Reteach. | rejoyce letters, vol. 30

Hi Friend, 

A couple weeks ago, I found myself silently crying, alone, on a nighttime G Train. Of course, I wasn't wholly alone, a smattering of other passengers dotted the orange and yellow seats as we sputtered beneath Brooklyn, but no one acknowledged me, which was fine.

I wondered if solo subway tears were some type of New Yorker rite of passage. I thought, in my year and three months living here, I'd already crossed off the big ones: I'd been shit on by a bird while waiting at a crosswalk, I'd been almost run over by a halal truck in Manhattan, I'd nearly forgotten garbage disposals, dishwashers, and central air existed.

And yet: tears on a train. The whole scene felt abhorrently cliché externally; internally, it felt strangely new.

I’ve cried in public myriad times before, but in this instance the quality of the tears felt distinct. I wasn’t crying my usual tears of negative emotion—anger, sadness, frustration, etc.—instead, I cried because I was so emotionally moved, so stirred, so, well, inspired. 

I had just met Anne Lamott on a book tour for her new book Almost Everything: Notes on Hope.

I've met many authors on many book tours and never had an emotional response before beyond basic excitement or fleeting inspiration to keep writing. But this whole night had been wildly touching. As Anne sat on the stage speaking into a microphone, it was if she recapped my entire inner journey this year in one forty minute interview. It was bizarre. It was amazing. It was kind of hard to take in. 

Still, I didn't cry, just sat in a strange state of awe. But when I reached the front of the book signing line, unbidden tears began streaming down my face. Anne was abundantly kind in our two minute interaction. A palpable, loving energy surrounded her. Then, I was outside in the dark trying to piece together what had happened, the tears persisting.

What did Anne speak of that so moved me? Well, a lot, but I'm going to focus on one thread today: the thread of reteaching. 

You see, Anne was a star student in school with intellectual parents (in a miserable marriage), so she decided young she needed to get perfect grades in an effort to keep the family together. Anne said she was 35 years old before she realized a B plus was actually a good grade. (That certainly struck a personal chord; I always got grossly good grades. There's something distinctly disappointing about investing so much energy in schooling and then realizing that—for me, anyway—it was almost pointless.) 

After talking about school, she turned to the audience and said with urgency:

"You know, all those years of schooling. All those classes. And no one ever thought to tell me that I had value."

Thus encapsulating a year's worth of inner work me. 2018: the year of realizing my own value.

The last thing I want to do is paint some woe-is-me victim story. I was definitely loved as a child, and told I was special. But I was also sent many societal messages that linked my worth to things external to me. It's good to get A's; it's good to win basketball games; it's good to have a boyfriend. Along the way, I began linking my value to those things, linking my self-worth to my "results" in the external world.

This is super common, and also, not a sound approach, homie. As Anne said that night:

"The world is like an alcoholic man who's still drinking. One day, it loves you and wants to seduce you and the next day it can't remember who you are."

So if you hang your worth on anything out in the world (anything not you), it's a total crap shoot. Sure, some days you feel high-highs, but the low-lows are perpetually waiting. But: if you can shift and see your worth as inherent, life opens up in a whole new way. 

Saying "I have value" is one thing, feeling it something else entirely. It's ultimately not a mind thing; it's a heart thing. The mindthinks things. It wants reasons. The mind wants to say "I have value because ..." but that's flawed. That's putting your worth in a rationale that isn't you. The heart knows things. The heart knows: I have value because I have value. (Dropping from the head to the heart is an ongoing practice for me; meditation and yoga and breath work help.)

Rumi says it like this:

There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired,

as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts 

from books and from what the teacher says,

[...]

with such intelligence you rise in the world. 

[...]

There's another kind of tablet, one 

already completed and preserved inside you. 

A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness

in the center of the chest.

[...]

This second knowing is a fountainhead 

from within you, moving out.

And Galway Kinnell's poem Saint Francis and the Sow begins (emphasis mine):

The bud

stands for all things, 

even for those things that don't flower, 

for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;

though sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing its loveliness, 

to put a hand on its brow

of the flower

and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing.

This isn't a new teaching—it's a reteaching. At your core, in the center of your chest, you already know your value. (If you need a metaphorical hand on your brow or reminders that you're lovely (I definitely did), hit me up.)

When I got to the front of the book signing line, I told Anne, "I'm 29 years old, and I finally realized, this year, that I have value."

I know it sounds like the simplest realization in the world—but the simplest realization, felt deeply, can be the most profound.

And when Anne looked in my eyes and said earnestly, "I know exactly what you mean." I realized I had tears on my cheeks.

with Love and with Light,

Joyce

p.s. I wrote about unlearning a while ago; I see reteaching as naturally following unlearning old belief systems. Or, you can start with reteaching and watch the old limiting beliefs fall away. There’s no one way; nothing energetic is linear.

p.p.s. You have value. You have value. You have value.

Ease. | rejoyce letters, vol. 29

Hi Friend, 

For a few years in high school and college, I dated a guy named Jack. Jack was a hockey player, so we went on some dates to the ice rink.

Now, if you’ve witnessed the grace with which I walk this earth (or lack thereof) this might surprise you, but I could skate, technically speaking, because my Mom had forced me to take skating lessons in childhood. (Meaning: these dates miraculously never ended in the Emergency Room, all thanks to my Mom.)

But claiming “I could skate” still feels like a huge lie when held up against this indisputable truth: Jack could skate. I mean, the dude could fucking skate. 

It was like my definition of skating was “moving forward on ice at various speeds without falling over” and his definition of skating was, you know, “skating.”

He could skate backward and forward, skate really fast, and stop any moment on a dime, tiny ice crystals flying up from his blades. And he did it all with a carefree nonchalance. (A nonchalance that I perhaps have never summoned in any waking aspect of my life.) He literally skated circles around me. The spectacle was incredible to witness, though I always viewed it through the fear-based lens of focusing on not breaking my elbows or tailbone.

He, essentially, moved on the ice more gracefully than I moved off the ice. 

When I think of my skating the word that comes to mind is, simply, fear. I wasn't terrified, but my mind was consistently preoccupied with not falling. That's what fear does: insidiously preoccupies. It projects you into a scary future, thus depriving you of the present. Fear is the basis for worry, stress, and anxiety. 

