For me, an intention of love, gratitude, joy and appreciation for my life are anchored like deep, still waters above which the other attitudes, emotions and thoughts ebb and flow. Sorrow being one of them. So it is not so much keeping the door open for joy to appear again, but an awareness that it is always there, and in time the mist of other emotions will clear or dissipate.
Joy and Sorrow
are twin sisters,
or two sides of the same face . . .
at least that is how they feel to me.
I cannot experience one without the other
in one way or another.
Practicing Gratefulness
has opened me up to the Sacred
in a way that nothing else has . . .
it has opened my eyes to beauty in ugliness,
treasure in trash,
and joy in sorrow.
There is always a kernel of joy in every sorrow I’ve experienced,
and a wee bit of sorrow that pierces every joy.
By embracing both of them
my experience becomes deeper and richer,
coloured in layers . . .
added dimension.
I can only compare it to dropping LSD
many years ago . . .
I saw the world as a kaleidoscope of meaning.
I saw how connected everything and everybody is . . .
joy and sorrow,
in the end,
and not so different from each other.
They both offer relief and pain that can heal.
I trust
and am no longer afraid of either one.
The door stays open.
(I suspect that when the next deep grief comes to me
I’ll forget,
or won’t believe it in the minute,
but the knowledge will come back to me . . .
eventually.) ♥
I will do my best to keep the door to joy open then, aware of both and aware that joy might help to alter perspective when sorrow might tend to overwhelm so that both may have its place to be. In having experienced deep sorrow, like i am sure most of us have also, it feels to me that the depth of joy is somehow related and so may be able to bring back some balance to the emotional state and allows for both to be in the present moment.
As my husband continues to slowly decline, I feel a myriad of emotions. Sadness of course, and anger at his condition, and joy when he has a good day. It is a difficult time for him and and for all of us who love him.
Thank you for sharing.
I truly hope and pray that you find some more moments of the best bits. I’m sorry that you feel you’re maybe not enough – that’s crap btw – you are! and I hope you have better memories with your family in the coming weeks/months.
I wish my Dad was still here with me now, and I wish I didn’t feel the need (through negligence of him) to cut off my mother and younger brother… He was only 64. And my best friend.
I can only remember the ‘bad stuff’ of any memory of him pops into my head. I hate the way things were handled and if I could change that, I would without a doubt. I can’t.
I wish you peace and love in what’s upcoming… I’m navigating the grief journey at 2yrs in and it’s still as raw as it was at the time…
Take care of you too please.
Namaste 💜💜💜🙏
My heart is with you. Each experience is so unique. I saw a slow decline in my husband and then a sudden death. Please know you and your husband are in my heart. A helpful message for me from a spiritual director was, think of your time with the person as a ministry of presence. That thought helped me through the challenges and the ups.
You are indeed in a difficult time,
dear Linda . . .
sorrow
and anticipatory grief both,
because there is no coming back
from where your husband is
and so you endure the bad days,
but are still able to find joy in the good ones.
Bless you
for this gift you are giving him
of yourself
with love . . . ♥
I’ve made a commitment to myself to keeping the door to joy open even in times of sorrow. It’s called practicing gratitude. It’s a commitment to mindfulness…Kristin Lin’s quote says it so well, “A practice of gratitude is not about dismissing sadness, anger, fear, or confusion. Rather, it offers us the opportunity to see that we often experience multiple feelings at once; to welcome joy into the same places where we hold grief; to turn our attention to what is quietly growing and breathing day by day, which, to our possible surprise, includes ourselves.”
”…. The living world can illuminate this understanding in the forms of awe and wonder, as well as in the forms of grief and loss. And such illuminations can arise spontaneously into our consciousnesses, precisely because this sacred truth is always present everywhere upon the Earth, whether or not we are aware of it….”
The CAC meditation you posted,
dear Carol Ann,
is deeply profound to me
and speaks to my acquaintance with what is Sacred.
Thank you for this . . . ♥
not forcing joy, or rushing her, but letting her know that it’s safe, I’m safe. introducing sorrow and joy to each other, helping them to be friends, my friends, and not enemies. we all have to live together, preferably in peace. opening the crack of light just a little — an action, a pause, here and there. like this, like being here.
I was taught not to feel, so this practice evolved in phases. First, in order to let myself feel sorrow, I had to tell myself that the height of my joy would be proportional to the depth of sorrow I allowed myself to feel. Awareness gave the sorrow space to soften, and I became able to feel multiple things at once — like a pattern on a tapestry. The practice is still evolving.
There is a time for everything. It is hard to have one without the other. The practice for me would be to be aware joy will follow. I live in an area where deer can appear on the road. If you see one, a second is soon to follow. So keep your eyes open.
