“Find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing. For to miss the joy is to miss all.” *Robert Louis Stevenson*
Joy is yours for the taking!
Joy is everywhere. It is yours for the taking. Joy is a choice.
For six weeks, I have been afflicted with solid migraines that do not respond to treatment.
Nothing new. Migraines have been a fixture in my life for the past six years. I have enjoyed brief periods of wellness, only to be struck by another bout of the curse.
As much as I dislike IVs and my veins resist the painful pinching of the needles, I realized that I was running out of options and needed to bite the bullet if I wanted to be well enough to attend a lawyers’ conference next week.
As I made my way into my neurologist’s infusion room, the nurse, Tracy, greeted me cheerfully.
There were three other patients in the room. Smiling patients. Chatting patients. Everybody was happy discussing their weekend plans.
Your thoughts are the tickets to freedom and joy
And it dawned on me that illness doesn’t mean you cannot be happy. You have the choice to be happy in spite of it all. Your thoughts are your tickets to freedom and joy.
I could have tormented myself with thoughts about the prickly IV or with fear that the treatment would once again fail. I could have complained about the pain that doesn’t seem to end or mourned the time that has been wasted in its wake and that “important” things are not getting done.
Instead, I chose to surrender to the moment. I delighted in talking to the other patients and crunching on a bag of Doritos that tasted oh, so good! I enjoyed relaxing comfortably and having time to myself, a luxury I seldom have when I am feeling well. And before I knew it, the treatment was finished, and I was free to go home.
A lot of people cannot understand how I remain serene in the face of chronic pain.
We are conditioned to believe that joy can only be experienced when the circumstances are right—when the sun is shining, when I have the perfect job, find the right partner, when I have children and then when the children grow up.
This limiting belief robs us of the blessing of living in a state of joy in the midst of difficult circumstances: adversity, change, illness and loss.
Joy is a state of mind
The plain truth is that joy is a state of mind that can be attained with the awareness that every moment is a gift that must be enjoyed to the fullest, because it is not going to repeat itself. Every moment brings an opportunity to gain insights, share a kind word, feel and express love and revel in “the aliveness.”
Whether you are going through illness, divorce, unemployment or the loss of a loved one, know that you always have the choice to feel joy. And my companions in the infusion room are living proof of it.
For the record, the treatment didn’t work, and I continue to be in pain. But I am not giving up. This, too, shall pass. And I when it does, I will be happy too!
Sonia
Frontera is a family attorney, empowerment trainer and full-time doggie mom. She is the proud survivor of an unhappy marriage, a liberating divorce and is living proof that there’s life after separation. Sonia is the author of the #1 bestseller “Solve the Divorce Dilemma: Do You Keep Your Husband or Do You Post Him on Craigslist?”
She loves to hear from readers and can be reached at her internet home.
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