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Joy
Joy is a primary organizing principle of reality. Joy organizes our energy to harmonize with our highest self and greatest potential. Joy is our birthright. Still, few of us feel joy on a daily basis.
Without joy we are buffeted in the torrents of emotions that connect us to our past and to patterns that no longer serve us. We create our reality in terms of our inner turmoil and drama. We begin to believe this is all there is. We begin to live in the illusion that our emotions are who we are. We define ourselves by the emotional ebbs and flows within us. We become puppets to our emotions. The situations in our lives, and the emotions they create within us, rule us. There is another way---Joy.
Joy is a healer of the past and an organizer of higher patterns for our being and becoming. Joy is a connection to the divine plan. We were created in joy. In turn, it is our highest calling to create in joy. A daily engagement of joy is essential to well being. When joy focuses our creation of each day it begins to re-pattern our thoughts, feelings, actions and interactions. Joy serves to connect our daily creation with that of a divine creation. In a sense, joy is the energy of God. Joy can be our energy as well.
Experimenting with Energy Fields
I began my work with joy when I was channeling information about the energy fields that are within and around everything. Everything is energy. All energy is patterned in fields of relationships. This notion of energy and fields is expressed in modern physics and in most metaphysical disciplines as a primary descriptor of reality. While channeling information about (and experimenting with) the fields of energy in my life I learned some amazing things. Primary to these were the lessons on joy shared here.
One night as I was going to sleep, I noticed a strange phenomenon in my dark bedroom. The air seemed to be thick with energy. I felt as though I was seeing through everything in the room to view its essential nature as energy. I tried to blink away the vision, but it persisted. I looked around the room and saw how the energy was patterned to form the objects in my room-- the dresser, chairs and so on.
More amazingly, the energy was patterned even in the "empty spaces." I was enmeshed in patterns of energy. It seemed to me that since certain patterns of energy formed ordinary objects that it must be forming something as well in those patterns of "empty space." To understand it, I began to experiment with the patterns of creation in the spaces.
I tried several experiments. First, I tried to see how electricity in my room affected the patterns of the empty space. I tried to distinguish if the pattern of space was different in any way around objects that were plugged into the house electrical system and/ or using electrical power. I turned the fan on and off. I watched carefully around the clock. I could see that the electrical appliances did have a sort of compact energy field or "glow." Somewhere in the process of my experiments that night I ceased to see the energy in the room and I went to sleep.
Several nights later the phenomenon of my seeing the ambient energy of the room returned. I decided to see how my thoughts and feelings affected the space. First, I tried to see what memories of old events would create in the energy field. When I brought to mind an old event the energy around me conformed into a swirling counterclockwise vortex. I created this effect repeatedly. I tried different memories from different time periods of my life. I also tried memories with high emotion and those with little or no emotion attached. It appeared that the energy vortexes were more intense and clearly formed for highly emotional memories. Still, all memories created a counterclockwise vortex.
I reasoned that if past memories created a counterclockwise vortex that thoughts about the future might create a clockwise vortex. However, when I tried to create future thoughts they had little or no effect on the pattern of energy in the room. Only when I was finally able to create a future vision, as detailed and intricate as my past memories, did it have any noticeable effect. Then it did, indeed, create a clockwise vortex in the energy field surrounding me.
This whole experiment fascinated me and I continued it till I ceased to see the energy in the room that night. Each time I tried the experiment it had the same basic effect. Over and over again, past thoughts created counterclockwise vortexes and specific and clear future thoughts created clockwise vortexes.
EmotionsA few nights later I was able to see the energy again. This time I wanted to know how emotions affected the patterns. I tried to induce all sorts of emotions. What I found was that I could not create an emotion in me without a thought-a memory of having had that emotion. Thus, all my experiments could only capture the effect of an emotion paired with a memory. Each time the effect was the same as it had been for having a memory-- a counterclockwise vortex formed. The stronger the emotion the more clear and distinct (even faster) the vortex.
I began to feel frustrated with not being able to separate emotion from memory. In the moment of that frustration I noticed that a counterclockwise vortex in the field formed. This emotion of current frustration seemed to be without an induced memory, however it still created a counterclockwise vortex. I was stunned.
In later channeling it was explained to me that all emotion connects us to our past. Whether induced by recall of past experience, or experienced directly in the moment through current experience, emotions were aspects of the past.
