“Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it everyday.” ~Henri J.M. Nouwen

I am learning to celebrate. Learning to celebrate and choose joy each day because “someday” isn’t a good enough answer to the question of when I’ll delight in the place and time I live.

I am better at letting days and whole weeks go by when I do nothing simply to create a ritual of fun and celebration, rhythms that are memory building and resilience creating.

What do I learn from this? Hurried rush and frustration, a bad attitude that simmers below the surface of my go-go-go, and eventually exhaustion and burn-out. Maybe you know that story too. The story of life’s demands and sorrows consuming brain, time, and body so it feels like there’s no room for fun, for joy, for delight.

What if we try collecting moments of joy with the demands and sorrows? Not instead, but allowing delight to come alongside the rest of life. Author and psychologist, Nicole Zasowski writes in her book What If It’s Wonderful?:

“I am a collector by nature. I love to watch a collection grow, but more than half the fun of collecting is…the hunt. I’ve learned from the collector in me that the more we search, the more we see. Like when you’re considering purchasing a particular car and suddenly it seems like you spot it everywhere on the highway. The more we seek beauty, pursue joy, and count the reasons to celebrate, the more beauty we will find. And this joy is not insignificant or frivolous. When we choose to delight in the faces of the people we love or in the colors of the flowers that stab through the thawing earth and bloom in rebellious celebration, we become active participants of hope—characters in a story that insists that what is most obvious is not all there is.”

That’s a whole different story for me, and it gives my nervous system a sense of safety and ease that makes me a measurably better navigator of the demands and sorrows because they’re no longer the dominant plot in my story.

A couple days ago I stopped by a friend’s home when I had a short hour to connect. The hour quickly became a celebration. This friend happens to have stage 4 cancer. Physically, she has much to suffer over. Yet, this moment was focused on delight and joy as her precocious and utterly delightful 10-year-old daughter—who had become our waitress and bartender— fixed us a “kid cocktail” of Bai juice and sparkling water in martini glasses with salted rims. Then, having finished her shift, she requested politely, but firmly, a massage. Which of course I had no choice but to honor. The story of celebration—so simple and yet so essential. Joy writing itself into our nervous systems, into our brains, into our hearts. I like to think that when things get more intense than that moment was, as things surely will, we’ll also remember how to find our way toward whatever delight will also be present.

Training ourselves to pay attention and to be intentional with our attention is key. It starts in small increments and grows and it takes practice because it is much easier on many days to notice only what’s wrong or the jobs demanding attention. Cultivating a collection means making a commitment to watching out for, to searching out, the nuggets we choose to fill up the shelves of our heart. It means making joy as demanding as the to-do list of jobs.

And how might this begin. It takes a kind of shoulder-squared, feet planted on the ground, chest lifted, eyes up, ears open posture of presence; a quieting of the anxious hamster-wheel brain, into current moment awareness; a willingness to align with the way simplicity, that which might seem tiny and insignificant, can produce delicious, heart opening delight.

The yoga postures and daily meditation that I practice help me build these skills. The same steadiness I’ve learned to cultivate in mountain pose, the same awareness of joyful simplicity I feel in triangle, the skills of softening my eyes and mouth into a restful smiling presence and really hearing / seeing / breathing in a moment, are all the quite the same.

The ritual and rhythm of arriving to the day in my body with a spirit of presence, each of my senses helping me cultivate an opportunity toward celebrating the new day, has helped me build the memory of these skills that I can actively take into the rest of my day. So I see the sorrow and feel the demands—and I actively write joy and celebration into the story alongside it all by noticing just what is while eking out opportunities to celebrate. Zasowski writes, “To profess that we value celebration and to practice it in a way in which it becomes a defining characteristic of who we are requires that we celebrate beyond when it is convenient.” I’m making it a ritual so that on the days I just don’t know how, my nervous system reminds me that I’ve embedded these skills more deeply than I realized. I practice, I try, and I fail at it—but even so, celebration is getting knit into my identity.

The days are shifting toward fall. I sense this time like a teacher or student might—with the rhythm and sensation of a new year. The shift feels like the perfect time to institute new rituals, to refresh old patterns, especially as the pace of life naturally feels like it’s ebbing from the abundant height of summer. How will I begin this season making sure that I bring the skills I’ve cultivated in this previous one along with me? I will continue to cultivate amidst the chaos, continue to align myself much like I would on my yoga mat—keeping my eyes open, my presence steady, my mind aware of the nuances and shifts that occur when I make space for exactly what is.

Friday morning classes resume in September. Join me on the yoga mat live via Zoom or live in person in Shepherdstown at 211 East New Street, 9-10 AM, to cultivate these skills in body, mind, and heart. Paid subscribers will receive a guided practice this week made especially for you, with joy in mind. Keep your eyes out for a mid-week retreat!

Keeping my eyes up let me see this amazing creature…I thought she was dead but she was digesting her mate, who’s remains lay below her. Minutes after I took this pictures, she dropped to the porch with a very full belly. Nature is such a wonder!

Your Sunday Retreat with Christa Mastrangelo Joyce

Choosing