CHRONIC TONIC posts on Thursdays at 9 EST, it is a place to share stories, advice, and information and to connect with others with chronic health conditions and those who care for them. Our diarists will report on research, alternative treatments, clinical trials, and health insurance issues through personal stories. You are invited to share in comments (and note if you'd like to be a future diarist). In addition to our weekly diaries, please join us for ongoing conversations at the Kossacks Networking site.
Please remember to check out the Thursday Night Health Care Series. Tonight's diarist: Amaryliss
This month I started an online program called Awakening Joy. The program is taught by James Baraz, a long time mindfulness meditation teacher and founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. In 2003, James started teaching the course out of his living room in Berkley, and within a couple of years it became an online course with people enrolled from around the world.
Here's how Jame's defines "joy" in a book he co-authored with Shoshana Alexander.
The feeling of well-being I'm calling joy comes in many different flavors. And it can look very different from person to person, from a quiet sense of contentment to bubbly enthusiasm. For some people it's an energetic radiance; for others it's a quiet feeling of connnection. Joy can arise as a belly laugh, or a as a serenely contented smile that accepts life just as it is.
There are about twenty of us in my mid-size prairie town doing this course. Most of us are part of a meditation group that meets weekly, with a few friends of friends joining in. I'm new to the meditation group, and the awakening joy folks have not yet met as a group, so at the moment, I'm getting my joy on by myself. Heh!
To this point, the practice instructions are pretty straight forward:
Incline your mind towards states that give rise to joy, and notice joy when it arises.
So far, so good.
Even though joint and muscle pain made themselves at home in my body this past couple of weeks, I noticed that some measure of joy, or nourishment or contentment were (sometimes) present too. I noticed that my pain and my sense of well being were not mutually exclusive. They can (and on good days do) co-exist.
In Taoism it's said that life is made up of ten thousand joys and ten thousand sorrows. If we focus on the sorrows, we're not seeing the full picture. When we open up to the joys -- the beauty and goodness around us -- we can view our suffering with a wider perspective. This course is not about denying the hard stuff. In fact, dealing with sorrow wisely when it comes is one of the essential practice themes of the Awakening Joy course.
I've been pondering this rich paradox: The practice of consciously opening to, and experiencing joy so that I may more wisely deal with sorrow.
As many of you know, I use flower essences for my own healing and to help others with their emotional healing. Doing this work in the world is one of my greatest joys!
It is with a growing sense of gratitude that I also notice this:
As I do the work that brings me joy, I am becoming more attuned to both my own deep sorrow and the "ten thousand sorrows" of those in the world around me. Amazingly, my growing attunement to sorrow is not "bringing me down," or sucking the life out of me. On the contrary, it seems to be coming into a delicate balance with my sense of contentment or joy -- no one overpowering the other, but all of the various shades of joy and sorrow gently humming together to create a harmonic resonance that quietly reminds me that my life is a gift.
Yes, this is me -- Amaryllis!
Dr. Bach didn't include Amaryllis in his flower system, (he chose flowers growing wild in the English countryside around his cottge), but Green Hope Farm has an amaryllis essence. I've only recently started to explore Green Hope's wonderfully inspired essences and in so doing learned that amaryllis essence is used to "help us understand the messages our bodies are giving us."
I've ordered a bottle and will let you know what I find out!
In the meantime, I wish all of us ten thousand joys, and ease amidst the sorrows.
I had intended to write a diary about flower essences this week -- specifcally how they are different from essential oils, and the similarities and differences they share with homeopathic remedies. As you can see from my post I didn't quite get there (sheepish grin)
I will do a diary on this sometime in the future though. Honest :-)
Future Diarists (Subject To Change)
2/25 -- WereBear
3/4 -- Paradox (pending confirmation)
3/11 -- Boatsie
3/18 -- Katie71