The Amyra Records

Over the weekend, I was sharing with friends that I had just discovered a new life mission: to experience spiritual joy at every moment.  In the past, I had spent years figuring out my life mission, and in the end, I always came out with something to change the world or that involved making some unique contribution.  Those are all very well, but as I think about it now, they smacked of arrogance – which suggests that I had not reached beyond the ego in coming up with what I’m here to do.

Spiritual joy is, to me, the most sublime of human experience.  Some qualification is needed for the term, and I begin by making clear what it is not.  It is not about feeling happy all the time, or looking cheerful by putting on a big, smiley face.  Rather, spiritual joy is a deep emotional experience that takes you far into yourself and expands your sense of beingness in the Universe.  You can feel spiritual joy even when you are sad or undergoing some emotionally tough experience.  This type of joy is akin to opening a big book containing sacred knowledge about life; it is enlightening and it fills us with wonder.

If I focus my experience on feeling spiritual joy, then the roads and doors to spiritual joy must present themselves to me.  It might be through taking certain actions that are life-changing or world-changing.  But I am more interested in making use of every moment as an opportunity to experience spiritual joy – to sense the perpetual flow of movement in every moment, especially in my own growth.

What I’ve gained from learning to appreciate spiritual joy is that there really is so much to enjoy about life.  In focusing on spiritual joy, it’s taught me to transcend low-level struggles and to see the larger context.  Joy is a powerful, moving energy that can erase all self-doubts and inadequacies.  After all, we doubt ourselves and feel inadequate in reference to a limited world which we have constructed and which isn’t the whole picture at all.  When we immerse in spiritual joy, it takes us out of the box and into the space where everything is possible.  The more we experience spiritual joy, the more we break down the old programming that is hard-wired into our system and change our whole experience of life.

Paradoxically, indulging in spiritual joy does not make me all floaty and airy; it makes me feel more grounded.  Although it takes you ‘out there’, it does so by expanding your presence rather than by displacing your energy.  Meaning that your energy remains firmly rooted in the ground as your consciousness expands.  As your consciousness expands, you are filled with more presence.  As your presence becomes more solid, you are more aware of your earthly surroundings and the connectedness between all things.  Your existence isn’t displaced but enhanced.

This gives a new flavour to the term ‘life mission’.  For me, it is quite liberating to now look at my mission as simply to feel spiritual joy rather than to bring about some changes to my environment.  Regardless of my environment, I can still feel spiritual joy.  It teaches me to appreciate every moment and to exercise my power of choice in how I experience my world.

Having a ‘beingness’ as a life mission allows us to tap into the part of us that is in control – the part that makes the choice whether to experience something in one way or another.  When we focus on and look out for something that is readily there, we experience it.  This is true for most things in life, including feelings of abundance and excitement.

So, if the life mission or life purpose you have carefully crafted no longer inspires you, it may be worthwhile to reexamine your place in your world.  If you have evolved to a more freeing way of being but your ego is holding on to old attachments, it may be time to let go of them.  Only you have the power to let go of things, it cannot be done for you – and in so doing you will open up your world to greater joy.

As a counsellor, I’m always fascinated by the choice of words that people use when describing the process of change that is taking place for them.  Fascinated, because any new variation I hear enriches my experience of working with people.  I’ve always been intensely interested in what motivates people and in learning about the complex human psyche.  One thing I’ve grown to appreciate is the availability of language in connecting one’s experience with one’s self-awareness.

In my work, I find that people don’t always have fluency in the emotional language.  Nowadays, largely due to the rise in popularity of self-help books, audio tapes, seminars and TV programmes, people are more exposed to emotion-speak.  But when it comes to speaking about one’s own emotions, people still tend to struggle.  In fact, the process of struggling to find the right words is very much a part of the therapeutic process.  There is, of course, a danger of labelling one’s experience with a general concept that has little to do with what one is actually experiencing, but a skilled therapist would be able to pick up on an inauthentic expression and explore with the client what they are actually experiencing.  A skilled therapist listens emotionally and intuitively to what is being expressed by a client – so a lack of emotional connection on the part of the client would seldom go unnoticed.

This week, I’ve heard a client who’d been struggling with connecting to their feelings use the word “strange” to describe how they felt.  I was interested because it told me that the client had now shifted into change.  Strange isn’t bad – it simply signifies a change taking place.  To change, you need to be out of your comfort zone, and that can feel very strange indeed.  You’re in new territory, after all.  Anything new that you do will take you to a place of feeling strange for a while until you familiarise with your new environment and make some sense out of it.

Strange is good.  A child exploring a world of magical fantasy would find that world strange.  It implies a level of acceptance of the reality of that world and a certain belief in something positive about it.  The strangeness is in the unsure footing the child has in a world that promises great things.  The way of the curious child is the way we adults should approach change – with a certain expectancy for our eyes to be opened to something wildly new and exciting.

We tend to view change as uncomfortable, and that we’re stuck in it.  It’s worth reminding ourselves that what is, no matter how painful it seems right now, can transition into something more comfortable, if we keep moving along with the fundamental energy that is ever changing.  A shift in your outlook about being in the realm of change can transition you quicker into the new phase where you can now enjoy the change that has taken place.

Being in the realm of change – the place of discomfort, of strangeness – is a powerful phase where creativity is ripe to express itself in any direction.  Paradoxically, the more you relax into the strangeness, the more control you have over the outcome of change.  When you’re relaxed, you stop fighting the process of change and allow a new truth to be revealed to you.  This new truth will enlighten your next move and clarify your actions from here on.

Some days, I wake up feeling strange, and I don’t have many words beyond that to describe how I am feeling.  I don’t like it or dislike it, I just know that I’m on the verge of a new experience.  It’s like wearing a thin nylon sock on one foot and a woolly sock on the other – something will happen to correct that misalignment and it may involve pushing everything else into misalignment as well.  I sometimes use the word “weird” but I will stick to “strange” from now on.  I like strange.  Strange is good.