But when I think of Jack skating, I think of this word: Ease. 

I turned thirty a couple weeks ago (I haven't seen Jack in over a decade, though I can still envision him zipping across the ice), and you know how people sometimes set a guiding word for the new year? I want to set a word for my new decade—my thirties (how is that possible?!?)—and make that word ease.

I consider ease underrated. People often associate "easy" things as "bad" and, to a certain extent, I get that. I don't advise eating Hot Pockets or going through drive-thrus for every meal. And there are obvious detriments of “taking the easy road” which implies you’re blindly following the crowd.

There's sound reason Rainer Maria Rilke advises in Letters to a Young Poet:

"We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us...that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it."

And that poet Robert Frost says in The Road Not Taken:

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by, 

And that has made all the difference."

But I think it’s flawed to assume the easy path to take equates to the ease-filled path. 

Consider the 50 closest people in your life: How many are living lives full of ease? How many glide through life's trials and tribulations like expert skaters? And how many are stressed and anxiety-ridden, always worried about (metaphorically) falling on their asses? 

This is where things get a bit paradoxical, but stay with me. [Or don't; I don't mind, I'm thirty now, so I'm completely self-assured. ;)]

I believe the road most taken, and thus, the perceived "easier" road, is actually the road that is more difficult, mentally and emotionally, to traverse. That is: the road that is easiest to take is the road that is hardest to travel. It is the drama-filled road. The road of fear and stress. The road where you spend most of your life either re-living the past's pain (immersed in guilt, remorse, regret) or panicking over the future's uncertainty (immersed in worry, anxiety, stress).

I said in my last letter that it's easy to hate, and I also believe it's easy to be stressed. I'm speaking from experience! I've spent most of my life riddled by stress—and you know what? Stress is easy. Which is a paradox in itself: when you're stressed, of course, everything feels really hard, but choosing to live always stressed out is easy. You want to be stressed out all the time? No one will stop you. 

I'm not shaming or blaming you if you feel constantly stressed, I often feel this way. In fact, I (inexplicably) felt very stressed over the weekend. I am simply encouraging you to open yourself (and me to open myself) to the possibility that there could be another way to live. As the great poet Hafiz says:

"Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions." 

Rumi says:

"As you start to walk on the way, the way appears."

When you walk with trust the way will appear for you, you no longer make constant fear-based projections into the future—you, simply, walk. You no longer skate not to fall. You skate to skate.

Making ease a focus for my next ten years doesn't feel like the easy road; it feels worthy. I even think—in a sense—Rilke would be proud, because committing to living a life of ease is choosing something difficult:) [I'm smiling because I recently heard author Anne Lamott say, "All truths are paradox."]

In loving-kindness meditation (i.e. Metta meditation) you focus on phrases, rather than the breath. You can direct the phrases at yourself, another person, or a group of people. The phrases I generally use are:

May I (or you or he or she or they) be safe.

Be happy.

Be healthy.

Live with ease. 

That is what I wish for you, personally, today: safety, happiness, healthiness, and a life full of ease.

with Love and with Light,

Joyce 

p.s. This statement could be completely nonsensical, hence why it's a post script, but it makes sense to me: I believe the road less traveled is the path of least resistance. (Mental and emotional resistance, that is.)

p.p.s. I like how this is volume 29. Thanks to each one of you for being a part of my 29th year, in small or big ways. Namaste.

Heliotropic. | rejoyce letters, vol. 28

Hi Friend, 

I don't follow the news too closely; I consider this a spiritual practice.

Now, let me assure you that I do keep myself decently well-informed, vote consistently, and regularly donate to various organizations that I consider to be making the world a better place. 

That being said, I consciously choose not to read many news articles, mostly to protect my own mental and emotional health. 

There are other reasons, too—for example, most news companies are profit-driven (not necessarily truth-driven) enterprises, always chasing "newsworthy" stories, and often, due to this, some issues get completely blown out of proportion while other important issues go entirely unreported. (Reading Rebecca Solnit's Men Explain Things to Me opened my eyes to many widespread women's issues that almost never hit the newspapers.)

But mainly, as I said, I abstain from reading a ton of news for my own benefit. I do not believe in denial—I believe in encountering pain face to face, looking at it, sitting with it, and feeling it—but I also think that news stories are often not really what I need to be facing. I believe the pain I most need to face is my own pain. (And the pain you most need to face is your own pain.) News can even distract me from my healing, from facing the very thing I most need to address in my life at the moment (e.g. perhaps forgiving someone, letting go of jealousy, surrendering in a situation, etc.). I believe inner peace precedes world peace, and remain unconvinced our endless news cycle is moving us in the direction of peace. 

All this to say, that, generally, I don't mention "current events" in these letters. And yet, after the heartbreaking shooting in a Pittsburgh Synagogue on Saturday, which I find deeply upsetting for many reasons, some obvious, some more specific, like the simple fact I grew up outside of Pittsburgh, I feel compelled to write about evil. 

I've read a number of spirituality books this year and one thing that surprised me is they all define evil essentially identically: They define evil as an absence, not a presence. Evil is the absence of Love.

So, evil does not actually exist in its own form—it is merely what's left when Love is absent or blocked. Perhaps "merely" is not an apt word, because the utter absence of Love is unimaginably horrific, and, of course, unimaginably horrific things have happened throughout history. There are unimaginably horrific things that are happening right now, today.

But, despite the abounding and seemingly unending horrors of the world, it helps me to think of evil as an absence, much like black is the absence of all color. Because it doesn't make logical sense to fight an absence, rather, it makes sense to address it with a presence. You do not fight literal darkness when you cannot see; you simply shine a light to eradicate it. 

In The Seat of The Soul Gary Zukav writes: 

"The remedy for an absence is a presence. Evil is an absence and, therefore, it cannot be healed with an absence. By hating evil, or one who is engaged with evil, you contribute to the absence of Light and not to its presence. Hatred of evil does not diminish evil, it increases it."

I realize Gary Zukav, though he is beloved by Oprah, is probably a dude most of you have never heard of. And, if you Google him, you'll likely find some people calling him a totally off-the-deep-end spirituality nut job [which is hopefully my future job tite ;)] But hey! Have you ever head of Martin Luther King, Jr.? Because check out this quote from his book, Strength to Love:

"Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."

