Welcome to Joy

Hi, welcome to our new blog. I say ‘our’ because this blog is meant to be a community effort. I want YOU to write for it. I want YOU to comment on posts you like or that make you think. I want YOU to repost, retweet, and forward the link to people you think will appreciate what we’re saying here.

I have a confession to make: this blog almost didn’t come to fruition. A few months ago, I was flying high. Everything was working out. I was happy in a non-Polyanna way; I was feeling balanced and centered most of the time, I was creatively engaged, I was busy, I was having the time of my life, enjoying my life in a way I hadn’t in a very long time, maybe ever. I figured something had shifted in me, so I wanted to share it, as well as to build a community of people who were also finding the tricks to living that lead to a calm heart and balanced mind. I wanted this blog to include posts by people from all walks of life who had discovered the wisdom to live life in a way that acknowledged the joy at the heart of things, even when life was hard.

Then, my life became harder. Not because anything terrible happened, but because we can’t remain balanced and centered all the time. I became creatively frustrated instead of buzzing with creative energy. I was beset by doubts. Connections I thought were strong with other people started to feel flimsy and weak. I got upset, tired, depressed, and moody. A situation in my life started to trigger some hard emotions. And as I struggled, I started to doubt that I could, in good conscience, start a blog that was about staying centered in joy when i was having trouble doing that. Not that we always have to feel joyful (read about this blog using the tabs above to find out what I mean), but I was actually struggling mightily to even get out of bed in the morning. How could I pretend that I knew anything about joy when things were, at the time, so difficult?

But even in that dark place of struggle, a light came one and I realized that it’s those dark places that teach us the skills to get back to balance and calm. Just like we can’t practice a skill if we aren’t in the situation that warrants it, we can’t practice returning to the joy at the heart of things unless we get shaken from that knowledge, tossed off the surfboard, thrown for a loop. I realized that this blog can come from the knowledge that we all struggle sometimes, and that we’re here to help each other when we are struggling, not when we’re feeling happy and peaceful. None of us would need the words on this blog, or be able to write any, if we never struggled.

So I stopped procrastinating and got back in the saddle and now I present this blog to you. At the time that I’m writing this, there are only a few posts up that I’ve written. Read about the blog using the tabs at the top of this page, and contact me if you would like to write a post, if you know someone who might want to write a post, or if you know someone who would make a great interview subject.

I want to build a community here, of people who think about and practice better ways to live life, more skillful ways to deal with what life throws at us. So please write, comment, share, and participate. I look forward to hearing what you have to say!