Too Busy for Joy
Consider the ways in which being busy is or has been an identity of yours?
The biology of our bodies, such as permitting survival in extreme conditions, is quite impressive. Physical signs of a 911 call to the self-care line may be consistent stiffness or aches in your bones and body, difficulty falling asleep, procrastination, and impatience. Being abrupt and short with kids are often signs of fatigue or feeling overwhelmed. At one time, being busy suggested an aura of importance about a person. I’ve often witnessed how a client’s busy-ness helps them avoid other areas of their lives, such as joy and pleasure.
Joy is an extraordinary, yet can be quite vulnerable to experience. Sheer joy can surface in the authenticity of a smile from another, helping someone, expressing your creativity or interests freely, and many other ways. Joy fills our bodies with energy and delight, encourages connection relaxation. While all of these are lovely, they can also feel risky. Joy is visceral, cannot be purchased, and is unlike happiness as it is not tied to a result or outcome. To feel joy means risking disappointment, rejection or embarrassment if others cannot meet our expectations for hope, companionship, or love. For some people, these risks are too high, and they avoid joy purposely, or often without even realizing they are doing so.
Often people cover joy with other emotions that ride along with thoughts designed to inhibit pleasure. People may instead experience shame and unworthiness: “I don’t deserve to feel happy.” Or fear: “This is going to end anyway; why feel it at all?” Or guilt: “I shouldn’t express such joy in front of others who do not have the privilege to feel the same way.”
Early experiences in our families can feed the tremendous joy of innocence, or teach us that joy is fleeting and will vanish as quickly as it arrived. For some, joy becomes dangerous, something to avoid at all costs – even if it’s the more pleasant route. I’m curious how much joy contributes to the quality of your life, and if the absence of it is more psychologically expensive.
How do you “take good care” of yourself?
One way to avoid self-care tipping the scale to the dark side is expressing what you need from loved ones, whether it be time, space, closeness or support. Taking extremely good care of yourself is, in fact, taking good care of your loved ones, for you can be stronger, more energetic and more nourishing for them when your needs are met.