There's power in contemplating your own reaction to negativity in the world—in asking yourself if you are bringing the presence of Love to negative situations, or if you are fighting hatred with hatred and evil with evil. Because, honestly, it's easy to fight hatred with hatred. It's easy to hate a murderer. It's easy to hate everyone who votes opposite of you in elections. It's so, so, so easy to hate. 

But fighting hatred with hatred is like fighting fire with fire: It never fucking works. 

Pardon my cursing, but I find it upsetting when people who consider themselves on the "correct" side of history are still so quick to plunge into hate-filled vitriol toward the opposing side. Can't you see how this only adds a deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars? We don't need more darkness; we need Light.

We don't need the absence of Love; we need presence. We need, specifically, your presence. And my presence. And we need those presences to be so full of Light and Love and shining so brightly that they illuminate the dark corners of the world, and, by doing so, put an end to the unimaginably horrific things that human doings can do when Love is absent from their lives.

So as for me, I might not read every news article every day, but I, like the sunflowers, will turn my face toward the sun. Even when—especially when—it feels nearly impossible to do so. I fully accept I will not be perfect at this, I know I will fall into the grips of hatred and anger and jealousy and other negative emotional states time and time again, but I also believe it is a worthy practice. 

The practice of living this heliotropic way is fundamentally the same as the practice I do each and every countless time my mind wanders in meditation. I notice without judgment, and I gently bring my attention back to my breath. Forget. Remember. Begin again. 

Rumi says:

"What you seek is seeking you." 

And I choose to seek the Light. It is the only way I can manage to have any hope for the future of the world—but, for me, it is enough. 

Hope is the thing with feathers

that perches in the soul

and sings the tune without the words

and never stops at all. 

with Love and with Light,

Joyce

p.s. That last excerpt is from this lovely Emily Dickinson's poem.

p.p.s. I also love this Jack Gilbert poem where he says: "We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of the world." Jack Gilbert was a poet who was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA, a city where, I believe, Love will prevail.

Body. | rejoyce letters, vol. 27

Hi Friend,

I wanted to buy a new pair of leggings for my trip, so I went to a new (to me) store in SoHo. The general motif of the leggings on display seemed to be psychedelic florals, so I asked an associate: "Do you have any...um...black?"

I was led to a table in the back of all black leggings, much to my relief. As I went to pick out my size (L or XL), the saleslady looked at me and said with authority: 

"No. You look like an Extra Small."

You guys. I thought she was messing with me. Nothing about me is extra small. I was basically born 5' 10" and have been 6' 2" for years. I've long operated in a space where anything marked "XS" in a store might as well exist in an alternate reality—I don't even see it.

Also, I don't weigh myself often, but I haven't weighed less than 170 pounds in ten years. And—it must be said—most of my weight is distributed in what one might deem the "leggings region" of the body. (Let's just say, as a teenager, I found Sir Mix-a-Lot's lyrics strangely self-validating.)

But this lady was staring at me, up and down, forcing an XS pair of pants upon me.

"I mean...probably more like Large," I tried, desperately searching the table for an XL.

"No way. At biggest, you're a Small. Listen, I know the sizes here better than you do."

I couldn't doubt that. She was, after all, a store employee and I had been in the store for a cumulative nine minutes, so I reluctantly took a Small to the dressing room. I attempted not to flashback to the time I tried on an expensive, zipper-less dress in high school and then couldn't get out of it. It fit at the waist—but though I'd somehow gotten into it, it refused to go the other way over my butt or my shoulders, so I found myself in a black-chiffon-and-sequin prison.

My high school boyfriend waited for like 30 minutes as I somehow performed a series of panicked acrobatics in the dressing room, miraculously removing myself from the dress' snares without ripping it.

I would not do that with the Small leggings, I decided. The second they proved too small, likely somewhere three inches up my right calf, I'd walk back out and demand a Large.

However: The Small leggings fit. (I ended up buying Medium though, for mental reasons.)

I don't actually know the point to this story. 

Maybe: Corporations will lie to you to get you to buy shit. But we all knew that, right?

I think there's more to it for me, though. Because I've spent my whole life being implicitly (or explicitly) told women should be small. Being stopped by strangers in the street saying: "How tall are you?" like I'm a museum exhibit. And yet...I learned not just to tolerate my size, but to authentically love it. So I think when someone then told me I was a size Small, I kind of despised it. It was, bizarrely, enraging. 

[Aside: I mentioned this before, but I made the conscious shift from resenting my height to celebrating it around age 19. If there's something in your life that's factually unchangeable—I recommend learning to love it. Or, at least, learning to not hate it. The book Loving What Is can help cultivate acceptance.]

But was rage justified in my legging situation? To be clear, I didn't show anger; I was perfectly pleasant. But I've become increasingly conscious of my inner emotional state, because I believe by observing our emotions without judgment (rather than being controlled by them), we can learn important lessons. As Rumi says in The Guest House:

"The dark thought, the shame, the malice

meet them at the door laughing, 

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes, 

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond."

Eckhart Tolle corroborates this advice:

"Be at least as interested in what goes on inside you as what happens outside. If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place."

So, why was I angry about pant sizes, of all things? 

I think it comes down to a personal over-identification with my body. 

I know that sounds slightly insane, but hear me out: I believe we are all trinities: Mind, Body, and Spirit. We live in a world that worships the external appearance of the Body and the thoughts of the Mind, and essentially ignores the Spirit.

When you're constantly told your external appearance is paramount, you ignore your inner body. The Body is undoubtedly powerful—but most of the power is inside. But since inner beauty isn't a gazillion dollar industry, through social conditioning, you start thinking, essentially, that you are your outer body.

You get mentally attached to the idea that your physical body is you.

You get so attached that even if you can accept your body exactly how it is, even if you can love your body, you still likely over-identify with it. You still feel an inner sense of unease when someone questions the body-story to which you cling. 

So, if you're me, and a sales lady says, "You look like an Extra Small."

You get pissed. 

