Erin Mac
LLC

I have been reading this book lately about the art of being still, or as I like to think of it "hitting the pause button" of life.  The passage that stuck out to me was about being afraid of the dark, a metaphor for the hard times in life.  This immediately brought me back to my childhood.  See, when I was little my play area was in the basement, which during the day was all lit up by the windows and the sliding glass door, but at night it turned into this super scary place with something or someone lurking around every corner and in every closet.  While that was not true you could not convince that little girl otherwise.

Sometimes I wonder why people are wary to get started with me down their path to joy, even when I tell them that it is available now and for everyone.  I think maybe it is because when I tell them that the work begins with looking at their past so that they can find the areas to heal and grow from and truly learn who they are, that it seems scary.  Much like the basement of my childhood home at night, they may be afraid that there is someone or something around the corner ready to get them!

Or, maybe they think that joy is not a possibility for everyone, especially them?  Maybe they don't even see the value of experiencing joy in their life at all, it's just not a thing.  There are other, more important things to worry about.  I know I was that person not that long ago.  In fact, had you asked me about what joy was I would have had a vision of a person jumping up and down in excitement, the kind of experience reserved for winning on the Price is Right (still remember that person from my childhood jumping up and down so hard on the Pachinko machine that it nearly broke!).  

This got me to thinking about the darkest time in my life (about four years ago), which as it turns out was just before the beginning of the brightest time in my life (now).  From this dark place I learned what joy really is (Price is Right jumping, and so much more...stillness, peace of mind, meaning and purpose, all the juicy bits!)  I learned how to cultivate the internal experiences of joy daily so I could experience it as often as I remembered to.  Through that time I realized that working on myself so that I could understand who I truly am and looking at my past experiences to heal from them were not as scary as I had made them out to be (as it turns out nothing is as scary as my imagination is at creating worse case scenarios for every aspect of life!).  I realized that I no longer needed to experience stress, overwhelm and anxiety.  I finally understood where those experiences came from and why they were part of my life and choose, most often, not to experience them.  

I want this same experience for you.  Is there a part of your life that you just don't care for and you want to know why it is there, what it is trying to tell you and how to experience joy instead? Let's have a chat next week.  What works for you?
Peace, 
Erin "chased the boogeyman away for good" Mac