Tag: joy

Posted in musings

stimming for joy

Posted on by kristinabean

I stimmed today, for the pure joy of it.

I shook my hands back and forth like there was a vibrato in my wrists; I made waves through the air like the swirling lines of a dancing ribbon; I watched my fingers sparkle against the sky.

We were at the park; a storm was rolling in and the air was cool and crisp, with a bite to the wind. I was pushing Aubade and Limerick on the swings, feeling like I could fly with them, happy in the weather and the hours we’d been at the park already and the laughter bubbling from them as they swung. I would run towards them as they flew backwards, then dart backwards out of the way just before they could swing forwards and crash into me, and they would laugh so hard they could hardly catch a breath. Aubade would crow, “Three!” and I would push her three times, each one bigger than the last, so the third push would make her erupt with glee. And as the happiness ran through me it ran to my hands, and I chose to let it be instead of shutting it down, and I found as my hands danced in response to my happiness they also made it grow, until I was as completely blissful as I have ever been as far back as I can remember.

Normally, I have my body on some sort of lockdown – I can feel an impulse to move and then before I even have time to process it there is a counter signal to hold still. Normally, the only things that get through this lockdown are the stims that I need to cope with my anxiety or the stims that occur when I’m thinking hard enough about something else that I don’t notice what my body is doing. In other words, I let my body process and express my negative or neutral emotional states (at least to some extent, because I have learned that it is important for my mental health), but I prevent it from feeling my joy.

I’m starting to think, now, that the stimming of my happiness may also be important for my mental health. I have walked the thought paths of depression for so many years, always feeling inadequate, always feeling like I was carrying a nameless secret that would make people reject me if they found out, always shutting down my happiness from reaching my body so that even the moments of the most joy and beauty were tinged with sorrow. But here my body is ready and waiting to give to me the gift of happiness – of taking my happiness and escalating it, elevating it, prolonging it – able to protect me from the darkness of those roads, if only I am willing to let it do so.

I stimmed today, for the pure joy of it. I hope I can feel free and confident enough to do it again.

Posted in sqt

{sqt} – reclaiming joy

Posted on by kristinabean

I noticed this week that my children never want to go to bed, because they are just having so much fun and don’t want the day to end, and they wake up each morning full of excitement about the day ahead.

My husband and I, on the other hand, have entered that exhausted parent state where we spend all day waiting for night to come so we can have some quiet space and rest. It makes sense that we end up there, but constantly looking forward to the evening has a tendency to rob the day of its joy.

How can I reclaim some of that joy I had as a child about the new day ahead of me, full of potential for discovery and adventure, for beauty and love?

I’m not entirely sure, but today’s seven quick takes are going to be some ideas I want to implement in my own life this upcoming week. Head over to This Ain’t the Lyceum for the rest of the {sqt} link-up!