The anger doesn't mean I'm a bad person—it means I'm over-attached. Because it's only a story, it's not the Truth. The "I'm tall and big" story might be my personal little-t truth for this transient lifetime, but it’s not the capital-T eternal Truth. My body will likely be gone in 80 years or so, along with the myriad stories I attach to it. The much deeper, infinite Truth is eternal.

Body. Mind. Spirit. I am not one of three; I am three in one.

Jesus famously called the Body a Temple—but a Temple is simply where you worship. You don't worship the Temple itself, you worship inside the Temple. 

So, my challenge is this: to love and to care for my Body, yes, but not to get over attached to the stories I tell myself about my external appearance.  

Because what's worth worshipping, is what's inside.

with Love and with Light,

Joyce

p.s. This is another area where the Sanskrit word aparigraha has been applicable for me. I talk about it in my letter on clinging.

p.p.s. Oh. My. God. Becky—Happy (almost) 30th birthday, Beck. :) xo.

Returning. | rejoyce letters, vol. 26

Hi Friend, 

I once heard a woman describe her meditation practice in three words: Exile. Return. Belonging. Strangely, when she said this, I instantly thought of Judaism.

Now, I'm not Jewish, I've never worshipped in a Synagogue or even attended a bar/bat mitzvah, but I have read what Christians call the "Old Testament." (I was raised very Presbyterian.) And doesn't Genesis begin with the greatest exile of all? The exile of mankind from the Garden of Eden. (There are more exiles, too, of course—the Babylonian exile under King Nebuchadnezzar, for example—but I'm sticking with Eden in this letter. I feel anyone raised in a Judeo-Christian society has heard of Adam and Eve. In fact, I’d find it wildly interesting if you somehow haven't.)

The last thing I expected fostering a meditation practice would do is strengthen my connection with religion—especially since I find components of Christianity quite damaging. (Most of what the Bible says about sexuality I still vehemently disagree with.) But, I am a fan of the "take what resonates and leave the rest" philosophy—and parts of the Bible are shockingly (to me) really resonating metaphorically right now. 

I don’t speak of this much, though, because it can feel like the Bible is viewed in one of two extreme ways. Either people take the Bible literally (Virgin Mother and all) or they think the Bible (and all religions) should be completely ignored, and that science, rationality, and facts should be "worshipped." I respect each of those viewpoints.

I just find myself in a different place now, where I am consistently struck by the power of the Bible when read metaphorically. [Obviously, this is just my view, so if you hate un-literal Biblical interpretations or hate talk of religion at all, please feel free to stop reading. :)]

So, back to Eden. Eden is this beautiful garden of God where humans (namely: Adam and Eve) lived peacefully with nature. They had everything they needed; they lived in perfect ease. They were even naked and no one cared, because no one knew to care. It was a place free of shame. They didn't feel ashamed until "after they sinned" when they scrambled to cover themselves with fig leaves in a somewhat pathetic attempt to be clothed. (I picture the classic teenagers-scrambling-to-get-dressed when they hear the garage door opening.) But even with fig leaves, Adam and Eve still felt like shit—and were forever exiled from the beautiful, perfect place of paradise. ("Eden" is Hebrew for paradise.)

Of course a place like Eden sounds completely fictitious for infinite reasons—among them, we live in a world where life feels so hard and where shame is everywhere. We're constantly covering ourselves up—not only physically—but, perhaps more importantly, mentally and emotionally, in order to survive. We believe we cannot show our emotions and live. We believe we cannot be who we truly are. 

We hide who we are and then we feel bad internally for hiding our true selves but not brave enough to show ourselves because we are ashamed of that person so we keep hiding and then we, again, feel bad internally for hiding. This is an endless shame cycle. This is the metaphoric equivalent of scrambling to cover our emotional selves with fig leaves. It's not like the fig leaves work. Fig-leaf attire doesn't actually gets the job done, homies. You still feel exposed; you still feel ashamed.

This is the ultimate exile: not external exile from a land, rather, internal exile from yourself. 

This feeling—in hindsight—led me to make drastic life changes this year, including cultivating a meditation practice. I felt so far removed from who I knew I was. And beneath the excruciating pain of inner exile, I felt the subtle, yet persistent, longing to return. 

Here's the thing: as bad as exile is, I truly believe return is possible.

So, removing the literal lens: What if Eden wasn't a place, but, instead, was a time? Was there a time in your life when you had no shame? When everything was beautiful, peaceful, easy, and full of wonder?

For me (and, of course, I can only answer for me), there was. It was ages zero through about six years old. I remember glimpses: drawing flowers in preschool and knowing they were beautiful, touching Morning Glories and sucking on rhubarb in our backyard in Iowa, eating an infinite number of popsicles. I remember when my two younger sisters, Grace and Janice, were born. I don't quite remember this—but I know there was a time when being naked didn't matter. And I know for certain that, back then, I didn't feel like my body was wrong. I wouldn’t even have been able to grasp that concept. I wore ridiculous mismatched clothing (many photos prove this). I didn't feel too tall or like I had too many moles. I didn't feel like being female was a shortcoming. I didn't feel like I needed to wear a bra or shave my legs or pluck my eyebrows or wear mascara. I just...was.

That state, I think, is paradise. Living like you have nothing to prove. Embodying the feeling state that you are enough.

I'm willing to bet that, at some point, you had everything you needed. Is it possible to open up to the idea that maybe you still do? 

Thich Nhat Hanh says:

"If you are fully present in the here and the now, you need only to make a step or to take a breath in order to enter the Kingdom of God."

I love thinking the metaphorical Kingdom of God could be here, in this lifetime—not in some far off, far away "Heaven." I love considering that, maybe, Eden isn't an illusion; maybe the illusion is that we ever left. And yes, maybe we internally exiled ourselves...but the lovely part is this: if you are the problem, you are also the solution. 

The Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita (I'm currently reading this beautiful translation) says:

"Only the self is the self's friend.

The self alone the self's enemy."

Isn't there something empowering embedded in those 13 words? Because even though inner exile is terribly painful, you also have everything you need to end it. If you are in your own way, you can also get out of your own way. 

You always have the power to return to who you truly are.

Exile. Return. Belonging. 

