I learned something new last week – about joy.
For a long time I thought joy was kind of cracked-out bliss state, felt regularly only by a certain kind of trusting, slightly delusional, type of person. Not to say that I don’t know joy. I’ve definitely had moments of joy and everyone I know has had moments of joy. But the regular, on-tap experience of joy seems rare.
Then I went to the World Domination Summit in Portland, Oregon. WDS is described as a gathering place for people who want to live a remarkable life in a conventional world. The name is a bit over the top and I was concerned that I’d be lost in a sea of self-aware hipsters. But I was willing to take the chance for something that was intriguing. And I’m glad that I did because what I found was an incubator for joy.
What is joy?
In traditional Chinese medicine, joy resides in the heart. It is the emotion of the summer, where the energy and warmth of the sun makes plants expand, blossom and reach for the sky. When we feel joy we radiate the warmth of our heart. We feel light and buoyant with an aliveness that moves though our bodies.
As I enjoyed the presentations at WDS, ran into my online heroes, and listened to the dreams of fellow attendees, joy was there to stumble on at every turn. People vibrated with the warmth and expansiveness of joy. The kind of joy that comes from being grounded and light, all at the same time. From letting the music of life play through you.
Joy is there in those moments when you make a heart-to-heart connection. When you see something that no one else can see and you make it happen. When you express and receive love, care, and gratitude. It’s those moments when you are fully who and what you are meant to be.
Some seriously joyful people
The conference opened with Nancy Duarte – a goddess of storytelling if there ever was one. (A friend of hers claimed that she printed out THE INTERNET to find the patterns of story). I was thrilled to meet her because she helped my son find his joy – presenting onstage. When he was 11 he re-read her book about a hundred times, absorbing her joy and transmuting it into his joy. She was kind enough to write him a note of encouragement.
Jia Jiang has lived out our deepest fear in the last 100 days with his project to get tougher with rejection. He shared how he set up 100 situations to ask a stranger something unreasonable to get rejected, on purpose. He says that rejection is like chicken. Yummy or yucky, depending on how you cook it. What was most surprising is that he has been rejected only a handful of times and some of the things he’s asked about are pretty outrageous (like pulling over a policeman and asking to drive his car!)
Bob Mills, of whole grain fame, shared his joy of putting people first in his business. He’s 84 and still running his grain milling business near Portland. In the last few years he ceded ownership of the company to his employees, some of whom have been working with him for 20 or 30 years. His joy in sharing abundance with others was palpable. His tip for an abundant life? If you want something to show up in your life, put it on a list and forget about it.
I felt a pang of joy when Dyana Valentine, who I’ve admired from afar, popped up beside me at a book launch party. She radiated shiny, welcoming love and sent me on a mission to bring that joy upward in the world. I suspect she gives that mission to many.
Then there were the people I’d meet in line-ups or the elevator who turned out to be doing incredible things. A woman I chatted with in line for a burger has raised over $30K for to drill water wells in developing countries by spending her birthday swimming from San Francisco to Alcatraz naked. Like, without a bathing suit. A man I startled in an elevator is sailing around the world by himself to entertain-teach kids about the world. A young woman I shared a cab with is reaching out to teens about her (former) addiction issues to save them the suffering she went through. All of them creating something out of their joy.
Getting some joy for yourself
Getting more joy for yourself is simple, just not automatic. Our brains are hard-wired to notice the negative in life. We don’t see the positive that’s springing up around us constantly. We structure our lives to placate our fears instead of cultivating our love.
What I learned from the amazing people I met is that you need to create the conditions for joy in your life. Structure your life so that you become the hero of your own story. It doesn’t mean that you don’t feel fear, regret, sadness, discomfort or any of the other perfectly normal emotions of life. It just means that you get to feel joy, too.
When I’m not feeling the joy I turn to my mindfulness-crush, Rick Hanson. Here’s an excerpt from his book, Just One Thing, on excitement:
Excitement is energy plus positive emotion, and it is part of joy, passion, and having fun. Find something that excites you, even just a bit. Feel the enjoyment in it. See if you can intensify the experience through a quick inhalation, a sense perhaps of the energy rising in your body. Lift your chest and head, and let more aliveness come to your face. Register this feeling of excitement, and make room for it in your body. Then as you go through your day, notice what moves your own thrillometer, particularly in subtle ways. Look for things to get excited about!
Images: Chris Gillebeau. Licensed under Creative Commons
If you enjoyed this post, please share it with your friends!