Emotions are interpretation of chemical shifts created by our instinctual reactions to events. For us (as animals) it is adaptive to have a system for anticipating the danger, safety, utility and importance of the events we encounter. Emotions are this system. Our initial life experiences create instinctual chemical shifts in our body. We interpret the meaning of those chemical shifts as various emotions. These emotions --The interpreted meanings of our chemical reactions-- serve as guides to our future interactions. As time goes on, those interpreted meanings (emotions) give us advance warning of the meanings and potential outcomes of the situations we encounter. By the time we are adults we have a complex pattern of chemical reactions and interpretations that we overlay on the events in our lives.
Much of the psychodynamic literature in clinical psychology is built on this phenomenon-the emotional replay of events from childhood as triggered by events in adult life. In other words, we are living our past as an interpretation of our present. Each time we have an emotion we are overlaying the past to explain the present and anticipate (or create) the future. We are very literally creating our reality on the basis of our past.
This is why old emotional wounds and patterns from childhood persist. This is also why those childhood wounds require so much attention to release. One primary means in which we order our reality is through this emotional system we create. Our emotional system is based upon our interpretations of our past chemical reactions to stimuli. Thus, we understand our current experiences as a function of the emotional meanings we created long ago. Until we break this emotional pattern we retain our old ways of being.
From my experiments and channeling, I became convinced that the counterclockwise energy fields of emotions were vortexes to the past. They were the energetic expression of the past in the present moment. To test this, I experimented widely with all types of emotions on various nights. Always the results were the same-counterclockwise vortexes.
The Dream of Joy
Several nights passed in which I did not see the energy in the room. During these nights I seemed to fall into a strange dreaming. Finally, one night I had the most incredible dream of ecstasy.
In the dream I was going to meditate with a well know monk. I was part of a crowd of people who were expected to attend the meditation event. I arrived early to find the monk alone. He asked me to arrange the room for him. In doing so, I washed off a soiled cup under a faucet that I turned on. When I finished washing the cup I found that I could not turn off the faucet and the water was gushing out. I tried everything to turn off the water but to no avail. The room was beginning to flood.
I began to pray-"Mother/ Father God I understand that I must turn off the emotional flow in my life. My soiled self is clean and the emotions no longer serve me. I see the sign you are giving me. My flood of emotion is ruining my meditation. I understand your message. You can turn off the water now. Please do not ruin this monk's room for my lesson." Instantly, the water turned itself off and the room was completely dry.
The monk saw this as a miracle and insisted that we begin to meditate together immediately. I did not see it as a miracle. Instead, I saw it as how the universe functions. It gives signs of your lessons. When you notice and heed the signs, the signs end.
Still, I was not about to pass up the opportunity to meditate directly with this monk. I sat down across from him with our knees touching. We began to meditate. At about this point in time the crowd began to arrive around us in the room. Though the crowd was noisy, I felt a calm and concentration in the mediation.
After a short time, I drooped over and my forehead touched the forehead of the monk. I felt a lightening bolt of energy shoot through me and straighten my body, thrusting me backward. Suddenly, I was lifted up by my soar plexus and levitated in the room. I felt as though I was levitated by the power of being filled with transcendent ecstasy. As I floated in the room, I felt I was totally consumed by the joy of God.
The crowd began to cheer. I thought to myself-"I must tell them that this is not me-- it is God." After that thought I floated back down to my seated position and continued to meditate.
Twice more in the dream, I felt the joy fill me and was lifted to float in the room. Twice more, the levitation ended with the thought that I must make it clear that this was of God.
In the days after this dream I tried to explain to my friends this incredible feeling that had levitated me. Each time I explained it I felt some portion of it enter me again. It was an exquisite experience--Joy.
Using Joy in the Experiments
Several nights later the experience of seeing energy in the room returned. I immediately recalled the feeling of ecstatic, transcendent joy that had filled me in the dream. As soon as I had the feeling clearly, waves of concentric circles of energy flowed out around me. This was not a vortex like I had seen in the earlier experiments. Instead, it was like the ripples of water that are created when a pebble is tossed in a pond.
The ripples extended out through the empty space. They even extended out through the objects in my bedroom. As the ripples reached the objects they seemed to merge energy patterns and reform the objects into joy.