And the returning can feel like paradise. 

with Love and with Light,

Joyce

p.s. Rumi: "The garden of the world has no limits, except in your mind." 

p.p.s. In Gypsy by Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks sings:

"And if I was a child and the child was enough,

Enough for me to love, enough to love."

I admit that quote is much better in the context of the song, but I simply had to include it. Also, the last line is: "It all comes down to you." [My personal favorite deity: Queen Stevie. Kidding :)]

Rightness. | rejoyce letters, vol. 25

Hi Friend, 

Although the overall theme of my European trip was to experience the homelands of my ancestors, another daily focus was embracing this challenge: to view nothing as wrong. That is, to see the rightness in every situation. 

Seeing the rightness was tough for me, as, obviously, not everything went perfectly over the course of two weeks—or, I don't know, maybe it did. I no longer think I know what cosmic perfection looks like. :) As a J.M. Barrie character says in one of his plays:

 "I am not young enough to know everything." 

So I'll just say: not everything on my trip went as planned and it was often tempting to view the things that didn't go as planned as wrong. I.e. to judge the situation.

We live in a judging world. We're trained to judge from birth, educated in the realm of the dualistic mind. The world of opposites, where everything that is positive has its negative waiting for us on the other side of the coin. Good/Evil. Pleasure/Pain. Right/Wrong. Etc.

So, it's tempting to judge events automatically—without even thinking. My new practice had three parts. When something happened I would attempt to:

a.) Pause

b.) Not judge or label the situation as wrong

c.) Decide the situation is right as is

Now, I certainly didn't always get to the last step (or even the first), but, just like with meditation, I view this lens-change not as something one "achieves" but, rather, as an ongoing practice. It's a practice I hope to continue now that I'm back home because it helped me move through the world with a little more ease.

Rumi has a lot to say about ongoing practices. In his poem The Sunrise Ruby he writes:

"Work. Keep digging your well.

Don't think about getting off from work.

Water is there somewhere.

Submit to a daily practice.

Your loyalty to that

is a ring on the door.

Keep knocking, and the joy inside 

will eventually open a window

and look out to see who's there."

In Matthew 7:7, Jesus said, "Knock and the door will be opened unto you."—but sometimes I want the door to open on the first knock, you know? I love how Rumi keeps it real with timing. Keep knocking. Eventually.

[Aside: some Bible translations say: "Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you." but the version above was the one I memorized as a child. Always nice to remember the Bible was not written in English. (Nor were Rumi's poems, for the record.)]

Now I'm going to share some examples of things on my trip which were tempting to label as "wrong." I want to be clear these are not complaints; in fact, the opposite. But not really the opposite because when you commit to seeing the rightness in everything, you essentially commit to transcending the pervasive dualistic worldview. You leave the world of opposites. You stop creating self-made "problems" and take Kierkegaard's advice to heart in real time:

"Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced." 

In short, you stop creating pain in the present. (Tolle has so much to say on this in The Power of Now.) Of course this isn't easy! But it is...simple. I'd argue it's—ultimately—easier than making every damn thing that happens in your life that slightly deviates from your expectations a new problem. 

Anyway, I can now see these trip moments as valuable teachers: 

In Cologne, it rained one day. In Prague, the famous astronomical clock was under construction and covered by a tarp to be revealed on September 28; I left Prague on September 25. In Berlin, I began menstruating at a quite inconvenient time. In Paris, it turns out the French painters' wing (the Sully) of the Louvre is closed on Monday, my last day in Europe and the day I went to the museum. In hopes of seeing Monet and based on a Louvre worker's recommendation, I walked to the Musée d'Orsay, which, it turns out, is closed on Monday in its entirety. 
It is tempting to start each of these sentences with the word "unfortunately." But must everything be judged and labeled? Must everything be categorized as "good" or "bad"? Can some things just be? Can I cultivate a little faith that I am guided and that everything is happening in perfect timing for me? Can I do this in the present moment rather than years later in hindsight? Can I see the rightness? That was my challenge, and still is.

Some of the "rightness" was instantly apparent. The rainy day in Cologne led me to spend time in an emotionally moving museum and then a beautiful church and then a cozy literary cafe where they didn't have English menus but they did have Bob Dylan playing over the speakers.

Some of the rightness is more elusive. I don't yet "know" the silver lining of not being able to see Claude Monet paintings while I was in France, but maybe that's okay. Maybe it's enough in the moment not to judge. Not to torture myself with "woe is me" narratives and just move on. (Hilariously, that day, I also walked to a restaurant that was full for lunch, another small museum that was "exceptionally closed on October 1" as per a sign taped to the door and then a creperie that was closed on Mondays. The Universe was really driving this message home!) 

But that's why it's a practice. A polishing of a lens, not flip of a switch. I will continue to knock, continue to dig my well, continue to look for the rightness in each situation. It was beautiful to see new places, and equally beautiful to see the lens through which I view the world with a little more clarity. 

My first night in Paris, I stumbled upon the Notre Dame Cathedral as the sun was setting, golden rays magnificently illuminating the beautifully intricate building. There were swarms of people taking photos. Adjusting shirts, sucking in stomachs, seeing the Notre Dame through their phones. Then, there was one girl, seated cross-legged, in the midst of the large square who was still and peaceful, looking at the building. A quote came into my head that I'd first read a year or so ago. Initially, I'd disliked it; it had felt somewhat aggressive and accusatory to me. But it came to me then in Paris, and deeply resonated. It was Wayne Dyer:

"Change the way you see things and the things you see will change." 

I sat down in the busy square, put my phone in my pocket. And I looked. 

By seeing new parts of the world, I learned to see my own world differently. And I'm starting to believe, with a little faith and patience, we can (eventually) see rightness unfolding in many more places than we initially think. 

Keep knocking.

with Love and with Light,

Joyce

p.s. I missed writing to you while I was away; I hope your October is unfolding with beauty and with ease.

Root. | rejoyce letters, vol. 24

Hi Friend, 

Tonight, I fly from NYC to Paris!! I am going to spend two weeks on a solo trip in Europe. :) I am calling it my "Root" trip. 

As I've mentioned before, there are seven Chakras, or energy centers, in the body. The first Chakra is the Root, located at the base of the spine. The Root is a center for safety, security, and basic needs. It provides a foundation for our lives—it is a place of grounding. 

