Orienting to Joy
Reclaiming your life in the midst of information overload…
We exist in a time of inundation. Whether positive or negative, healthy, helpful or harmful, we can peruse the details of hundreds, even thousands, of people’s lives, opinions, creativity, and projections. This can feel inspiring to your own creative process and life journey, and it can dull our life force or exacerbate our pain. In my own experience, I could not have healed an illness without the sharing of information outside of what I was told by my doctors; yet, I still often feel like the boundaries between myself and the myriad of others blur when I spend casual time on social media (as opposed to directive health research).
Something that I have been aware of in the past two years is that, in order to be sensitive to the intense suffering of others, there is pressure to keep our joy to ourselves. I get this directive in a big way. There is SO much happening in the world that is beyond devastating — war, starvation, abuse, climate catastrophe and the perpetuation of excavation of our Earth, the facing of the crimes of colonization, not to mention the impact of a pandemic and our individual challenges. Our world is awakening to the impact of personal and collective trauma, and we are learning how to deeply acknowledge the injustices of oppression that impact so many folks in our community, city, country, and world. This is such important work we must all be engaged in.
And, we can (must?) do this work in big and important ways off of instagram. If posting as a form of activism works for you, amazing! This form of sharing information certainly has some impact.
In my own life, I had to claim my activism work in real life. My day-to-day is immersed in disability justice and anti-racism work, and supporting individuals through the trauma and impact of the colonization of Canada. This work has been challenging, and in order for this challenging work to be effective, joy is essential. When we are engaged in change work within our communities, laughter, connection, embodiment, love, and support are integral to the change we are seeking — otherwise what are we actually moving towards?!
In my own family and our healing, orienting towards joy has become a vital practice. While I am still learning that this is healthy and allowed and impactful, I continue to remind myself of what teachers continue to share — that joy is our true nature, and that by remembering our true nature, suffering is alleviated. When we are in joy, there is a ripple effect to those closest to us and beyond.
So, how do we orient towards joy?
There are many ways to truly touch this vitality within us. In somatics, it is believed that joy emerges as we release the charge of trauma and titrate towards ventral vagal and low-toned dorsal states. In other words, as we engage in embodiment practices through which we learn to be with ourselves, our experience, fully, joy emerges naturally.
Some of these practices include:
Tracking the charge: Noticing our internal experience through increasing awareness of the sensations within our body (deepening interoceptive awareness and understanding our activation cycles).
Scanning for safety, comfort or ease: Scanning the body for a place or places that are experiencing safety (or simply the absence of activation), comfort, or ease. This can be a prominent sensation in your body (say in a limb or a larger part of your sensory awareness) or within the minutia of your body (like in a toe, or a patch of skin).
Blending: The turning towards whatever is occurring in the moment. Whatever sensation, feeling, emotion, or thought, we are invited to turns towards it in an embodied way, as opposed to away from it. This often looks like pausing, noticing what’s happening in the body, and allowing the body to take the shape of however it is feeling in the moment. Turning away from our activation cycles can look like any distracting activity we engage in to stay above the discomfort that might be occurring in the now.
Eliciting Emotion: This practice entails an initial embodiment connection, with tracking the charge, scanning for safety, or blending (or all three!) Once connected to a point of comfort somewhere within the body, we can slowly build our capacity to hold our awareness upon that comfort so that it grows, ripples, throughout our body and experience. Over time, we can find places of ease, joy, appreciation, and possibility, and then cultivate these to encompass our whole body. Even if it’s just for a few moments before returning to crisis or busyness, we are offering momentous shifts to our overall experience.
Orienting: The utilizing of one or more of our five senses to take in our environment. We might slowly look around our space, or feel our bodies in our chairs or in our beds, taking in scents, or the air on our skin, or even slowly eating the food we are taking in. These are all orienting practices that increase our awareness and allow our nervous system to de-activate as we have cultivated awareness of our surroundings.
Awareness: The key to all somatic or embodiment practice. Noticing, noticing, noticing. When we slowly notice what is happening within and without, we make huge physiological changes, which then can billow out into our lives of form. We can begin an awareness practice through noticing sensations within our body, images that arise, bringing attention to emotions that are present, and using our senses to fully take in our environment. Over time, awareness can move infinitely deeper!
I utilize these practices to remember a baseline of joy. This means that I take time to take in, witness, process and ACT in accordance with the pain our world, while orienting to and operating from the belief that the world is good and life is beautiful. I understand that this can sound intangible to many, as it takes time to radically undo the psyche that has experienced life as difficult. I get it. Life as primarily joyful was not my natural state of being and it did take time; yet, it has been the most important journey I have taken, which initiated because my body needed healing. I had no other option! Hence why I feel so passionate about teaching folks how to discover a baseline of joy before they get sick or find themselves in crisis.
Joy is an essential part of feeling alive, of understanding why we’re here and what our work is in the world. It is imperative to health, vitality and momentum. It is not superfluous or for the few, or for you once you have attained a certain goal or weight or income. It is for you, now.
In a world that will consistently keep you informed of the suffering, the pain, the injustice, the wrong, it is up to you, to us, to claim and practice joy, to remember a world that is thriving.
A somatic orientation practice towards joy:
Journal prompts for somatically exploring joy:
How does your body feel amidst the invitation towards joy?
Do you find it easy or difficult to return to or claim and cultivate joy after taking in information from your devices?
Do you feel like you have a right to joy, or do you feel like you are abandoning those suffering when you feel joy? The answer to this question lives in your body.
What are the sensations of joy in your body?
Do you believe joy is impactful when organizing and hopeful for change?
Mallorie Buoy
Mallorie is the founder and lead educator at Homebody School of Somatics. She currently practices as a Registered Master Somatic Movement Educator and Therapist, a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and Clinical Somatic Therapist, as well as a psychedelic-assisted therapist. With over 15 years of studying mysticism, movement, and exploring the rich truth of cosmic law, alongside the science of it all, she now teaches others to become somatic educators and therapists without the stress or overwhelm of a traditional university setting.
Explore our 500-hour ISMETA Approved Somatic Educator and Therapist Training at homebodyhealing.org.