Appreciation and Abundance

The Vulnerability of Joy

This week found me doing the Gratitude and Joy practices for Brene Brown's course.  The biggest surprise of all is actually experiencing the vulnerability of joy.  Daring to feel joy completely makes me feel vulnerable to ridicule, rejection and disappointment.  Children fully embrace joy because they are not afraid to be thought of as silly, or of living in the moment, fully enjoying themselves, unattached to the future moments of the playtime being over or the bubbles being finished in the bottle.  They don't save some for next time - they just keep blowing until their interest or joy wanes and then they move on, even if they feel disappointment for a moment.  They don't attach. They are not afraid to express both joy and disappointment which allows them to move through the emotion, fully live, feel alive, and move on down the river of life.

Brene calls our adult reaction: Joy-foreboding.  Dreading the moment after fully feeling the joy.  To protect ourselves from this disappointment and feelings of vulnerability, we choose to shut down feeling joy in order to avoid feeling the difficult emotions afterwards.  Its a form of numbing our emotions.  And it leads to a non-alive life.  I know.  I am very tentative.  I go carefully.  I like to navigate quietly, unnoticed, most of the time. Play it safe.  Joy sounds so daring....and it is.

But, because I am doing this course, I am trying new things, pushing myself to be braver than usual.  I posted this comment on the social stream:

"I told my middle son in the car driving to the movies on a "date" with him on Monday that I wanted to start practicing gratitude at the dinner table and he said, "Let's start now - you go first." I was a little shy and surprised how vulnerable I felt, even with him. (The journal and these exercises are so much safer!) And then he had his turn and I was blown away at how much love and appreciation he has for me! So the next night, I was braver and suggested it at the dinner table. My husband was skeptical and got up to clear the dishes. I could feel his resistance. We waited for him to sit down again and I shyly got the ball rolling, my middle son went next, a little more intimidated with the larger audience and then our youngest, at 8 years old, could not be stopped. Five didn't cut it for him and he rattled off the most vulnerable, courageous list with an astounding vocabulary of things he is grateful for : "all the love we give him, his comforts, this house, his life, hugs and snuggles, reading to him, caring for him, his brothers for playing with him, the money we work hard to earn, etc, etc, etc.!!" My husband shed tears, our hearts swelled and we felt so appreciated. My husband then felt really okay sharing his gratitude list, with a lot of emotion around the table. It was beautiful. Thank you for this inspiration."

I received 6 comment replies all from people moved by my sons' reactions.  Children are so inspiring with their loose, fully engaged approach to life, fully feeling their feelings and fully living their lives, alive! Daring greatly!

Gratitude and JOY!

Cultivating Gratitude and Joy :  Letting go of Scarcity and Fear of the Dark:

Week 5 of the ecourse with Brene Brown on Oprah Life Class and our intention is:

"I will practice gratitude to access joy.  I will stop and take notice of those small things that make my life better, the things that are easy to overlook until they are gone."

So today, I am grateful for all the love in my life, family, friends, and other beings.  I am grateful for how I am feeling : Connected, Expressed and Open-Hearted.  I am so blessed.

Oprah says that Gratitude is the way home whenever you are feeling lost.  She has a practice of gratitude : each night she writes 5 things in her gratitude journal that she is grateful for.  The effect of this practice is that during the day Oprah is on the look-out for things to write down that evening and has built a strong awareness for the tiny and large things in her life that bring her joy!  Other people I know just verbalize this around the dinner table, each taking turns to voice what they are grateful for that day. Others, whilst they tuck their child in bed at night, or as they say goodnight to their partner.  I am not as consistent as my friends and still have the same gratitude journal from 2 years ago. But whenever I use it, gratitude makes me aware of how blessed I am in my life and opens my heart and lifts my spirit, sometimes a little, but mostly, it soars!  Why don't you give it a bash?

Letting go of numbing and powerlessness

I am on my fourth week of The Gifts of Imperfection course with Brene Brown and Oprah.  This week is all about cultivating a resilient spirit and letting go of numbing and powerlessness.  No biggie. Not!

"You would think that doing all this research and writing these books would be enough to set me straight on the numbing. Clearly, that isn't the case. I recently realized that when I'm totally overwhelmed, afraid or feeling super vulnerable, I can slip into a very dark place. As I was working on my collage for this lesson, I recognized a dangerous pattern:

1. I don't like how I feel so I numb.
2. Numbing the pain numbs the joy.
3. I feel like I have no joy in my life so I numb some more.
4. Only when I let myself feel the struggle do I open myself up to feeling the joy. And feeling both of these gives me the courage and strength to make changes and feel whole.
5. Feeling the struggle gives me the courage to change what's happening and practice gratitude for what's going well (even if I have to look hard for it).
6. Feeling the joy gives me the strength and perspective to move forward, out of the dark." - Brene Brown

So the intention for the week is:

"I will stay mindful of numbing.  I will remember that when I 'take the edge off' pain or stress, I take away my own joy.  We can't selectively numb emotion, and I want more joy, meaning and purpose."

Thanks, Brene.

Inspirational speech in song

This makes me feel HUGE! and inspired and courageous!

Pottering at Potterage! (ahem, that's Pottery)

This year I started pottery classes with some of my favourite people in the world.  "Artists love artists", Julia Cameron says.  And she is not wrong.  We have a lovely time!

My very inspirational pottery teacher, Karina van Heerden, happened to turn 90 this year.  She is a force of nature. And her expression is passionately rooted in clay.

Under her very knowledgeable tutelage, I have managed to make a few things I like.  

This required having the humility and courage to become a beginner again.

Out of my comfort zone and with very thin skin, I didn't always love it but I love the expansive feeling of being creative. 

Clay is an interesting medium and one I am not familiar with so my discomfort, tightness and lack of trust are evident in my labours.

Although, I liked this one.  I carved a pattern I photographed off some fabric in a shop!

And I liked the roughness of this vase.

I had been longing for a funky quiche dish.

And I LOVE the shot of colour on the inside!  Thank you Roz!

I feel abundant and grateful.

My abundance corner.

Come Alive