Some say you need both roots and wings to thrive in life. Imagine a tree. It's branches sway in the wind, but you know under the soil there is an intricate, often massive, root system holding it in place. It is solid but flexible. It is alive and growing, and also grounded. 

One reason I'm calling this my "root" trip is I want an excuse to plan seven trips (haha), but a larger aspect is that, through this journey, I'd like to feel more grounded in who I am by acknowledging the homes of my ancestors.

I've never had much family "culture." I'm a white American, somewhat of a "mutt" when it comes to where my ancestors immigrated to the U.S. from: Germany, Czech Republic, France, England, and Ireland. But other than calling my 100% German maternal grandmother "Oma" (German for "grandma") my family had basically zero traditions tracing us back to those countries. (Also, my Oma died when I was in second grade.)

There were many Italian Americans in my hometown, and I was always envious of their seemingly endless Italy-centered family traditions. I remember in third grade or so doing a heritage project, and there were only two children in my class without an Italian flag on their posters: the only black kid in the class, and me.

I realize there are worse fates than not being Italian. [Though I can think of some families who might argue against that point. ;)] I also realize that there are millions of Americans whose ancestors were violently forced against their will to come to this country on slave ships (likely including the ancestors of the only black kid in my class). And there are millions more Americans whose ancestors fled here seeking refuge due to various forms of persecution (the relatively recent German persecution of Jewish people is worth mentioning specifically—though the word "persecution" seems a vast understatement).

It is a privilege that most of my ancestors (to my knowledge) came here by choice. In fact, my maternal grandfather's side got here the second ship after the Mayflower! (That's the English bit of me.) (For the Gilmore Girls fans: though I haven't applied, I could technically be a Daughter of the American Revolution; Emily Gilmore would be proud.) 

And still...when I was growing up, I experienced this pervasive sense of un-groundedness in regards to where I came from. Coming from five disparate far-away European countries can feel like coming from nowhere at all. 

In addition to not identifying with my ancestors' countries of origin, my family also moved around a lot in my early childhood so I didn't even identify with any specific region of the United States. I was born in Nebraska, lived in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids in Iowa, and then moved to a small depressed steel town about 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when I was seven. My parents still live there, and have built a community there, but as a kid, it often felt like we were the only ones in town who didn't have nearby aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. It seemed most of my classmates' families had lived in the area for forever. They would say things like, "My grandparents live so far away" when their grandparents lived thirty minutes away on the other side of the Ohio River. Mine lived in Maryland and Nebraska. 

Even today when people ask me where I'm from, and I obviously say Pittsburgh, I still feel the answer isn't wholly true. I know families who are fromPittsburgh. Families full of Penn State and Pitt alumni who might say "yinz" and who definitely bleed black and gold and whose grandpas and great-grandpas all worked in steel. That's not my family. 

I don't want to pitch this as some hugely damaging childhood experience—not having crystal clear roots—it wasn't. It merely surfaced every once in a while as a spurt of discomfort—an undercurrent of not truly belonging in any one place. 

Right now in my life, I am experiencing a strong desire to feel firmly grounded. Mostly I mean grounded in a spiritual or emotional sense, but I think deepening my understanding of my physical lineage could help establish this sense of groundedness. 

So, when I felt called to do solo traveling, I wanted to return to my roots. In Europe, I'm predominately visiting France, Germany, and the Czech Republic. I've never been to any of these places before, and do not speak the languages, so wish me luck. :) I am hoping this "Root" trip will be an opportunity for growth, a time to further expand my perspective, and a time to get in touch with the safety and security in who I am on physical, mental, and spiritual levels. I hope to cultivate a feeling of belonging, perhaps counterintuitively, by going alone where I've never been before.

I guess I believe that all feelings—ultimately—stem from within. And we can spend our whole lives blaming our external circumstances and our less-than-perfect childhoods for our feelings of dissatisfaction, or we can take responsibility for our own emotions, and water the inner fertile soil. We can tend to the roots that are already there inside of us, waiting to be cultivated. Roots that are eager to connect us—to the earth and to our souls and to each other. Roots that want to help us feel grounded within ourselves, if we'd only stop ignoring them. Roots that remind us: You belong now, and you have always belonged. 

As Rumi says:

"Maybe you are searching among the branches, for what only appears in the roots."

with Love and with Light, 

Joyce 

p.s. I am bringing Ann Patchett's novel Bel Canto to read on my trip, among many other books, naturally. (:

p.p.s. I won't send letters on Monday, September 24 or Monday, October 1. The "goal" of my trip is to spend each day doing exactly what I want to do...so we'll see how it unfolds. :) I fly back on October 2 and plan to write you again on October 8. All my previous letters are archived, if you're interested. Namaste. xoxo.

The Hierarchical Game. | rejoyce letters, vol. 23

Hi Friend, 

After I wrote on being a human being and not a human doing, I was reflecting on why people have a tendency to link their inner self worth with their productivity. What perpetuates this? I don't claim to know the root—but I think a huge contributing factor is our obsession with ranking one other, with winner and losers, and with measuring—stemming, I think, from our need to "accurately" rank who's "better" and "worse."

In my opinion, the very premise that someone's worth could be quantified is bullshit. 

In Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman writes:

"I know I have the best of time and space, and was never measured and never will be measured."

[Aside: I read that sentence over and over while waiting to eat pizza at Rubirosa. Here's where I again recommend Leaves of Grass; reading it is truly a visceral experience. Same goes for eating Rubirosa pizza ;)]

And yet, despite Walt's insistence on our infinitude and in our defying measurability, our society is obsessed with metrics. We measure everything.

We track the value of stocks; we follow sports teams; we follow statistics of players on sports teams; we note how many followers a celebrity has on Instagram and how many followers our ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend has on Instagram; we discuss how many copies of a book sold; we say, “That movie was ranked 98% on Rotten Tomatoes” and, “That hotel only has three stars.” And then, the awards: the Pulitzer, the Oscars, the Grammys, the Emmys, the Tonys, the SuperBowl champions, the MVP, Michelin Stars, Hollywood stars, Dancing with the Stars, the Nobel Prize, and on and on and on.

The sheer number of metrics and awards suggests their collective importance to us.

