I have been doing an exercise this past week on bringing in 12 thoughts of joy every day into my sacred circle of light to allow my body to start to feel more safety and joy on the cellular level. (to read more about this visit Healing At The Heart facebook page, see post from August 1st, 2020).
Well, this morning I had a really hard time turning my thoughts to joy and keeping them there. As I was lying in bed this morning, bathed in my circle of light, I noticed I was fighting my mind, resisting the thoughts and feelings of sadness & failure, trying to trump them with thoughts of joy. Thankfully it didn't take me long to let go of the resistance and invite the sadness in.
This brings me to a point I want to share. We can only feel joy as deeply as we are willing to feel all our other emotions. Thinking "positive" thoughts is not a way to skip over all the other thoughts and emotions we have. Thoughts of joy are a wonderful way to raise our vibration and make incredible change in our lives, but if you are resisting other uncomfortable emotions as they are arising, wanting to be acknowledged, you will only go so far. Joy becomes more and more of who we are when we let go of all those voices, thoughts, and emotions of who we thought we were.
Be okay with fear when it shows up, invite your sadness, anger, guilt, grief to be with you until it is ready to move on. These uncomfortable emotions used to sit with me for hours and days sometimes when I first started allowing them to be my friends. After a while it was less and less time before they would move on and I could feel the joy again.
This morning was intense. I am still processing some grief over a puppy we had for 2 months that I re-homed back in April (when the world was having a pandemic I was having my own personal pandemic triggered by the sweet pup). My old patterns of failure were loud this morning.
"Other people can handle a puppy, why can't you? How could you let your kids down, your husband, it was their dream to finally have a dog! Why can't your body just handle stress normally!!!!"
When it is too hard to turn to something that feels better you sometimes need to stop and let the emotion pour out. It was too loud to turn to thoughts of joy so I let the tears roll. I cried off and on for a couple hours, the grief was more than I expected. As the intensity lessened I would remind myself that I am worthy of love and happiness and that it isn’t possible to be a failure. That was the old pattern, the little girl that believed failure was a real thing, but it isn’t true and I can allow that thought to dissipate. I have been seeing my old patterns/karma very clearly as of the past month and it has been getting much easier to replace them with statements that are true to who I am, not who my mind believed I was. After the emotions petered out suddenly joyful thoughts started entering my head on their own and I could feel the upliftment to an even lighter place than I was before.
So, thoughts of joy are not just a rainbows and unicorns exercise. Sometimes it feels like 1 thought of joy and then 10 thoughts of yuck. The joy helps us to cultivate a vibration and life that is true to our essence, which allows our bodies to heal and our lives to reshape into what we are truly desiring. It allows us to see the miracles that were always within. This also may mean exploring what doesn’t serve us, being okay with what shows up (they yuck), and allowing it to evolve away.
I’m glad I’m feeling better. Onward to a day filled with joy...
Love & Light,
Lexi