Smiling Turtles, Poops, and Joy in Dope-amine
There may be pain in the night, but joy comes in the morning.
Trying to keep things simple and sweet for the 3rd post (reposting late again because I’ve been traveling!).
Last Thursday, just as I was cutting up chunks of pineapple using the “slow” method (just with a knife and my bare hands), instead of using this item we have at home (that does it in a much quicker, easier fashion), my father came home. He noticed my method, and I explained that sometimes I just like the simpler, more challenging ways of doing things. It was therapeutic. More fulfilling. He said I reminded him of old people cutting up fruit, or cooking, or doing anything really. He mentioned these old people “really get joy from doing things the slow way”.
That reminded me of this turtle statue that I passed by and took a picture of this week on a walk around the neighborhood. Usually I go on a quick run, simultaneously listening to a podcast and not really noticing anything around me, but this time I took a stroll to the nearby park and spent some time observing the grass moving and the sun-shadows on the pavement. That inspired me to start free-styling, and I did, until the kids got out of school and I felt a little to self-conscious to keep dancing (LOL). It was a nice breather and I felt the word “renewed” come to my mind. Yeah, I definitely felt renewed that day.
The reason why I felt renewed was because of what had happened the night before, and how things had slightly, yet also significantly changed, afterwards:
I had gotten into one of the biggest arguments with my mother. I haven’t felt that painfully broken or seen my mother that upset in a long time. It all happened because I truthfully mentioned that I was nervous about our upcoming family trip to Spain. We hadn’t traveled together abroad in over 7 years, and any short-term, U.S. trips always led to huge arguments centered on my past mental disorder. You could imagine how little hope I had for this trip, which was going to be 10 days long.
My mom surprisingly had so much confidence towards this trip, and she was angry that I couldn’t just “choose to be courageous”. Her words made me remember the phrase “choose joy” - I’ve often times heard this phrase on the Houston KSBJ Christian radio, or spoke with friends on how “joy is a choice”. My mom’s words made me realize that “courage” can also be a choice, and in fact, it is actually a prerequisite for joy. I’ve come up with other prerequisites too, and boiled them down to these four…
The 4 prerequisites you need to have to experience joy are:
Positivity (a perspective of life that is anything but jaded or hopeless).
Love (the capacity to care about something or someone)
Audacity (courage, pretty straightforward)
“Y” (“why”, or curiosity for life)
Which makes up the acronym. “PLAY”. So basically, to feel joy, you need to play.
To feel joy, you need to view life from a positive, “it can get better”perspective, you need to have love in your heart, you need to act with courage, and you need a mind that is curious about things / open to learning.
A perspective shift is a choice of courage as well - I don’t think we all can be happy or see positively at times, which is why community and friends are important. Friends and community remind us of what we feel happy doing and who we feel loved by. But we can’t rely on others to make us happier: for example, I know my mom feels that burden to make me feel better every time she sees me sad. But that burden shouldn’t be on her.
I’m not saying I need to feel happy when I’m not happy. But I can’t be letting other people feel like they have to be the strong, courageous ones to help me feel better. If I don’t give them, or myself the confidence that I won’t drag out my sadness and that I can quickly and courageously choose joy for myself, then I’m doing nobody a service.
My joy and pain aren’t limited to myself - I can be a vessel of light, or a tunnel to darkness. What matters is which I choose to spread to others.
My three joys of the week:
Joy is resolution and self-work
I’ve never struggled with multitasking before. I’ve always had a harder time taking things slower, and one at a time. I tend to think in terms of days, not weeks, or even years.
So it was really joyful to talk to a friend from my Houston church and hear how he had spent the past 4 years not in a relationship and working on himself.
It inspired me to also make a resolution to work on myself — truly work on myself —for the next 4 years. Work on fixing my unproductive thoughts, social media habits, and career/professional stagnancy. Work on not being consumed with thoughts about love or relationships, yet also not shying away from healthy relationships and giving more to these friendships.
For the first time in all my history of making New Year’s resolutions, I told myself that I was going to delete Instagram for two months, until the end of the year. It was already feeding in this unhealthy habit. I think my dopamine levels were relying on it for energy, stimulation, and inspiration. Also the time suck when you start subconsciously comparing yourself to others, or going down “research rabbit holes”, was just getting to me. So, while I haven’t publicly announced this yet (you guys are the first to know of my exit), it will happen very very soon. Hopefully.
Joy in getting rid of your shit (literally, lol)
I remember waking up to the sound of the garage door at 7am, and I knew that was my mother driving to work. This day was the day after our fight, and that meant my mom had gotten less than 5 hours of sleep. I prayed for her safety and for her to stay awake during her drive.
Prior to that day, I had been extremely constipated, which I think was leading to my feeling moodier and grumpier at home. After taking some medicine last night, I finally was able to poop in the morning after my mom left for work, and wow, I felt TONS lighter. My mood naturally got lighter as well. When my mother came back home, I mentioned to her that she seemed kinder. She responded that, interestingly enough, she didn’t really act any different than before (if anything, she was moodier because she had only gotten 5 hours of sleep), but suggested that perhaps, before, my lens on life was more negative; now, after pooping and subsequently feeling better, the tint on my lens had gotten brighter. That might have been why the world around me, including my mother’s actions, seemed more positive too.