Just reminding myself that I’m not the only one going through challenging times. For example, when I feel hurt because someone didn’t care about me, I try to observe my feelings while also remembering that many people don’t even have their basic needs met. So I tell myself to shift my focus from the sorrow of feeling hurt to the gratitude for the food I have and the warm place I live in. May everyone have a wonderful day filled with joy and love. 😍
I was listening to a webinar yesterday. The speaker suggested, if it is hard to say I am grateful to say I have. With the sadness I am in due to my husband’s passing, I can relate better to have.
My Ngoc, combining both of our answers, we pretty much live in a society of greed and basic wants. We’ve gone from basic needs to not being cared for to needing to be cared for in a certain way. Even the right method of care isn’t enough too which all points to buddy systems I’ve talked about before.
Locster doubles down on my original Loc Down brand. It requires me to stand strong in front of the world. I know the saving face game. It’s just like how my root people show care to honor culture by reading into my emotions, cuddling, petting, or babying me, especially when Ngoc isn’t there.
I have continued to improve upon looking beyond my business venturing agendas to fit into the collective puzzle, because one cannot go alone. Family is there for us when needed most. 10 out of every 10 business partners are only there for us for their benefits. Only the 11th one shows up when needed most. The gut is the mediator between the head and heart, and trusting that requires looking past and letting go of agendas.
From a head angle, reading into someone’s emotions is making assumptions, making something out of nothing, and worsens the situation. From a heart angle, it’s a feeling of warmth and fits those who value intimacy like a glove. Intimacy and I don’t play nicely together, because it’s incompatible with those who are closer to the head. This brings me up to my exchange with Drea yesterday on her answer over the first and 2nd arrows of the buddhism concept.
Drea, Mary, and I are working on being comfortable with discomfort together based on that dialog as last checked just now. My Locster business brand is rooted in discomfort of feeling embarrassed over being babied which all stems from the basic desire for autonomy. Autonomy and clique practice fall under the same roof.
I, along with many traditional NBA MJ fans, have complained about the superteam movements, politics, and all the clique practices that started with LeBron James. 2010 was the most obvious example to the public. Surrounding myself with those who only care for me the way I prefer plays into all that chaos and closes the door to joy in sorrow. All this points right back to being able to receive care.
By receiving care from many different angles, I’m solving 2 problems right off the bat. Open the door for joy in sorrow. Prevent clique practices/buddy systems from spiraling too far out of control too fast. If push comes down to shove, sacrificing my own business venturing agendas is worth it for focusing on these 2 areas.
When I started to feel better about myself and my life, when I truly learned to invite joy in and stay, I can’t help but keep the door open to it. This guest is my soul sister, and I feel so connected with her. She helps me get through any sorrows that come upon my path. Even if the door might accidentally close, she knows she can open it herself and walk right in to help me find my center again.
Something like that 🙂
Connecting to joy has provided me with guidance and growth, and it is always there for me no matter what is going on. Sometimes family members and even friends cannot be there for you in the way you need them to be. But I have found I can always connect to joy, some way, some how. So it must be because I have allowed joy to root inside of me – I like the way you put that!
Like the common saying ‘Emotions are like clouds, they come and they go’ One can be happy, excited, and sad all in a day. Gratefulness is there for all, just remember it is there, just look for it 🙂
I borrowed the following quote,
dear Michele,
from the meditation that Carol Ann posted above . . .
“There are no privileged locations. If you stay put, your place may become a holy center, not because it gives you special access to the divine, but because in your stillness you hear what might be heard anywhere. All there is to see can be seen from anywhere in the universe, if you know how to look.”
—Scott Russell Sanders, Staying Put
I am reminded of early snow storms or thunder storms with hail along with the rain. I must not only dwell in the early return to the earth of life giving vegetation from the hail or early snow (think early September and about 18″ of heavy snow, happened in “21”) but must remember the benefits of the life sustaining moisture that the earth drinks deeply of. Agua es Vida. Sorrow alongside Joy. Peace and Love.
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For me, an intention of love, gratitude, joy and appreciation for my life are anchored like deep, still waters above which the other attitudes, emotions and thoughts ebb and flow. Sorrow being one of them. So it is not so much keeping the door open for joy to appear again, but an awareness that it is always there, and in time the mist of other emotions will clear or dissipate.
Beautifully said,
dear Cathie . . . ♥
Joy and Sorrow
are twin sisters,
or two sides of the same face . . .
at least that is how they feel to me.
I cannot experience one without the other
in one way or another.
Practicing Gratefulness
has opened me up to the Sacred
in a way that nothing else has . . .
it has opened my eyes to beauty in ugliness,
treasure in trash,
and joy in sorrow.
There is always a kernel of joy in every sorrow I’ve experienced,
and a wee bit of sorrow that pierces every joy.
By embracing both of them
my experience becomes deeper and richer,
coloured in layers . . .
added dimension.
I can only compare it to dropping LSD
many years ago . . .
