Yesterday as I was heading into therapy, I ran into an old friend.
Side note, if you love your therapist as I do, and you tell anyone (that you like) who is looking for one to see her, chances are you’ll run into one of those people in the lobby of your therapist’s office at some point. So be sure to only refer people that a) you REALLY like, b) you won’t mind running into because even when you’re lovely therapist tries to keep your appointments separate, mistakes can be made, and c) you know they won’t mind running into you.
I digress. In the four minutes we had to chat between her appointment and mine, she mentioned joy. And something clicked in my brain.
Joy.
I started seeing my therapist regularly a couple of months ago when things in our life got a little crazy. My husband knows me really well, it’s annoying AF sometimes, but he gently asked if maybe now might not be a good time to check-in with my therapist? Of course, I got really defensive (as one does) because I am FINE, and then subsequently scheduled an appointment.
For the past couple of months I’ve been talking to her about a project I’m working on that I am really excited about. More on that next month. But this week I was telling her about the revival of my blog. I started writing again the night before I saw her, so I was feeling a writer’s high. As she and I talked, I was getting more and more excited because sometimes it takes talking about something out loud – not to myself (which, to be clear, I also do) – for something to fully form in my head.
I wrote my first blog post on Wednesday night that evening I enjoyed one of the best and deepest sleeps I’ve had in a long time. I woke up yesterday feeling like the bomb, I had a great f-cking hair day, I was incredibly at work, and by the time I got to my therapist’s office, I felt fan-freaking-tastic.
I was explaining something to her that I’d been thinking the night before, but saying it out loud forced me to articulate it. I believe that when I physically sit my a-s down to write, the Universe or God (or both) move things around in my world to accommodate me. Yeah, yeah, I know that will sound ridiculous to some of you. But the truth of it, which I didn’t fully recognize until I saw my friend, and then speed talked at my therapist, is that it brings me immense joy.
I’m pretty sure that when we possess immense joy, we get scary powerful. That’s when things like The Secret come into play. Because when you feel immense joy, you’re likely to export that joy into the things you do and the things you say, which in turn brings that joy right back to you. AMIRIGHT?!
This is the point at which some of you are thinking ‘ahhhh…yeah Captain Obvious, obviously.’ And others are thinking ‘this woman is a lunatic, unfollow!’ And others yet are thinking ‘I mean…maybe???’
The trick isn’t specifically writing, obviously. For my husband who is one of the rare people who literally loves his job, it’s something else completely. He gets to go to work everyday and do the things that he loves more than anything, which is likely why he’s so successful, and people like him so much. He’s has power because his job brings him joy. Not everyone is lucky to do what they truly love for work, and in many cases, that results in us simply not doing the things we love. Time, after all, is short. Nobody has enough of it.
I don’t have time either. I was trying to remember how on earth I used to do this – write nearly every day – and I remember shutting myself in my former office/laundry room while my family carried on upstairs. I had to extricate myself from our day-to-day. In other words, it was yet another commitment.
But unlike, say, cleaning, or doing laundry, or doing work-work, or checking on the girls’ homework, my commitment to write has and gives me power that the majority of my other commitments do not. It makes me feel in control of my own happiness regardless of anything else that comes into play. It brings me joy.
That realization has left me reeling because, really, how simple! How easy! I mean…until I get home some night and it’s super late and I still have to do laundry and I haven’t had dinner and the dog hasn’t had dinner and I still have to pick someone up from something. Yeah, I get it, real life will absolutely butt heads with my commitment to write almost every day.
But if I’m able to do it, even most days, I can’t even imagine the good hair days I’ll have. And, you know, the happiness part.
MAMACADABRA 