As young children, we are naturally, joyful, effusive, colorful, we laugh a lot, we are loud and exuberant. But as we grow up and experience our individuation, that separation, we start making up beliefs and we experience pain, hurt, judgment, shame, guilt, feeling unworthy, unsafe, powerless, insignificant and like we don’t belong.
We bury ourselves in “what is incomplete about ourselves” and then spend our life’s energy on trying to fix this.
As an adult if you tend to be exuberant, joyful or what is considered overly joyful you can potentially be labeled as childish, stupid, immature, bad, incompetent, self-indulgent, superficial, not being serious enough, or too feminine. “Women can be prone to hysteria.”
Hysteria is a mental disorder that has been linked to women since the second millennium BC. The term comes from the Greek word “hystera”, which means uterus. In the Victorian era it was common for female patients to be diagnosed with hysteria, which was characterized by nervous, eccentric, and erratic behavior. I.e. behavior that wasn’t deemed to be masculine.
Attributing this condition to women’s nature fit the social model of women and validated the medical integrity of psychiatry. But was it the truth? No
It was a conforming cultural and societal tendency to keep women submissive.
Its diagnosis and treatment were routine for hundreds of years in Western Europe. In Western medicine hysteria was considered both common and chronic among women. Even though it was categorized as a disease, hysteria’s symptoms were synonymous with normal functioning female sexuality. The normal healthy functioning of the female physiology and the female endocrine system.
Here’s the corollary of this.
You may have heard the expression, “big boys don’t cry.” “Men don’t cry. Suck it up.”
This is considered to be feminine behavior, or hysteria that is associated with being female.
The travesty of this limiting belief and conforming tendency that still influences our society to this very day is that males die by suicide 3 – 4 times higher than females, globally.
The fear of judgment, being a target and not belonging leads us to holding ourselves back from joy. And this leads to consequences of isolation, separation and being disconnected and alienated from our community, society and our own true nature.
What can we do to counteract this and what is joy?
Joy is an experience and expression that comes directly from the Unmanifest. It is intangible. Yet it’s connected to the physical world, that which is tangible, has physical substance and matter. They are interconnected and inextricably linked together.
Joy helps us to create, happier, healthier and more fulfilling lives.
Science defines joy as an intense momentary experience of positive emotion – one that makes us laugh, smile and/or feel like we want to jump up and down.
Happiness is defined as how good we feel over time.
Joy is a momentary thing. That intense feeling in the moment that rises up like a wave of energy, it rises up like a crescendo and for that moment we experience ourself as the Divine. We are in flow, in presence. It is immediate, fresh and alive. It is filled with life force.
Our culture is all about pursuing “Happiness” but it is focused on the next latest and greatest, the next shiny object which of course is egoic and will never lead to fulfillment. Happiness is not about acquiring things or achieving a status. It is a state of being. In our pursuit to amass this elusive state, we overlook joy.
Where does joy come from?
It is an inherent part of who we are as a human being. It is always in us and around us.
When we see or experience what we love we experience joy. Rainbows, splashing our feet in water, raindrops, jumping in puddles, climbing on jungle gyms, sliding down slippery dips, zip lining across a canopy, swimming with dolphins, listening to our favorite music, dancing, ice cream, painting, drawing, being in Nature, being surrounded by bright colors, blowing bubbles, watching fireworks explode across the night sky. These are all things that are joyful and instantaneously inspire us to celebrate.
On a primal level, color is a sign of life, abundance and energy. Things such as the lush green of leaves and vegetation, golden yellow flowers, ripened red, orange and purple fruit and berries things that are edible and can sustain life for us. Abundance related to our survival and lack of color, drab environments, dead vegetation, scarcity meant lack of survival and death.
All of us as human beings find joy in the same or similar things. We are connected through all time and space and these experiences remind us of our Oneness, wholeness, unity and connection.
These are not futile or frivolous pleasures. They are exceedingly important because they remind us of our shared humanity and connectedness to everyone and everything else. They remind us of our Divinity.
What brings us joy are things that relate to Nature around us and the Divine nature within us.
Our Divine Nature is infinite, it is abundant, it is multi-dimensional, all powerful, it’s infinitely dynamic, ever expanding, it is pure light, and gives us in turn a feeling of bliss, lightness, it elevates our spirit.
We can access joy through aesthetics. The principles concerned with the nature and appreciation of beauty, especially in art and artistic expression and the beauty of Nature that surrounds us.
“Beauty is truth and truth is beauty.
That is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know.” – John Keats (1820)
Beauty implies the manifestation of God. The manifestation of that which is Divine, the Unmanifest. The Absolute. The Creator that is us.
When we see beauty we light up!
The Ultimate beauty is truth because it never perishes and we all universally recognize it.
When we experience beauty, when we experience joy, we experience truth.
We experience the truth of the Self that is contained in us. The Self experiencing the self, thrills in ripples of joy again and again.
That is the truth of who we are. That is our true Nature.
Aesthetics comes from the Greek word, “aisthetikos” – which in ancient Greek comes from “Aisthesthai” αἰσθάνομαι (aisthánomai, “I perceive, sense, learn”) – which means I perceive, I sense, I feel, I am aware, I learn” – It’s Rishi the knower, perceiver, cognizer, Pure Awareness, the Creator. The Albedo – the Superconscious, insight, genius, wisdom, intuition.
It is the Creative Orientation, the Learning orientation.
When we see beauty we are automatically put back into our Creative orientation.
We experience joy through our senses, especially what we see and feel. We also experience joy through our subtle senses and our heart.
When we see beauty we resonate with that, we begin to vibrate at that Divine frequency and we experience joy.
As you walk around and realize this now, you will start to recognize that joy and beauty is everywhere.
It may be in the color of something in a room, or the colors on a billboard or something painted on a building. It might be circular or spherical shapes which represent expansion, life, growth, proliferation and abundance. It may be the smile on someone’s face, the sound of laughter, the flicker of light between leaves that move via the caress of a breeze. It might be watching someone playing a game or seeing a hummingbird dart about looking for nectar.
Little moments of joy are everywhere hidden in plain sight.
Joy is there in the beauty that is you and the beauty that surrounds you. All you need to do is take a moment to see it. Expand your awareness out of your thoughts, beliefs and unresourceful emotions and you will actually get to see it.
So how do you identity as your Superconscious nature?
It’s simple.
Go for the joy.
Each moment of joy is small, fleeting and ephemeral but over time they add up. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Instead of chasing after how to stop being in your Egoic orientation, shift your focus to embracing the joy. Those beautiful, sweet, funny, life giving moments that act like stepping stones to create the structure and Fibonacci for living as your Superconscious nature.
Embrace joy and discover ways and new opportunities to put yourself in its path more often. Surround yourself with splashes of color. Have fresh flowers in your home. Go for walks in Nature. Beauty automatically puts you on the vibration of joy. Do things that tickle your funny bone and make you laugh.
We all have an inherent desire to seek out joy because it directly connects us to our Divine nature.
Joy is the driving force for life itself. It is the rocket fuel for creating abundance and for fulfilling your purpose.
Give it to yourself with gusto.
To support yourself in doing this, make a list of 20 – 30 things that bring you joy.
Write them down and then pick one of these every day.
