Joy Rising

Yes, it’s an Oprah reference. That should be in no way surprising at this point. You can find it here to see exactly what I’m talking about.Before we get to the joy, I should explain why it is so important to me and how I approach my every day life. I remember very clearly as a child that my family told me often that it was ok for me to let out my anger. That when I felt upset or angry that I could just yell or scream or lose control if I needed to release any pent up anger. But that wasn’t me as a kid. I was super nice. I never yelled about anything ever and always behaved as though I just had to suck it up and deal with whatever. My sister joked that one day I would get so angry that I would just haul off and slap somebody because I held so much in for so long. And she was right. Except unfortunately for everyone, she was the person I ended up slapping. Sorry Ann. 

You see, if you hold your anger in, it’s going to burst out eventually. And it isn’t going to come out as some rational, even conversation with the person or institution you are angry with. It’s going to come out as a slap (hopefully a metaphorical one cause please don’t think it’s ok to go around physically slapping people). The metaphorical slap is unproductive and unhelpful in so many ways. First, you feel like a jerk when you word spew all over the person you’re angry with (even if you feel like they deserved the slap, they aren’t going to hear you and you’re only hurting yourself). Second, you’ve wasted so much of your precious energy and time ruminating over whatever you’re angry about when a great majority of the time the person who you are angry with has absolutely no clue. Or even if they know, they don’t care.

What I’ve learned after lots of time, listening, and therapy is to let out my anger when I feel it. That doesn’t mean that I immediately run to talk to whoever or whatever I’m angry at the moment I feel it. I take time to process what I want to say and then I go say it. As soon as I can after I feel it so I’m open and clear. This can be hard when you are feeling all the feelings at the same time. A method I’ve found helpful is writing it all down before having that conversation with whoever I’m angry at. One time last year I got so angry and upset that I went ahead and wrote a letter to the person I was angry at and stuck it in the mail. I knew that if I tried to have the conversation in person that I would either forget what I wanted to say or get caught up in making them feel better to the expense of the point I wanted to make. I wasn’t unkind or rude in the letter. Instead, I took the time to be direct and clear and make plain how I felt. That led to a conversation that this person initiated with me after they read the letter and we were able to have an honest dialogue free from any verbal slapping and full of clarity about feelings.

What does any of this have to do with joy rising? I’ve learned that I don’t experience true, pure joy unless I’ve done what I need to do to express any anger or frustration. I need to process the difficult feelings to experience the full spectrum of joy. The way Oprah described joy rising was first in how her audience reacted during the “Everybody Gets a Car” episode. That series of moments when the members of her audience experienced pure unfiltered joy as a collective and it was as if the joy rose up in the room engulfing it in goodness. She said there was nothing like that experience. The clip I shared with you shows her describing her joy rising moment in September 2009 to kick off her new season for the show. The Black Eyed Peas were set to perform to a giant crowd in Chicago but what Oprah didn’t know was that the entire audience was a giant flash mob organized for the express purpose to surprise Oprah. As someone who famously didn’t like surprises, her staff was leery about the concept but went for it anyway. What followed and what you see on tape is pure joy. The ecstatic look on her face once she realizes what’s going on and the overwhelming joy filling her and the audience is a beautiful sight. When she first talked about the concept of joy rising and did a LifeClass on it a few years later, it stuck with me hard.

I’ve been happy a lot in my life but I was not great about soaking in joy until a few years ago. There was moments of joy, like when I’d be dancing at literally any event where there’s a dance floor (invite me to your wedding/birthday party/night out if you want someone to dance with. I will show up first and leave last and I promise I will never leave you hanging out on the floor). Side note: at my wedding, I only had one major request. I didn’t anyone to think I needed to come have a two minute conversation with them at their table thanking them for coming. I wanted to celebrate, dance, let all the way loose. So I asked that if guests wanted to come see me that they join me on the dance floor. My husband doesn’t like to dance. At all. He’s kind and he’ll do it if I ask him to but it’s just not his jam. So I made it clear to the guests that I wanted to have an endless stream of dance partners to party with that night. And that’s exactly what happened. Pure joy and a lot of memories on the dance floor stay with me from that night. Aside from the times I got to let loose on the dance floor, joy wasn’t an emotion I felt often. When I had kids, I saw pure joy personified every single day. And I realized quickly that I wanted to make sure they always felt free to experience and express it. I also wanted to practice finding joy myself. 

When I made that commitment to myself, joy followed. Not right away and definitely not all the time, but I was able to access joy in my every day life much easier than in the past. Joy came first and most easily when I started running. The feeling of freedom combined with the pride I felt in what my body could do was for sure joy rising. And it was addictive. Once I felt it, I wanted more and more (it’s a good reason to remember to stretch after runs. No matter how joyful running is for me, my body thinks I’m real rude if I don’t stretch her and she lets me know). These days, post switching doctors in 2019 and getting on medication for my anxiety, the intrusive (read: mean as hell and downright rude) thoughts quiet down easier and I’m able to let the joy flow. I still have to yell at the voice in my head telling me if I’m too joyful or let go of control for too long and just live in the moment that something terrible will happen. That voice is a persistent jerk but I’ve gotten pretty good at shutting him up. Meditation helps a lot with that. He seems to get pretty pissed when I just sit in silence for 10 minutes focusing on my breath. He gets jealous and whiny and goes off into the corner for awhile like the bully he is. Meditation rocks, by the way. If you are at all interested in trying it, there are a bajillion and five different apps to help you get started. I like Peloton and Headspace best.

The joy rising moments are truly the best. That pure, uncontrollable, unavoidable frankly feeling that all is well in the world and that collective feeling in whatever space you’re in is ecstatically happy. I am so grateful to find these moments of joy regularly these days. I hope you find joy as well even if it’s just a brief pocket of time you can store in your mind to carry with you during the inevitable hard the world presents to you. Happy Wednesday!