I contemplated that possibility: it’s true that the effects of how we feel about ourselves could really color how we react to other people’s actions. I agreed with my mother.
If we feel like shit, we see others like shit. If we feel good, we see others as good.
Joy is showing love more, and therefore seeing love more
I honestly don’t remember much about last week except for the fact that our family went through a fight that both wrecked our hearts and also made us more loving towards each other. I don’t know if there’s much joy to the initial pain, but the transformation was certainly baffling and worthy to note. I think the joy came from the whole process of seeing us hurt each other, recognizing we’d hurt each other, understanding in what specific ways we’d hurt each other, and making the effort to address these points and show more love to each other. For example, I started cleaning up the house and helping with cooking more, my dad starting sharing happy news to me and my mom more, my mother starting smiling more and talking in a sweeter tone, rather than rushing to defensive accusations.
To me, the joy I got was being able to feel our relationship grow in a more empathetic, connected direction. Even though there were shorter moments of joy and deeper moments of pain during the week, I think the joy of noticing these roller coaster changes was, in itself, really rewarding. In addition, I found that practicing acceptance, staying calm during the frustrating moments, and living with the reality that life really is not in our control can help bring out a joyful heart.
Overall, I think the ways I increased my joy this week can be applied to us all: like manage our internal gut bacteria (aka try to have good poops), re-shift our perspective to see things with a brighter outlook, and not rush into certain reckless emotions or behaviors.
If we take things slower and kinder, then joy might naturally flow out into our actions. Then we can start serving the people closest to us, like our family members, not because it feels like a chore, but because it feels like play.
Two quotes:
From an article in the Atlantic (which I highly recommend reading):
From an affirmations app I have on my phone:
One question:
What is keeping you joy-“constipated”? (joystipated?)
LOL but in all seriousness, what is preventing you from experiencing joy, and why haven’t you done anything to flush it out yet?
Two movement exercises:
Come up and try 3 different ways to get down and get up. Literally from butt on the ground to butt off the ground. Increasing “variability” will help you become not just a better athlete but a better creative.
Go to a playground. Any playground. And just play on it. My favorite thing to do as kid was either to swing for hours or climb the monkey bars. Feel what it’s like to move in this different way. It might feel random in the moment, but you never know how refreshed you might feel after doing it, or where it will be used in the future. (I’ve definitely accidentally incorporated my swinging leg motions into my freestyle, and now it’s one of my strengths and favorite moments in choreography).
Bonus: try to stand in the morning when you work rather than sitting down. Note how it affects your concentration, energy, and mood.
Three resources around joy:
Dopamine video: I’m halfway through with watching (it’s a solid 2-3 hour lecture haha), but this video has utterly transformed how I want to live life. I used to think living in NYC was amazing, but I’ve started to notice this crippling pattern: after a couple weeks, or even days, the novelty of NYC will rub off and I’ll forget all about how happy I felt the first day I arrived. It’s definitely related to the amount and intensity of dopamine-giving activities I pack into every day of the week while living in the city. Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this video, but in terms of what I got from it, it’s this:
Don’t pack every day with "pleasure giving” activities, even if they don’t seem as stimulating as your weekend activities. Even having a meal with different friends every night, or working out every night, will make the weekend “higher-dopamine, feel-good” activities more muted. The relative dopamine level you get from something is affected by what you experience prior to it. It’s always better to constantly come back to a base of neutral (in your both your mental expectation of things, as well as your quantity of physical stimulants like coffee, sex, etc.) — if you’re consistently stimulated, your dopamine base keeps increasing and things you previously enjoyed will no longer be enough to satisfy you. Even things that previously motivated you will have less of an effect. How sad and unsustainable is that? I personally do not want to feed my greed or end up losing more motivation!
This was such a great video to help remind me of that. Even though I don’t believe joy is just a product of dopamine levels (it’s more complicated than that), dopamine helps us have the prerequisites (positive outlook, love, courage, and curiosity) for experiencing joy.
The Maze Runner: I love when I find a good book, and I can’t believe how long it has been since I last experienced this joy of reading/learning.
I just finished reading this book for the first time and it is so good. I could barely put it down on the subways, airplanes, and right before going to sleep. The book reminded me that it’s never too late to read young adult fiction again. In fact, fiction is one of the best resources for learning empathy. Even nonfiction books utilize a “fictional” story to explain systematic concepts because, well, that’s just how we understand life best.
British baking shows are the absolute best.
Other fun joys of the week:
Well, that is all for now! Thank you all again for being patient with my erratic posting schedule (I promise I’m working on it) and for reading. I’ll catch you in next week’s LOTJ post (ideally this Thursday lol)! 🌻🙂🙏
May these words be a blessing to you. May you find wisdom and joy in reading them. May we stay in touch, friend, and may you continue to seek beauty in this world.
Sending you lots of energy,
Lillian
—I dedicate this newsletter to the readers who seek joy. To those I’ve known for awhile and the new ones who I’m really excited to meet. To those who have or will appreciate the joy that I spread to this world.
To you, dear reader, who wants to hear what’s going on in my life, and who also wants to know more about how I am joyful and how God helps me stay joyful, thank you for subscribing!
Why I am joyful also comes from you. Because you choose to engage with me and appreciate the content that I create. That even one person out there is giving me energy right now, or praying for me, or just reading these words, moves me. Thank you so much. —