I’ve spent January talking and writing about gentle joy, the feeling of inner calm, peace, satisfaction, and contentment that we can cultivate in our daily lives. I’ve been making the case that gentle joy is possible, no matter how bleak our circumstances are.
There is nothing quite as bleak as the current state of affairs for those of us in the United States. Like many of you, I’m so angry about all of it.
On top of that, life goes on as it always does, bringing personal challenges in various measures to all of us: grief, job losses, marital stressors, sick kids, winter storms, car problems, tax bills.
So many people have responded to my offerings by noticing their experiences of gentle joy but also acknowledging those painful realities. Frankly, I think that’s powerfully honest.
More and more, when I try to tune into gentle joy or plant seeds of it for later, I’m confronted with my own hardened feelings of anger, betrayal, rage over what’s happening on the broader level. The injustice, brutality, and ratcheting violations of all the values that I hold sacred on a personal level and for my country make it so hard to find gentle joy.
And yet…what good is gentle joy if it only shows up for us when we’re comfortable, when life is going smoothly for us?
The test of our gentle joy practices is whether they’re accessible when life is a dumpster fire. When the world around us feels repelling and unrecognizable, when we are overwhelmed with our lives, when things look and feel increasingly impossible.
Can gentle joy coexist with our hottest anger?
Granted, anger and gentle joy might not exist simultaneously. But if we can move between them with fluidity, I think we’re engaged in a meaningful process of staying open to the full range of human experiences. Sometimes we feel calm; sometimes we feel agitated. Sometimes we sink into pleasure; sometimes we boil over with indignity and rage.
It’s all profoundly human. Even if there are parts of the feeling wheel that we don’t enjoy experiencing.
If I’ve given you the impression that focusing on gentle joy is an excuse to disengage from practical actions that help improve the world or that gentle joy lets you avoid certain feelings, I am deeply sorry for miscommunicating.
Gentle joy is our obligation in the face of forces that would bury us in fear, hatred, suspicion of one another, and unbridled self-interest. It’s the most powerful tool we have to rebel against the powers that be.
Let yourself be angry. Anger is a vital tool for deciding what your next steps will be. Take action. Then make space to connect with gentle joy.
Allowing yourself to be fully human and tapping into gentle joy is resistance at its finest. It proves that no one can control our minds, our hearts, our empathy, our interconnectedness.
Gentle joy can sustain us through the long journey ahead to justice and rebuilding. But only if we tap into it frequently.
It takes so much strength, courage, and fortitude to stay on the high ground, live by our ideals, and care about one another and our world. That’s something the powers that be don’t understand. And my hunch is that, because they’ve traded gentle joy for brutality, competition, and zero-sum interactions, the powers that be have vastly underestimated the power of gentle joy.
Gentle joy can be the quiet satisfaction at doing something that aligns with what you value. It can be the loud declaration of truths that certain parties would suppress. It can be the contentment of seeing how our choices have a positive impact on others.
Let your anger and your gentle joy work together to guide you through this time in our shared history. Be fully human, make the hard choices, and know that others notice and appreciate when you do.
I’m bringing our Singularly Sensitive community together for our next Soundings Circle on Monday, February 9th, from 2-3 PM Eastern. I’ve entitled it “Our Anger is an Uncomfortable Tool for Discernment.” I’m not sure this gathering will give us the same feel-good energy as the last circle where we looked at gentle joy, but I’m certain that we need to get more comfortable with our anger. It’s part of what guides us to know how to move forward, just as gentle joy can do. I hope you’ll join me.
Stay open to your anger. Choose gentle joy when possible. I trust your deep-thinking mind to handle that seeming paradox with ease. The world is counting on people like us who can hold both anger and gentle joy.
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