Enough joy
Adding joy to our lives is more effective than attempting to reject pain
This morning on my way to the church for an early meeting, I prayed quite simply that God would give me enough joy today to counterbalance any anxieties or other assorted pains that may unsettle my day.
For some months now, I have been discovering that grief is better displaced than it is eradicated. Perhaps it’s only my lack of understanding, but when I hear about “resolving” grief it sounds to me like you’re supposed to “deal with it” and “move on,” somehow leaving its ubiquitous presence behind in some identified location. My experience tells me that this isn’t the way it works, at least not for me.
The truce I’ve reached with my grief is that a sense of loss will always be with me, although it does not have to dominate me. Unlike a cancer that grows physically in the body and can be completely eradicated (in some cases; I know this is not true of all cancers), loss burrows its way into our being and becomes something we live with. If I want to be productive with my grief, I begin by recognizing its presence. Then I decide what I will do next.
There are some days when I decide (sometimes consciously, and at other times unconsciously) that I will entertain grief’s knock at my life’s door. I let him in, we sit together in my soul’s living room, and we talk. Or don’t talk. We simply spend time together until he (or I need him to) needs to be on his way. In the first days of loss, grief most often stayed overnight, followed me throughout the day and decided to extend his stay. These days grief is more like a friendly-enough neighbor who stops by on occasion for a cup of coffee, and after a few minutes to check-in, bids me farewell.
It turns out that research supports my experience that for people experiencing emotional shadow, it is more effective to add positive things to life than to focus on whatever is troubling us, in an attempt to root it out.
Yesterday’s Washington Post reports that Positive Affect Therapy (PAT) is an approach that encourages us to add moments of joy to our lives, to nurture connections with others and to be intentional in expanding our lives. Maggie Penman’s article provides practical suggestions to create these pockets of positivity.1
Make plans. Don’t wait until you’re “ready” to make plans. Make them and then follow through.
Savor the good moments. Recognize them while they’re happening, luxuriate in them; at the end of the day, take a few minutes to give thanks for them.
Find the silver linings. In our lives we find both shadow and light, often in the same experiences. Learn to discover the good in the midst of the bad.
Practice generosity and kindness. Seeing beyond ourselves to do something self-less (or less selfish) can make our souls sing.
Reconstructing our lives after significant loss is a gargantuan task, and it is filled with bleak moments, but those shadowed moments in and of themselves do not rebuild life. Shadows can either pull us deeper into the depths of our pain, or they can incentivize us to swim toward lighter places where life teems with possibility.
There are moments when I still float in the shadows, but most days I am on a quest for enough joy to make this new life fruitful and worthwhile.
oh yes someone said the j word
I know you said I could share your posts with my widow group. I shared this one and it is very meaningful to several-just thought you would like to know.