  1. Reframe the moment: when something is irritating or inconveniencing me, is there a way to look at the situation through different eyes? For example, when one of my children is whining and flopping around about something, I tend to be instantly triggered into frustration. I want to yell at them to pick themselves up and show some independence! At the very least I want to ignore them until they stop whining. But though that is my automatic response, a change in perspective can help me build a more compassionate and helpful response. If I can hear the whining and think, “here is an opportunity for me to love and serve this child like God loves and serves me,” then I can help them with their needs and wants with more gentleness and joy (although I will still ask them to try using a different tone of voice!)
  2. Pause: this goes along with the first point, since a pause can be a good time to try to reframe a situation. But it is good and useful all on its own, also. Instead of coasting through my day on autopilot, pausing for all sorts of reasons can help me see the beauty and feel the joy of everyday life. I can pause to watch with pride as my children take turns with their favorite water bottle; I can pause and count to ten when I hear angry voices coming from the play room to prepare my heart before they come running out to me; I can pause; I can pause when the baby has made yet another awful mess and make the cleanup something we can do together rather than something to make her feel ashamed about. I can pause to breathe out a prayer and breathe in grace when life is overwhelming.
  3. Put the phone away: except for when I’m reading a good book or listening to a good podcast (things I can mostly only do when I’m alone anyways), phone time tends to be an escape from reality and as such hinders any attempt to find joy in my current reality. It distracts me from the good and happy moments of the day especially, since those are the times when the kids are least demanding of my attention – and so it blinds me to the everyday beauty of their growing relationships and maturing character.
  4. Have a plan: if I know at the start of the day something fun that we’re going to do later, the anticipation and enjoyment of that event can easily spread throughout the rest of the day. And if we don’t follow through with the plan because we’re having too much fun doing other things, that is also a source of joy 🙂 It also eliminates some of the tension of looking forward through 12 empty hours not knowing what to expect and thus how to mentally prepare, and it breaks up the cabin fever the kids sometimes get when we’ve been in the house hiding from the heat all day. This could be some sort of outing (like the park or the library or even the grocery store), but it could also just be an activity or craft that we don’t do as often because it requires more set-up (like water balloons or finger-painting).
  5. Go to bed on time: because if I’m tired, it’s going to be a lot harder to feel happy. It’s going to be a lot harder to make the mental effort to reframe each moment. It’s going to be a lot harder to pause instead of reacting emotionally. And it’s going to be a lot harder to be present and engaged instead of sinking away into the virtual reality of my phone.
  6. Play with the kids: play is where they are finding their happiness, joy, and intellectual fulfillment right now, at this age. And they still want me to play with them a lot of the time! Essentially, they are inviting me into their happiness. All too often, being a boring (and tired) adult, I turn them down and find other “more important” tasks I need to do. But if I could let myself go – relax my body, forget the to-do list, ignore the “should’s”, suspend my disbelief – and play with them, even for a little while, I could in those moments have the presence and the joy that they have, and connect with them through it.
  7. Sing!: and dance! Move my body, stretch out of my comfortable shell, and make music! Music is so good for all emotional states – it expresses sorrow and anger, passion and despair, joy and silliness, peace and contentment, and in the expression elicits and draws out those same feelings in us, helping us experience them more deeply and process them more fully. So going back to point 4, I’m planning on having a dance party to silly kids’ songs at least one day this week, and I’m not going to care if my kids think I’m crazy!

What about you? How do you find joy when life is monotonous or stressful?

Posted in family life, musings

stepping outside of routine

Posted on by kristinabean

Change is hard. Routines give life structure and reduce anxiety. This is probably especially true in a partially autistic household…

But sometimes, you have to swallow your fears and set out into the great wide somewhere, without knowing what might happen, even expecting that something may happen for which you are utterly unprepared.

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And then, sometimes – more often than your fears would lead you to believe – there is freedom, and there is joy.

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There are places and times when the beauty and the wonder overcomes the discomfort of uncertainty or freezing water, and happiness can reign uncontested.

There are moments when the lure of the next rock over proves greater than your apprehension about the deep pool that lies between you and it, and moments when crossing over through your fears ends up being one of the best parts of your day because that thing you were so worried about is actually something you love, that brings out the adventurer in your soul.

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It takes a lot of energy to step outside the normal and comfortable patterns of everyday life; I’ve discovered that I need to plan for a day of rest and recovery afterwards. But the thrill of living more fully, more expansively, less bound by our anxieties and routines, is very often worth it.

And for me, the scent of the clean air, the caress of the warm sun, the rhythm of the flowing water, the strength and grace in every line of plant and rock – those things are always worth the effort it takes to find them.

(Many thanks to the friends who made this possible by inviting us along and giving me a safety net to quiet my anxieties! I wouldn’t have gone without the assurance of helping adult hands, since my husband wasn’t able to come along, and now I know that I am capable of handling this kind of adventure on my own in the future. Your support was invaluable for the moment as well as for the moments that are still to come.)

Posted in musings

on Mary

Posted on by kristinabean

“And Mary said,
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
‘And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
‘For He has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden.
‘For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.'”
– Luke 1:46-48

“And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary His mother,
‘…a sword will pierce through your own soul also…'”
– Luke 2:34-35

It’s an interesting juxtaposition. In the first passage, Mary has just arrived at her cousin Elizabeth’s house, and Elizabeth has just proclaimed upon seeing her (and upon feeling the unborn John leap for joy) that Mary is blessed among women. In response, Mary enters into what is known as the Magnificat, praising God for His work in her life and in the world through the coming Messiah. She has been chosen for an incredible and unique role in God’s plan of redemption, and is realizing how blessed she is.

