What Comes to Light

This is an excerpt from the weekly News-Loveletter. If you would like it sent to your inbox directly (with all the other juicy bits, including a mini joy practice), you can add yourself to my mailing list here.

Photo by Ann Glucroft

Today, I’m shining. A sunbeam bursts through the birdfeeder, magnified, and stands in the air around me. Tiny filaments floating by are lit so brightly that I can see their image in the Zoom screen. So can my class.

Why this light? Why now? It’s unnerving, and I laugh. The light moves through the room as I teach. Now, it beams down through the skylight. A student gently interrupts to tell me it’s flowing into the top of my head. 

There’s no stopping light. It pours in when and how it wants to, illuminating all. There are moments in my life when I’ve not welcomed that. Plenty of things have been hard to see or hard to hear. But light does not pick and choose. Everything in its path is illuminated.

This is not surprising, really. If we want to feel joy, we must connect with our bodies. When we connect with our bodies, we feel other emotions too. No picking or choosing.

But is that so? I can choose my train of thought to have feelings about. Not always, but much of the time. It’s part of my joy practice to do so. I hold my thoughts up to the light. Also this: I cannot always choose what’s illuminated, but I can choose where to rest my gaze. What I place my attention on gets all the feels.

I’m grateful to have these skills on my darkest days. Heck, I developed these skills in my darkest days. When I couldn’t get out of bed for the pain, I created a system to think better feeling thoughts. I knew then it was the only thing that could save me. 

Now I share these skills in my Core Joy Series. I teach this course live once a year, and only once a year. Thousands have benefited from learning the practices.

If you’re tired of living at the whim of the world around you, here’s your moment to change that.

Right now. In less than 5 minutes. Go.

The Joyful Life Reboot classes I offer this weekend (my gift to you, Happy New Year!) will be the last for 6 months. Take 5 minutes or less to register here. Three time options are available if you scroll to the bottom. Let’s light up the world together.