Usually, I'm not someone who does New Year's Resolutions, per se. To me, the idea of setting a New Year's Resolution calls to mind something very specific and big that you try to accomplish, therefore setting yourself up for disappointment if life in the coming year takes you in a direction that doesn't make that goal attainable.
What I do sometimes do is choose general themes for the coming year at the start of a new calendar year (which, because of my religion's focus on seasonal cycles, is different to me than the start of a new yearly cycle). These themes are just that...general themes of things that I want to focus on doing or bringing into my life. For 2011, the theme I chose was finding "Joy." As we go deeper into the waning time of the year, I am compelled to check in with this theme and see how I think I'm doing.
It may seem odd that I have to go around looking for Joy, but the fact is that there is a lot of sadness that I carry with me. I have lost a lot of the most beloved people in my life, and I have accepted that I will never stop grieving for them. Sometimes I feel that grief very strongly, but I don't want to wallow in it, drown in it, and become defined by it. So what that means is that I'm just a person who sometimes needs to actively seek out the opposite side of the coin. In ways, the contrast is beautiful. When you feel that great sadness, and then look around you and open up to Joy as a way of keeping it in check, it helps you realize all the ways in which life truly is beautiful.
One of the things I thought I would do as a way of bringing more Joy into my life this year was making Hooping more of a part of my day-to-day activities.
It may sound a bit silly, and perhaps it is...and perhaps that's the point. Nonetheless, when I'm inside a hula hoop, it's hard for me to be unhappy! For at least that moment in time, I'm actually able to recapture that feeling of childhood joy and enthusiasm, remembering what it feels like to just play, and be thrilled about it. It's a feeling that I don't tap into often, not only because of grief, but just because of the nature of my personality. I believe a coven-mate once referred to it as "stoic." I'm by nature an introverted and fairly reserved person. It takes a lot to get me to just cut loose.
Part of my plan for bringing more Hooping into my life as a tool for bringing more Joy into my life was to teach Hoop Dance classes in Watertown. That didn't exactly work out as I had hoped. Sharing Hooping with others is fun, but while there did seem to be a pretty good amount of interest in the beginning, the interest definitely dwindled over time. The business I had in Watertown closed, and I was no longer there every day, which made going in for classes without being sure anyone was going to show up make less and less sense. And now I'm looking for a job (which I'm sure will warrant a whole separate blog post), so I couldn't do it anymore anyway. That's why I usually don't do resolutions. If I had a resolution of, for instance, becoming a full time Hoop Dance instructor...I would have already failed.
But that wasn't the point. The point was to find Joy, and Hooping was only supposed to be a forum for that. I think I feel like I have to check in on this because I wasn't able to maintain the classes, and in some ways that's disappointing. But if I'm honest and not so hard on myself, I know that Hooping is in fact still a tool for finding Joy. I still do it just about every day, and in fact, it's more fun in a way to be able to just do it for the sake of it, and not have to structure it all into classes that can be taught to others. And while I chose to make Hooping one of my focal points, because it's something active that I can make myself do and I know it will work (as opposed to more abstract ideas that are harder to pin down and make happen), it's not like it's the only thing I'm doing to bring more Joy into my life.
Because I'm just weird, when I'm thinking about abstract concepts, such as Joy, I sometimes like to do Google image searches for them just to see what comes up. Here is what Google search has taught me about Joy...
Joy is shared...
Joy is love...
Joy is a giddy thrill...
Joy is puppies and kitties...
Joy is TOTALLY a cupcake...
Joy is bubbles...
Or, alternatively, water...
"Jumping for Joy" really is a thing...
And yes, Joy can even be a hula hoop...
I swear it really did come up!
Other things I learned...based on photos, Joy is most often found outside, with the chances of success increasing greatly at the beach. Apparently, Joy may also be random people named Joy, and The Joy Luck Club...book or movie. Still though...I'd say Google image search can be surprisingly insightful!
Here's to looking forward, continuing the search for Joy...
No comments:
Post a Comment