Joy is staying the leader of your life, honoring your heart’s call to action for yourself.
What I learned from writing the article for the “Navigating Fear and Uncertainty” issue is that our heart invites us to action steps that allow the building of self-trust and self-certainty. In embarking on a new relationship, which I wrote about last month, it was the small steps my heart invited me to take that allowed joy to emerge. From the inkling to drop a quick text for coffee to gently saying no to an invitation to dinner because of work (and offering alternative dates) to short quick text messages, simple outings with our friends, and sharing deeper parts of myself that allowed me to accept, acknowledge those parts of myself in ways that I had not allowed myself to experience before.
What I realized in this new relationship is I finally wasn’t in any rush and had no expectations of where all this was going. I was beautifully guided to commit to what is present in the NOW.
Without uncertainty there is no magic and there is no joy.
It is in the grace and compassion of being present first for myself and then my partner that we can encourage our individual uniqueness and deepen our self-trust and self-certainty and self-love and be able to extend it to each other. Joy was bubbling up with each invitation to follow my heart’s call to action and in taking the risk to honor those offers.
As my joy was emerging, I noticed that others were challenged with their own uncertainty/fear. In fact, it triggered a few people closest to me and to my partner. It offered those friends and families to examine their own unresolved feelings. It was a mental battle to hold my head up. As a recovering people pleaser, my former tendency and thoughts would lead me to dim my joy or excitement so that others would not feel bad. Pangs of guilt and shame did show up. I wrestled those parts of me, giving them a moment to be seen, felt and heard. As I was present with those parts of me that felt shame and guilt, and then they gently resolved and dissipated through my body, mind and heart. In the past, the guilt and shame would take over, and I’d hide my joy. It would result in frustration at myself and, over time, resentment.
This is where I use my tools — revisiting my values kept me in check and kept me from sacrificing my sense of JOY in the NOW just so others would feel better. The value of connection, staying in connection to myself, to my heart and being present for myself supported me in this process. The value of courage, courage to honor what is present with my feelings, supported me in this process. The value of integrity, being in integrity with myself, supporting me in this process. I didn’t abandon my feelings to soothe another.
I gently held boundaries so that I could navigate the discomfort of other people’s challenges — honoring them and allowing myself to feel the joy with no apologies.
In the active engagement of my tools and allowing myself to resolve the discomfort, I realized I no longer sacrificed myself or my joy to save, rescue or fix for others. It is ok for me to hold my head up, be in my joy, and allow others to be in their discomfort. I’d like to acknowledge that those who were in discomfort may feel I abandoned them because I’m not agreeing to be in the same state as them. Actually, by holding the boundaries and honoring myself, and honoring where the other person is at the moment, allows them to navigate what’s possible for them. I was able to track that with those individuals and by staying in integrity with myself and allowing them to be in their discomfort they were able to receive the gift in the pain and emerge with more grace and love for themselves.
The small invitations to be present with each call to action that my heart asks of me has allowed me to heal deeper parts that I didn’t know existed and it creates more of myself to feel safe enough to be seen by me first and then those close to me. That deeper level of safety and being available for myself in each of those moments has allowed joy to be present. My heart is more open and able to receive joy or any other emotion in the moment.
