Fighting Scarcity with Gratitude

Gratitude, Joy, Trials 0

These are anxious and fearful times, both of which breed scarcity. We’re afraid to lose what we love the most, and we hate that there are no guarantees. We think not being grateful and not feeling joy will make it hurt less. We think if we can beat vulnerability to the punch by imaging loss, we’ll suffer less. We’re wrong. There is one guarantee: If we’re not practicing gratitude and allowing ourselves to know joy, we are missing out on the two things that will actually sustain us during the inevitable hard times.

— Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection, p. 82

Twinkle Lights

Faith, Gratitude, Inspiration, Joy, Trust 0

Twinkle lights are the perfect metaphor for joy. Joy is not a constant. It comes to us in moments — often ordinary moments. Sometimes we miss out on the bursts of joy because we’re too busy chasing down extraordinary moments. Other times we’re so afraid of the dark that we don’t dare let ourselves enjoy the light….

I believe a joyful life is made up of joyful moments gracefully strung together by trust, gratitude, inspiration, and faith.

— Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection, p. 80-81

Tender and Vulnerable Joy

Joy, Life 1

In another very unexpected discovery, my research also taught me that there’s no such thing as selective emotional numbing. There is a full spectrum of human emotions and when we numb the dark, we numb the light. While I was “taking the edge off” of the pain and vulnerability, I was also unintentionally dulling my experiences of good feelings, like joy. Looking back, I can’t imagine any research finding that has changed what my daily life looks like more than this. Now I can lean into joy, even when it makes me feel tender and vulnerable. In fact, I expect tender and vulnerable.

Joy is as thorny and sharp as any of the dark emotions. To love someone fiercely, to believe in something with your whole heart, to celebrate a fleeting moment in time, to fully engage in a life that doesn’t come with guarantees — these are risks that involve vulnerability and often pain. When we lose our tolerance for discomfort, we lose joy. In fact, addiction research shows us that an intensely positive experience is as likely to cause relapse as an intensely painful experience.

— Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection, p. 72-73

Going Somewhere

God, Gratitude, Growth, Joy, Life, Peace 0

In the Genesis poem that begins the Bible, life is a pulsing, progressing, evolving, dynamic reality in which tomorrow will not be a repeat of today, because things are, at the most fundamental level of existence, going somewhere.

When Jesus tells the man that there are rewards for him, he’s promising the man that receiving the peace of God now, finding gratitude for what he does have, and sharing it with those who need it will create in him all the more capacity for joy in the world to come.

How we think about heaven, then, directly affects how we understand what we do with our days and energies now, in this age. Jesus teaches us how to live now in such a way that what we create, who we give our efforts to, and how we spend our time will all endure in the new world.

— Rob Bell, Love Wins, p. 44-45

Uniquely Suited for a Rich Life

Core Value, Growth, Healing, Joy 1

One of the things that you will be asked to do in the pages that follow is to abandon a mind-set in which you live the remainder of your life as if you are still experiencing your trauma. You may argue that given what you went through you are permanently damaged or scarred, that your baggage will be with you forever. I’m not here to tell you to get over it. I’m here to help you get past it. I will make the argument that you’re richer now — stronger, more empathic, and more in touch with your core values — than you were before you were challenged by what you went through. I don’t just believe that trauma survivors can go on to live rich, happy lives; I believe that they’re uniquely suited to do so.

— Alicia Salzer, MD, Back to Life, p. xxiv-xxv

The Pleasure of Reading

Beauty, Books, Joy, Reading 0

The sheer luxury of reading and reveling in the world I live in is something I treasure. Life is more than meat and potatoes and duties. Learning to see, to laugh, and to enjoy encounters with others is reason enough to read. The world has comedy built into it; the ridiculous is but to be explored. Every reader knows the pleasure of being transported to another world in books.

— Gladys Hunt, Honey for a Woman’s Heart, p. 26

The Jesus Story

Faith, Forgiveness, God, Joy, Life, Love, Truth, Universalism 0

This love compels us to question some of the dominant stories that are being told as the Jesus story. A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance of anything better. It’s been clearly communicated to many that this belief is a central truth of the Christian faith and to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’s message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear.

— Rob Bell, Love Wins, p. viii

Blossoming

Beauty, Growth, Joy, Life 0

Let’s become more beautiful with age, attaining the stature of the Jungian crone. Let’s be wise and mature and queenly. Let’s allow our centers of power to shift with grace, from focus on physical expression to focus on spiritual strength. The game isn’t cruel except when played by the negative mind. In the life God has in mind for us, we grow more and more beautiful and know more and more joy. The longer we live, the more time we have to pursue the things that make life meaningful. Above all, let’s not be ashamed of age. How often I’ve heard it said about a woman, “She’s fifty. I’m telling you, she’s not a day under,” as though she had been caught in some crime. Youth is not a great prize, and age a sad afterthought. If anything, youth is the bud, and age is when we blossom.

— Marianne Williamson, A Woman’s Worth, p. 140

Growth Is Worth It.

Growth, Joy, Life, Trials 0

Childbirth is difficult, but holding the child makes the pain worthwhile. And so it is when we finally have a glimpse of our own completion as human beings — regardless of our husband or lack of one, our boyfriend or lack of one, our job or lack of one, our money or lack of it, our children or lack of any, or whatever else we think we need in order to thrive and be happy. When we have finally touched on a spiritual high that is real and enduring, then we know that the pain of getting there was worth it, and the years ahead will never be as lonely.

— Marianne Williamson, A Woman’s Worth, p. 138-139

Dazzling Light

Acceptance, Core Value, Joy, Life, Love 0

What would it take for us to remember our worth? How good we are, and how complete and loving and lovable. men shouldn’t have to bear the burden of our remembrance. It’s not their function to remind us we are goddesses. It’s our function to remember it and then reveal it to the world. When we remember, they will too. The light will be dazzling.

— Marianne Williamson, A Woman’s Worth, p. 136