Inherent Joy
Joy and Insight
Dear reader,
I was listening to an interview with my primary teacher, Yogarupa Rod Stryker on the Resilience Summit, hosted by Ashley Turner. I was struck by one particular comment, which is that during this time of the pandemic, he has had some of his deepest moments of joy, which I know to mean inherent joy, joy from the inside out, and not generated by outside circumstances.
First of all, the meaning of resilience
Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties and adjust easily to misfortune or change. We need resilience now more than ever.
I know, from my clients, from those whom I am closest to and in myself, that many of us are on an emotional roller coaster, bouncing back and forth between a sense of powerlessness one day and hope the next. Life is “vanilla” right now, every day pretty much the same. I find myself waking up each day to another day of COVID19, limited in how I can move about in the world, having to wear a mask when I go out, not being able to see people smile, not being able to hug, and avoiding people in the grocery store.
This time we are in is forcing us to live in the present moment. Our lives may never be the same as they were before the pandemic. We can’t plan ahead for much of anything. We can’t plan vacations. We can’t plan summer activities such as wonderful outdoor concerts. We haven’t been able to go to restaurants or attend religious or spiritual gathering. We don’t know if our children will be back in school in the fall. We often don’t even know what’s next for tomorrow, as far as how we can move in the world.
Journeying inward
There is so much fear and polarization, much generated by the media.
I really hate this….
Yet, I have also had some amazing moments of joy and insight, as I have allowed myself….no, been forced….to journey inward. First of all, I have had to acknowledge the depth of my grief, as this is a death of life as I have known it. In acknowledging the depth of my grief, I seem to have been able to better tap the depth of joy and resilience.
So, despite waking up many days with that vanilla feeling, sometimes with anger or grief, I am asking myself how I’m going to use this time as an opportunity to take a deeper dive into the working of my inner world.
Every day I ask myself: how am I going to find joy in this moment? And what can I be grateful for, today? Just today.
The benefits of meditation practice
Many times, recently, I have said that I don’t know how I would be faring this time without the meditation practice that I have cultivated over the last 25-30 years. It’s been up and down, exploring a number of different types of practice, until I began studying with Rod Stryker eight years ago.
The practice I have been doing for the last two months has been around cultivating inner joy, a joy that is inherent. I start by working with my breath, doing practices that in yoga are referred to as pranayama, to calm and balance my autonomic nervous system. Then I connect with my sensory experience. I am fortunate to live where all I have to do is look out my window to observe the natural beauty around me. I take the sensory experience into my body and allow it to nurture me. I can also recall the memory of an experience that brings me joy, which for me is skiing powder. My body responds to the imagery. Finally, with eyes closed I drop the imagery, whether a present moment or past memory and allow myself to drop into a deeper state. While it’s true that I am using an external experience or memory, over time the state of internal joy arises without prompting.
On those days when I awake to another “vanilla” day of COVID19 when I feel the frustration and grief over not being able to move about in the world as I was able to just a few months ago, I remind myself to take a few deep breaths, drop into my heart and tap the remembrance of the joy that is inherent to our nature.
With Gratitude,
Linda
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