This was distinctly different from the experiments with vortexes. The vortexes had formed to a point (seemingly in infinity) and localized around me. This joy field was spreading and merging with everything I could see. Joy organized the reality of my bedroom.
After talking with my friends about the experiment with joy, I decided to see the effect a Joy Field might have on everyday experiences. Several days later I was eating in a family restaurant. Near me was a very upset child. He was whining, crying and kicking. This had gone on for several minuets as I sat down and ordered my food. Everything the mother tried to do to calm the child only seemed to make matters worse. This child was escalating out of control. I decided this was a perfect test for the Joy Field.
I clamed myself and brought the joy within me. The second that I touched my joy the child stopped crying and became quiet. He remained quite for several minutes and then he resumed some minor whining. I embodied joy again. Again, the second after I felt the joy the child became quiet. It took several rounds of feeling joy and quieting the boy to have a lasting effect. By the end of my dinner the little boy was pleasantly joking, eating and having fun with his family.
I was excited by these results. I tried it again and again and had similar findings. In telling my boyfriend about my experiences with the Joy Field he expressed skepticism. One evening while we were waiting for a table in a restaurant, he challenged me to do the Joy Field when we saw a parent dragging his child by the neck, kicking and screaming, from the restaurant.
I was concerned there might be some abuse going on and had a hard time getting clear to fill with joy. I tried and tired to get to joy but was distracted by my own fears as I could see the child and his dad verbally struggling just outside. After awhile I was finally able to disconnect myself from my fear and fill with joy. A couple of minutes later the boy and father came peacefully back into the restaurant with no apparent signs of the previous tussle.
Though my boyfriend was impressed, this experience taught me that I could not always easily access joy. My own fears and childhood patterns of emotions could get in the way. I needed a way to get to joy no matter what the circumstances-- but how?
Bands Of Joy
I am a shamanic healer in the Inkan tradition. As part of my daily routine (and part of a scared ritual I will not reveal here) I imagine bands of specific color around my body. This imaging of colored bands serves as a daily connection to the rights given me in my healing tradition and as an inner strengthening.
One morning as I was visualizing these bands of color, I began to channel a message about the inherent joy of each band. I was told that joy comes in many forms. I had only been tapping into one specific form of joy. However, I could connect to many forms of joy. All forms of joy would have the same effect on the energy field. If I had trouble accessing one form of joy I could use another.
I was also told that I should practice my access to all these forms of joy. The more I practiced them the more engrained they would become in my nature. The more engrained they became, the more ready access I would have to holding joy in any moment of life.
In addition, my guides explained that joy was not an emotion. It was, instead, a state of grace. They explained that joy did not depend on the past for its creation. It came from spirit-from God. This is why the energy field it created was distinctly different from the vortexes of emotion or memory.This was difficult for me to understand. I believed that I had used an emotional memory (the dream feeling of joy) to create joy within me. Thus, I had thought that this was related to the past-just the same as the emotions and memories I had played with earlier in my experiments with energy. However, my guides were adamant that it was not the same as when I had used past memories to create emotions.
They explained that emotions are interpretations of internal chemical reactions. Joy was a state, which did not require my interpretation or my prior chemical reaction to exist. My guides reminded me of my thoughts in the dream of joy---"I must tell them that this is not me-- it is God." Joy was of God. It was not my creation.
My guides emphasized that the more I practiced joy and tied it to events and things in my life the more accessible it would be. But I should not let this confuse me. Joy was not a memory. It was a state of grace. I could use my natural system to train myself to obtain this state through memory. Still, that did not make it an emotion or a creation of the past.
At the end of this channeling I was lead to explore the inherent joy in the bands of color I was visualizing that morning. I share those here as a guide to the layers and types of joy that are available to us all.
As you practice your access to joy you will find that your world organizes differently. Just as I experienced in my experiments, your world and self will change. As I was conducting my experiments I felt myself shifting. I felt lighter and happier. This was supported by some interesting feedback from a colleague at work. He said that he had noticed a change in me. He described me as being: more centered and peaceful, less intense, and a better listener. I felt that he was right-- I had more joy. You can have more joy too.
Chapter One Footnotes
1. It is interesting to note that scientific research on emotion shows that the chemical traces for things as different as love and fear are very similar. It is the interpretation we give them that makes them so different in our later experience.