All of these metrics and awards are—after all—completely fiction. One could live one’s whole life, for example, without knowing one’s I.Q. The world would continue if the concept of the “I.Q.” had never been invented. We know this, yet, many still care about the I.Q., though it is, at its core, fiction. You could also live your entire life without knowing your weight. (Stephen and I do not own a scale, so I often go months without weighing myself.)

But rejecting the metric of "weight" is only me rejecting one metric. In order to fully be free, I believe one must reject the myth of measurability in its entirety, i.e. reject the pervasive paradigm of quantifiable success. For it's one thing to rank restaurants and companies, but it's far, far more dangerous to rank human beings.

Do you know the ancient adage: "Don't hate the player, hate the game" ? :)

Well, I say: If you hate the game, stop playing it.

It's easy to say that, but admittedly extremely difficult to drop out of a game the whole world seems to be playing. (I'd argue the only thing harder, in the long term, is continuing to play, because by playing you slowly lose your own soul.)

Yet, it can seem easier to keep playing this metric game, this game of quantifiable success, because when you reject the existing paradigm of measurable success, you also have to reject the idea that any human being could be better or worse than any other human being. On a macro level, you have to un-rank the world. On a micro level, you have to be humble.

Humility is not my strong suit, and I'm finding this shift to be a huge personal challenge. Because if I stop (subconsciously or consciously) ranking people, I am faced with this truth: I am equal to everyone else. Said another way: I am better than no one.

You might say you want "equality" politically—but can you walk onto a Subway, see a drunk man sprawled out in his own urine on one side of the train, and an obese lady eating chips on the other side of the train, and truly think: "Here, are my equals."?

I am embarrassed to say I cannot. My mind immediately judges—it's less of a coherent thought than an automatic reaction. (I am not proud of this.) I immediately feel superior than them, my fellow train companions. As if my sobriety and my thinnest, somehow, prove my better-ness. (And earlier I pretended to reject the metric of weight! Who cares if you don't own a scale, Joyce, if you see a fat person and feel, on any subconscious level, better than that person? That's missing the point entirely.)

You cannot claim that you support equality for all and then spend each day feeling superior to others.

Perhaps more ironically flawed: Feeling superior to others because you claim to believe in equality for all and they do not. (Can you see how that, in itself, is a giant contradiction?)

[For example: Thinking, "White racists think they're better than black people, and I don't think that, therefore, I'm better than white racists" is a thought on the level of the problem, not the level of the solution. The core issue of racism is that one person could believe himself superior to another person. So, if you think you're better than a racist, you are only perpetuating the ranking game. The world doesn't need people to make new rules to the existing hierarchical game; it needs people to quit the game altogether.]

And maybe the new "game" is this: one with neither winners nor losers. A game beyond what seems to be the current infrastructure of society. A life outside of the Matrix. 

As Rumi says:

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,

there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other'

doesn't make any sense."

If you can stop measuring, you can stop judging. If you stop judging, you start loving. And if you can stop measuring yourself and judging yourself —then you can extend that mentality to all others, not just others who hold your beliefs. Finally, then, you can truly see all as equals, and then, and only then, you will have dropped out of the great hierarchical game. 

It's clearly a work in progress for me—but I believe it to be the path of peace: to radically shift my own personal success paradigm. And then, one by one, we can shift the worldview. 

As Bob Marley says:

"The day you stop racing is the day you win the race."

As Yogi Bhajan says:

"If you can't see God in all, you can't see God at all."

Is there any greater freedom than quitting a game that you know, at your core, you hate? 

Is there any greater joy than seeing God in the face of every single person you see?

You were never measured, and you never will never be measured. Same goes for everyone else.

with Love and with Light,

Joyce

p.s. Lao Tzu: "Not competing, they have in all the world no competitor."

p.p.s. Eckhart Tolle: "Remember: Just as you cannot fight the darkness, so you cannot fight unconsciousness. If you try to do so, the polar opposites will become strengthened and more deeply entrenched...you will create an "enemy," and so be drawn into unconsciousness yourself...But make sure that you carry no resistance within, no hatred, no negativity. 'Love your enemies,' said Jesus, which, of course means 'have no enemies.'"

Depths. | rejoyce letters, vol. 22

Hi Friend,

I spent the long weekend at my parents’ cabin on the Allegheny River. There's something about having less (e.g. nine people, one bathroom) that makes you more conscious of what you do have. 

For most of my life, I figured I was decently knowledgeable about Pennsylvania birds and wildflowers, having lived in somewhat rural PA from ages seven to twenty-two. That is, until my parents bought the cabin in 2015 and I started visiting. My parents now know more about birds than I thought it was possible to know about birds. (Especially considering they're both engineers by training.)

When we’re sitting around the fire, my mom will say to me things like: “Do you think that was the call of a barn owl or a screech owl?” And, obviously, I haven't the faintest idea. 

This Sunday, when my dad said: “See that Osprey in the dead tree across the river?” I realized I had not a clue how an Osprey looked.

Still, I am starting to learn. I know the vibrant orange Orioles are only there for a brief stint in springtime, eating the orange halves my dad leaves out on a small plastic table in the yard just for them. And I know when we walked the trail in May we saw hundreds of blooming trilliums but, by late August, they’re long gone. Now, we bike by fields of tall, shining goldenrods, and the trail is lined by Queen Anne’s lace (which always reminds me of Bob Dylan's song You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go).

And though the brilliant Indigo Buntings of springtime no longer frequent the bird feeder, the Goldfinch convene both in May and in August and all the months between, swarming the feeder each morning as my dad hangs it outside. (He puts it in the shed at night ever since a brown bear started opening it and eating the birdseed after dark.)

There’s something about learning more about the external world that makes me want to know myself more deeply—as if nature compels me to explore my inner landscape, the tides of my mind, the rhythms of my heart, the seasons of my life. 

I am finally realizing that, for so long, I longed for others to wholly understand me, and, yet, I didn't even wholly understand myself; I hardly knew myself at all. 

Just like, before the cabin, I could hardly distinguish a soaring hawk from circling vulture, for so long, I could hardly tell within myself what exactly I was feeling, much less why I was feeling what I was feeling. Equally mysterious was why I was thinking what I was thinking or doing what I was doing.