In the second, Mary and Joseph have taken Jesus to the temple for his ritual purification/dedication, and Simeon in the Spirit greets them with rejoicing and prophesying. And in the midst of his praise for the Messiah who is finally come, in the midst of his joy, he comments to Mary that her position as Jesus’s mother will bring her great pain and sorrow.

The two – the blessing and the sorrow – are far from mutually exclusive. They are intertwined, twin fruits of one tree. In entering into God’s redemptive plan, in taking up the role He has offered her, Mary receives both the blessings and the sorrows that come with it. She is given power, responsibility, purpose and calling, and the joy of knowing God so deeply and intimately as Jesus’s mother; she has to endure the scorn of those who think she has become pregnant illegitimately, and the greater pain of watching her people reject their Messiah and murder her son. Because the world is broken, because we are scarred and stained by sin, even the highest calling and the most blessed person will experience pain and suffering; because God is entering into that brokenness to redeem and renew all things, even the deepest pain and the greatest sorrow can be woven into the beauty and joy of His plan.

Posted in musings

thoughts for the week of rejoicing and the candle of joy

Posted on by kristinabean

“Our rejoicing should not be something superficial and frivolous. It is not just a giddy laughter or a silly emotion. We rejoice rather because of our profound conviction that Jesus is the Lord and in Him is our salvation. We rejoice because of the gift of His eternal love for us. We rejoice by responding with love to the love He has shown us. We rejoice in the Truth and we seek to live in holiness of life, “preserved blameless for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.”” – Fr. Thomas Bennett

The two Christmas cards we received so far, just in time for Gaudete Sunday, adorning our messy piano

Every night the Advent candles are almost like a slap in the face, a reminder of all the ways I’ve failed to model Christ to the boys – convicting me of my impatience, selfishness, harsh tongue, and lack of compassion. But they somehow do this much more gently, with far less accompanying guilt, than my own inner drive for perfection, and I believe it is because of the One to whom they point. With every failure comes the opportunity for forgiveness; with every weary night the promise of another chance tomorrow; with every sorrow and broken moment the hope of healing, redemption, and joy. And amidst our struggles to love each other well as parent and child, husband and wife, or brother and sister, our days are suffused with the wonder and joy of Christmas, the anticipation of something great about to happen, and it helps us to pick up the pieces and go about building and rebuilding our love.

Posted in musings

fighting for joy

Posted on by kristinabean

In gardening news, Rondel and I planted most of the purple sweet potato slips this weekend! Some were a lot bigger than others, so we’ll see if they all make it or not… the orange ones will need to grow a bit more in their jars first, but we left some space for them.

In other news, I was thinking this week about how joy can’t be taken for granted but must be fought for, sometimes by tooth and nail. I can’t just assume that relationships and circumstances will happily accommodate me, nor can I assume that my response to adverse situations will be one of cheerfulness and contentment. If I want to have joy, I have to do the hard work of maintaining it in my heart.

Practically, I know that there are a few specific things that consistently impair my ability to be joyful: issues with my husband, a lack of prayer, and sleep deprivation. (Hormones also play a role but there’s less I can actively do about that!) So when the morning starts off with a misunderstanding or argument with my husband, it tends to color my whole day in blacks and grays; by default, I either become sad and depressed or bitter and resentful. If joy really matters to me, I have to be willing to swallow my pride, bury my anger, and actively seek reconciliation and understanding again. Sometimes it’s as simple as a “sorry for what happened – I love you” sort of text – and yet, while it may be simple, it sometimes seems like an impossible task.

But it all comes down to whether or not I really want to live with joy. I don’t believe that I will always be able to have joy, no matter how hard I strive for it, but I do believe that it is a very different thing to be overwhelmed by my emotions and sinful tendencies but to still be fighting with all my strength for hope and peace and joy, than to raise the white flag to the general progression of discontent and stress and insecurity without a second thought. And after all, our joy is directly commanded by God. It is not a trivial or selfish thing to fight for it, but something that pleases Him and blesses everyone around us – so it is very much worth the effort that it takes.

In the emptiness of bleak despair, He is my fullness and hope.

In the piercing pain of loneliness, He is my comforter and my companion.

In the gnawing fear of inadequacy and rejection, He is my helper and the lover of my soul.

In the storm of brokenness and sin (my own and others’) that threatens to capsize me, He is the source and sustainer of my joy, and it is under His flag that I fight when I fight for joy.