Benefits of Sympathetic Joy, December 2020 Newsletter
Hi Friends,
I hope you all had a relaxing (if unusual) Thanksgiving this last week. We spent a lot of time in our pajamas streaming movies and playing board games. You?
Honestly, I wasn’t really looking forward to the holidays starting. The whole thing made me feel pretty grinchy since this season wouldn’t look at all like what I was used to. I was so cranky that I didn’t really want to get a tree and was kind of being a pain about the whole thing.
Do you ever have those moments where you know you are being horrible, but for some reason you just can’t help yourself? I was having one of those. It doesn’t feel great when your ten-year-old has to mitigate your temper tantrum while putting up the tree. (Yikes, am I right?)
The truth is, though, he did make me feel better, as he always does. (See the best Christmas caroling video known to man, here, with the famous “Silent Night” lyrics, “all is corn, all is fries.” How could I not feel happy watching this?).
Over the last few days, Sawyer (my son) has had the boldness to be happy, positively joyful, at the prospect of (in his words) “something that isn’t just Corona.” He’s been relishing every little drop of holiday spirit: decorating, songs, movies—even a snowball fight in November as of today!
He’s living his best life, is what I’m trying to say, and his joy is infectious, uplifting.
It hasn’t always been this way. For the last few months, I’ve seen him be sadder than ever before. This made me sad, too.
Is there anything harder than seeing your kid suffer? Hardly.
That said, his shift has been inspiring me. I want to embrace his audacity and lay claim to the moments when I feel joyful right now—the happy in the crappy. Does this mean I am not sad that I have a 10-week-old niece I haven’t been able to hold yet, or that I’m not scared for my elderly family member who may be infected with COVID? Absolutely not. These things are sad, and scary.
What it does mean, though, is that I can still have hope, and find joy in my son’s joy— both his current happiness and his possibilities for fulfillment in the future.
The Buddhists would call this muddita, or sympathetic joy, and it’s a practice we can all cultivate.
I’m researching hope for a book I am working on about helping teachers to find comfort and healing in this challenging time, and I came across this quote from Martin Luther King,
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
The container of my own small but significant disappointment can be held in the infinite hope that we, as humans, are resilient; my son is proof of that. I can know that even in the midst of challenges (significant ones), we can still bond over a snowball fight, or be loved after a temper tantrum.
My wish for you this holiday season is that you can find your infinite hope in the small but significant moments. And for you to know that even if you can’t, you are loved anyway.
If you need a little help finding hope and joy, join me this Friday for a free mindfulness practice where we’ll explore hope as a community (and try a new mindfulness practice I’m calling the “Snow Globe,” so named in honor of my son’s love of the season).
(Virtual) hugs,
Brandi
P.S. – Already looking longingly at 2021? Consider starting the year with a gift to yourself.
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