Yet, I maintained the underlying vague desire that others should meet my needs entirely. That they (and by 'they' I mean everyone) should treat me exactlyas I desired to be treated. (Though, if pressed, I couldn’t really articulate what that was.)

Simone Weil says: 

"It is a fault to wish to be understood before we have made ourselves clear to ourselves."

And Rumi says:

"Your heart is the size of an ocean. Go find yourself in its hidden depths."

The more I learn about birds and flowers, the more I realize there is to learn, and there’s something amazing about that—that my whole life I was surrounded by these blossoming and flying creations that I never bothered to truly see. That I needn't travel to the heart of the Amazon to be amazed by the natural world, maybe I could just look out my window attentively. I feel the same way about self-exploration; the more I learn about me, the more there is to know. The more doors I open, the more doors there are. 

And this brings about not a feeling of overwhelm, but a sense of wonder at the depths that exist. Depths that have certainly always been there, but have been hidden in plain sight. 

Some days, it feels as miraculous as the camouflaged Great Blue Heron magically appearing and soaring from the stones of the river bank elegantly across the water.

Because if there's one thing I've never wanted, it is a shallow life.

with Love and with Light, 

Joyce

p.s. I began reading poet Mary Oliver’s book of essays called Upstream over the weekend and I love it so far. If you've never read Mary Oliver, this poemis a nice starting place. (That last line gets me every time.)

Nonlinear. | rejoyce letters, vol. 21

 

Hi Friend, 

I am starting to re-conceptualize how I think about time. It began with patience. Once I slowed down and started believing perfect timing was at work for me, my perspective on time made a notable shift. 

Right after I wrote this letter on patience I discovered this quote I love by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

"Adopt the pace of nature: Her secret is patience." 

[Aside: This happens a lot: Right after I send out a letter on a topic, I come across a quote that seems perfect for the already-sent letter. My challenge is to look at these findings not as regrets or missed opportunities, but to look at them as beautiful synchronicities. Nods that I am on the right path. And, also, as humbling reminders that I've only just begun the journey and have much more to learn. Really, the challenge is the same: to believe that even the smallest things are happening in perfect timing.]

Beginning to cultivate patience (which is still a work in progress) led me to view time through a different lens. Our cultural obsession with clock time encourages us to think of time very linearly: as if everything (every moment, every life) has a discrete start point and a discrete end point. Since clock time is such a constant presence in our lives, thinking of it as exclusively linearly can cause us to start viewing everything as linear. As if life is a big trip from discrete Point A > discrete Point B >  discrete Point C and this big linear trip is full of smaller linear trips from A > B > C along the way. 

I guess I simply no longer believe life is like that. I believe life is nonlinear. 

One example is friendship. You know those people who say somewhat boastfully, "We've been friends since first grade" as if linear time alone is the key ingredient to deep, meaningful relationships? Obviously, long-term friendships spanning decades can be really fulfilling. But also, there's still the chance you have yet to meet the greatest friend of your life. And if you can open yourself up to the idea that linear time is not the most important thing, you give new friendships a chance to deepen and grow quickly—unrestrained by the artificial bounds of clock time.

Another example is healing. Probably the biggest takeaway I've had from inner healing work is this: You don't heal linearly. There is no "healing checklist." It's not like: Well, all my elementary school issues are healed, now it's time to heal middle school. Not at all. You have to follow the energy. 

Probably the most profound example, at least to me, is creativity. I've spent years toiling away on novel manuscripts that, when completed, were pretty mediocre...but some of the best writing I've ever done has just come to me. In a flash. We are essentially taught that the longer you work on something, the better it is. (Because we are taught to worship linear time—and even, sometimes, to value ourselves at an hourly rate, which is absurd.) But with writing, for me, linear time has next to nothing to do with my creative outputs. Patience is key—but hours logged? Not at all. Who even cares? Would you like your favorite novel any less if you discovered the author wrote it twelve hours rather than twelve years? 

But what is an alternative to linear time? Circular time. Circular time is pervasive in nature. [It's almost like this Emerson dude was onto something. ;)] Consider sunrises, sunsets, seasons. Trees shedding their leaves each autumn and budding each spring. The phases of the moon. The tides. The earth orbiting the sun. 

For all of these natural occurrences, there is truly no beginning and no ending. The tides are never "over." The moon is never "done." We intellectually know that when a sunset is "over" from our (very limited) perspective that the sun is still setting elsewhere for others. When you take the world view, the sun never stops rising or setting. It is perpetual—no beginning, no ending. 

And we don't say, "Well guys, that was a great summer solstice, but now we're done with that for forever. Check summer solstice off the list!" Of course not. We know nature comes back, perpetually returns—we know life moves not in lines but in circles. 

[Disney sponsored aside (jk): Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba. Sithi uhm ingonyama. :) Did you know the opening lines to Lion King's Circle of Life are written in a language called Zulu spoken by an estimated nine million people, most of whom live in South Africa?]

So if we know nature lives in circles and in seasons—why can't we? Can we start viewing our human lives as a part of the natural world rather than separate from it? Can we adopt the pace of nature?

If we can, I think we may begin experiencing life with a limitless, perpetual quality—and our relationships and our creativity can transcend into an infinite realm. The realm of the sun.

Rumi: "To praise the sun is to praise your own eyes."

with Love and with (sun) Light,

Joyce

p.s. I read Ishmael by Daniel Quinn at the end of 2016, and I've recently been wanting to re-read it with my new perspectives. It's a philosophical novel that really made me think—about people, about creation, about the lies of our culture, about nature, about time. I highly recommend it.

p.p.s. Although I do think linear time is an illusion, and the present moment is all we ever have, I want to note that 30 years ago tomorrow there was a particularly special present moment for me, though I wasn't there physically. On 8.28.88 my husband, Stephen, was born in Rochester, NY and held down the fort for me until I entered the world a few months later in Omaha, NE. :) About 21 years later, we fell in love in Lewisburg, PA, got married 27 years later in Madison, WI and now live together in Brooklyn, NY. If that's not a miracle, what is? Happy 30th, Stephen! My Love for you is as infinite as the circle I wear around my finger. xoxo. c