When you observe children playing you see an infectious delight in being alive, in doing whatever they’re doing, in exploring and asking questions and expressing themselves. Even tantrums fade back to that innate state that I refer to as riotous joy.
It allows us to feel secure while we sob uncontrollably (I know I’m not the only one), and provides a safety net when we get caught up in jumbled-up thinking waiting for us to remember where we we are placing our focus.
Knowing and living from riotous joy is an undervalued metric in living a well-loved life.
The insight sprang to mind again while listening in to a photo-lecture about a group of London street children living in poverty. Many were living in dire conditions. Some did not make it to adulthood, others did. What I noticed was as children they revealed that innate resilience that we all have at our core. They knew joy and play in the midst of less than ideal conditions.
Through facing some of my own challenging times over the years (and talking with others walking theirs) I’ve tuned into a knowing that my top priority is reorienting back to and releasing joy on a daily basis. It means being the gatekeeper of my attention, something that no one else can do for us.
It’s not about trying to be positive and happy. It’s about remembering what’s true.
Releasing joy and unchaining creativity will likely look different for me than it does for you. I remember one year when it seemed like I was training to be an olympic hurdler with the number of challenges I was facing. Being in my joy meant writing blog posts (not sure that anyone was reading them, but that was not the point), getting a ton of fresh air, crying whenever I needed to, spending time with people, dancing, walking running . And in the midst of it all I was aware that to all intents and purposes I was living my dream life. Dream life not because of the amount of stuff I owned or any external marker, but because it was full of meaning, spaciousness, truth, joy, creativity, depth, and an understanding of what’s what – I was living from my feminine essence.
This all allowed me to receive intuition, wisdom and insight for the next step that doesn’t come in the midst of an emotional experience, only after.
Things did change, and I moved through what I was moving through. But in order to show up for the day’s duties so to speak I had to continually stay tuned into my riotous joy.
We only have to show up one day at a time.
Curl up on the sofa with more on feminine feeling here.
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