Joy – The Breakthrough in Consciousness, Confidence & Freedom

I sat in stunned silence. 

“The problem was that I had no problem.”  That was my first insight. 

“Was that … is that a problem?”  The voice inside my head asked innocently. 

Thus began my journey into consciousness and freedom. 

 

How it started:

I began the day by looking at a problem I had. 

I can promise you now that I cannot recall what that problem was. 

I followed what I thought I had learned from decades of coaching, consciousness, meditation, entheogens, suffering and letting go, transformation, almost every kind of therapy, ontological inquiry and more. 

I thought about my problem. 

Then a voice inside my head said “Feel where the problem is.”

 

The First Step. Feel Your Body Response.

I obeyed and felt the experience in my body - my body felt folded inward like my 8 year old self, feeling deflated from a rejection from another girl my age. I felt nausea in my stomach - my stomach felt like it wanted to be held, soothed and comforted badly. My shoulders came to my ear level with a sense of loss. I felt like giving up and giving in, as I slumped into my chair. I felt a soreness in my heart area.  My gut felt loose and limp with no feeling of power. My head was throbbing trying its level best to overcome all of this, and it was failing to see anything. 

 

Then came a loud silence. 

I heard and felt nothing for a while. 

Then the voice said “The problem was that I had no problem.” 

“Was that … is that a problem?” 

I sat speechless. 

It felt wrong to say “No.”  And it felt dishonest to say “Yes.”

I said “No.”

“Is there anything you need to do?”

I said “No.”

Still in disbelief, but now more alert - I began to let myself feel more. 

I felt quiet and I felt all the bones in my feet as I gripped the ground. 

It felt good to do that. It felt like my first time to be really grounded in reality. 

I then felt the solidness in my lower shank and upper thigh.  I felt my strength as a man. 

I felt my knees connecting these two huge beings in my body.  I felt power. 

I felt my groin connecting these beings with my gut and felt my resoluteness. 

I felt my gut connecting to my upper chest and heart and I felt my love. 

I felt my heart connect to my throat and I found my self-expression. 

I felt my throat connect to my mind and my eyes and I found my full presence. 

“What happened?” I asked. 

 

“You distracted, disarmed and dispelled your judgments. What do you feel now?”

“Everything and nothing.”

But there was a strange recollection of a memory. My very first memory. 

 

The stage of curiosity.

I felt the memory of being four years old - of knowing now that the little child that was next to me as we unleashed our paper boats into the tropical rain filled drains around my house, was a girl and that she was different from me - but similar in some strange ways. 

I remembered I had a sudden curiosity in her. In who she was and in how her heart would beat. Would it beat in the same way that my heart had beat when my mother held me close to her chest?

I remembered the feeling. My first memory. My first curiosity. 

I had that curiosity now. 

I salvaged my brain for the problem I had and could not find it any longer. It had disappeared.  But in its place, I had rediscovered my curiosity for life.  

And oh.. What a gift indeed that problem had been! 

 

Joy

Curiosity is the seed that germinates into joy.  

Joy can be engagement and just that - a feeling of being engaged in the world.  

Joy can be an exhilaration.  

Joy can be the space of creativity and insight. 

But joy is unmistakable and is your divine right. 

So I did what anybody in my position would do. 

I danced. And I danced like a mad man who felt sanity for the first time. 

Would you like to feel more joy?