I remember Tracey, lead yoga teacher turned to me and said “should I keep going!?!? no one is taking this seriously ” The tone of the class was different than any other yoga class she’d ever taught.
DEFINITELY! I said. We both beamed as I looked around and saw women FULLY IN THEIR BODIES and LOVING IT all around me.
Tracey also shared this (abridged) quote with us this Mary Oliver quote on the Metreat, which kind of became our anthem:
“If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it…. Joy is not meant to be a crumb.”
That experience changed me, and what the METREAT stands for. When I look at modern day wellness- I can’t unsee it now: the seriousness, the over use of the word “healing” as a permanent state, and the LACK of LIGHTHEARTEDNESS that is undoubtedly part of the equation, if not the missing piece.
So that’s what I mean when I say “wellness isn’t so serious.”
The goal of wellness, and specifically the METREAT is to intentionally arouse these joyful states of wellbeing, and practice staying with the emotion so that we can experience true happiness and inner freedom.
What’s your relationship to joy?
xx ♡, LiLi