I saw the world as a kaleidoscope of meaning.
I saw how connected everything and everybody is . . .
joy and sorrow,
in the end,
and not so different from each other.
They both offer relief and pain that can heal.
I trust
and am no longer afraid of either one.
The door stays open.
(I suspect that when the next deep grief comes to me
I’ll forget,
or won’t believe it in the minute,
but the knowledge will come back to me . . .
eventually.) ♥
‘two sides of the same face’ made me think of The Mayor of Halloween Town in Nightmare Before Christmas movie – great visual.
🙂
This time a year especially since it got cold so fast I look for events at local libraries. Tomorrow I am going to a music event at a library.
Today my ex sister-in law’s obit was posted, she was only 61. She was such a dear soul. 🙏
Today I also found the tiniest bird nest on the yard I have ever seen. I wonder what bird it was?
. . . a hummingbird maybe,
dear Robin Ann? ♥
Yes I looked it up also said finch
Couldn’t put it better than ode . I’ll try my best . Thank you.
I will do my best to keep the door to joy open then, aware of both and aware that joy might help to alter perspective when sorrow might tend to overwhelm so that both may have its place to be. In having experienced deep sorrow, like i am sure most of us have also, it feels to me that the depth of joy is somehow related and so may be able to bring back some balance to the emotional state and allows for both to be in the present moment.
I think so too,
dear Ose . . .
that joy and sorrow
are related.
We have room for both of them
in our hearts. ♥
As my husband continues to slowly decline, I feel a myriad of emotions. Sadness of course, and anger at his condition, and joy when he has a good day. It is a difficult time for him and and for all of us who love him.
Thank you for sharing.
I truly hope and pray that you find some more moments of the best bits. I’m sorry that you feel you’re maybe not enough – that’s crap btw – you are! and I hope you have better memories with your family in the coming weeks/months.
I wish my Dad was still here with me now, and I wish I didn’t feel the need (through negligence of him) to cut off my mother and younger brother… He was only 64. And my best friend.
I can only remember the ‘bad stuff’ of any memory of him pops into my head. I hate the way things were handled and if I could change that, I would without a doubt. I can’t.
I wish you peace and love in what’s upcoming… I’m navigating the grief journey at 2yrs in and it’s still as raw as it was at the time…
Take care of you too please.
Namaste 💜💜💜🙏
My heart is with you. Each experience is so unique. I saw a slow decline in my husband and then a sudden death. Please know you and your husband are in my heart. A helpful message for me from a spiritual director was, think of your time with the person as a ministry of presence. That thought helped me through the challenges and the ups.
Well said,
dear Yram . . . ♥
Thank you … yes, so much joy and contentment in those good times, because I never knew what the next day or hour would bring💕
Thinking of you all during difficult days 🙏
You are indeed in a difficult time,
dear Linda . . .
sorrow
and anticipatory grief both,
because there is no coming back
from where your husband is
and so you endure the bad days,
but are still able to find joy in the good ones.
Bless you
for this gift you are giving him
of yourself
with love . . . ♥
I’ve made a commitment to myself to keeping the door to joy open even in times of sorrow. It’s called practicing gratitude. It’s a commitment to mindfulness…Kristin Lin’s quote says it so well, “A practice of gratitude is not about dismissing sadness, anger, fear, or confusion. Rather, it offers us the opportunity to see that we often experience multiple feelings at once; to welcome joy into the same places where we hold grief; to turn our attention to what is quietly growing and breathing day by day, which, to our possible surprise, includes ourselves.”
Powerful reading from Rohr for today’s topic: https://cac.org/daily-meditations/sacred-places/
”…. The living world can illuminate this understanding in the forms of awe and wonder, as well as in the forms of grief and loss. And such illuminations can arise spontaneously into our consciousnesses, precisely because this sacred truth is always present everywhere upon the Earth, whether or not we are aware of it….”
The CAC meditation you posted,
dear Carol Ann,
is deeply profound to me
and speaks to my acquaintance with what is Sacred.
Thank you for this . . . ♥
not forcing joy, or rushing her, but letting her know that it’s safe, I’m safe. introducing sorrow and joy to each other, helping them to be friends, my friends, and not enemies. we all have to live together, preferably in peace. opening the crack of light just a little — an action, a pause, here and there. like this, like being here.
You are right,
dear Eve . . .
I too,
believe that joy and sorrow
can live peaceably together.
Thank you for this . . . ♥
Thank you.
I was taught not to feel, so this practice evolved in phases. First, in order to let myself feel sorrow, I had to tell myself that the height of my joy would be proportional to the depth of sorrow I allowed myself to feel. Awareness gave the sorrow space to soften, and I became able to feel multiple things at once — like a pattern on a tapestry. The practice is still evolving.
Love the analogy of the tapestry…sometimes one color – sometimes another, but all are threads of our lives.
Thank you Cathie.
There is a time for everything. It is hard to have one without the other. The practice for me would be to be aware joy will follow. I live in an area where deer can appear on the road. If you see one, a second is soon to follow. So keep your eyes open.
Just reminding myself that I’m not the only one going through challenging times. For example, when I feel hurt because someone didn’t care about me, I try to observe my feelings while also remembering that many people don’t even have their basic needs met. So I tell myself to shift my focus from the sorrow of feeling hurt to the gratitude for the food I have and the warm place I live in. May everyone have a wonderful day filled with joy and love. 😍
I was listening to a webinar yesterday. The speaker suggested, if it is hard to say I am grateful to say I have. With the sadness I am in due to my husband’s passing, I can relate better to have.
Wisdom
My Ngoc, combining both of our answers, we pretty much live in a society of greed and basic wants. We’ve gone from basic needs to not being cared for to needing to be cared for in a certain way. Even the right method of care isn’t enough too which all points to buddy systems I’ve talked about before.
Locster doubles down on my original Loc Down brand. It requires me to stand strong in front of the world. I know the saving face game. It’s just like how my root people show care to honor culture by reading into my emotions, cuddling, petting, or babying me, especially when Ngoc isn’t there.
I have continued to improve upon looking beyond my business venturing agendas to fit into the collective puzzle, because one cannot go alone. Family is there for us when needed most. 10 out of every 10 business partners are only there for us for their benefits. Only the 11th one shows up when needed most. The gut is the mediator between the head and heart, and trusting that requires looking past and letting go of agendas.
From a head angle, reading into someone’s emotions is making assumptions, making something out of nothing, and worsens the situation. From a heart angle, it’s a feeling of warmth and fits those who value intimacy like a glove. Intimacy and I don’t play nicely together, because it’s incompatible with those who are closer to the head. This brings me up to my exchange with Drea yesterday on her answer over the first and 2nd arrows of the buddhism concept.
Drea, Mary, and I are working on being comfortable with discomfort together based on that dialog as last checked just now. My Locster business brand is rooted in discomfort of feeling embarrassed over being babied which all stems from the basic desire for autonomy. Autonomy and clique practice fall under the same roof.
I, along with many traditional NBA MJ fans, have complained about the superteam movements, politics, and all the clique practices that started with LeBron James. 2010 was the most obvious example to the public. Surrounding myself with those who only care for me the way I prefer plays into all that chaos and closes the door to joy in sorrow. All this points right back to being able to receive care.
By receiving care from many different angles, I’m solving 2 problems right off the bat. Open the door for joy in sorrow. Prevent clique practices/buddy systems from spiraling too far out of control too fast. If push comes down to shove, sacrificing my own business venturing agendas is worth it for focusing on these 2 areas.
When I started to feel better about myself and my life, when I truly learned to invite joy in and stay, I can’t help but keep the door open to it. This guest is my soul sister, and I feel so connected with her. She helps me get through any sorrows that come upon my path. Even if the door might accidentally close, she knows she can open it herself and walk right in to help me find my center again.
love ‘soul sister’!!
“Soul sister,” an interesting image, but I think I get it. She/joy, has rooted in you and become “family.” Not just passing acquaintance…?
Something like that 🙂
Connecting to joy has provided me with guidance and growth, and it is always there for me no matter what is going on. Sometimes family members and even friends cannot be there for you in the way you need them to be. But I have found I can always connect to joy, some way, some how. So it must be because I have allowed joy to root inside of me – I like the way you put that!
Yes,
I too,
believe she can,
dear SunnyPatti . . .♥
Like the common saying ‘Emotions are like clouds, they come and they go’ One can be happy, excited, and sad all in a day. Gratefulness is there for all, just remember it is there, just look for it 🙂
TGIF!
So true! Thank you for that ☺️
welcome
I borrowed the following quote,
dear Michele,
from the meditation that Carol Ann posted above . . .
“There are no privileged locations. If you stay put, your place may become a holy center, not because it gives you special access to the divine, but because in your stillness you hear what might be heard anywhere. All there is to see can be seen from anywhere in the universe, if you know how to look.”
—Scott Russell Sanders, Staying Put
thank you Sparrow 🙂
Yes, “just look for it.” Or as we say in 12-step…”Fake it til you can make it!”
💗
I am reminded of early snow storms or thunder storms with hail along with the rain. I must not only dwell in the early return to the earth of life giving vegetation from the hail or early snow (think early September and about 18″ of heavy snow, happened in “21”) but must remember the benefits of the life sustaining moisture that the earth drinks deeply of. Agua es Vida. Sorrow alongside Joy. Peace and Love.
They go hand in hand,
don’t they,
dear Joseph? ♥
Joseph, I have deep concern about our misuse of water.
No rain, no rainbow.
Joseph, we’re getting closer to the season of snowstorms.