On Weaning. | rejoyce letters, vol. 2 of 2023

Hi Friend,

I've been counseling a friend lately on weaning her baby, the American (not the UK) definition, which means ceasing to breastfeed. It's made me realize that, though I have done it twice in the last three years, I am unable to distill much advice from my experiences.

I know that, unfortunately, at least unfortunately for me, it takes resolve. Resolve that I barely had the energy to muster.

When I weaned Cole I was already pregnant with Luca and Cole still wasn't sleeping through the night and I was living at my in-laws' home. It was a very mentally troubling time in my life, a time drenched in unknown and fear about the future. It was also 2020, so that sucked. In colored marker, I wrote on a random manila folder: NOVEMBER GOAL: WEAN COLE and taped it up in my (guest) bedroom.

The last day I breastfed Cole was November 30, 2020.

Luca was born exactly six months later, May 30, 2021, and the breastfeeding started instantly. Luca was eating before my husband Stephen even cut the cord. He ate for about an hour before he was even weighed (9lbs!). (And before I had a postpartum hemorrhage, which is another story for maybe another day or more likely, never.)

Still, even considering the hemorrhage, breastfeeding both times around was harder for me than birth. And weaning was the hardest part of breastfeeding. None of this makes any logical sense, which is my experience with motherhood at large. If breastfeeding was the hardest part, wouldn't ending it be a relief? Kind of. But the work of weaning is painful, emotionally painful, and though labor and delivery is the most physically painful thing I've ever lived through (twice) it has the benefit of being held within a day (for me). Even horror story labors which take four days, are still only four days. The pain is immense, really indescribable, but contained.

My breastfeeding and weaning journeys often felt no-end in-sight, especially because they overlapped with my Holy Shit Why Won't This Child Sleep journeys. When I think breastfeeding, I think four in the morning. When I think breastfeeding, I think entrapment. When I think breastfeeding, I think: Was it worth it?

Luca's weaning was harder than Cole's. Cole was, in hindsight, rather ready to wean. I think part of the reason Cole was so challenging as a baby and young toddler was I had no clue what I was doing, but another part was that he often longed to do things that escaped his capabilities at the moment. I know you're thinking "all kids are like that" but Cole was especially like that. Luca was not as much. Luca could, from time to time, be content, and Stephen and I would look at each other in shock whenever this happened. Though, there was this: Luca would have nursed forever. He made that very clear. But I? I was so fucking done.

And thus, I reached into my innermost depths, found nothing, kept reaching, and scraped up an ounce of resolve. I would wean him, so help me God, and he would be done on his first birthday, regardless of the AAP having the nerve to recommend two years of breastfeeding as if that isn't a wildly enormous thing to ask.

And so, I'd get Luca out of his crib each morning at the crack of dawn and he would scream. He wanted me to sit down and nurse him, and when he realized I was, in fact, carrying him down stairs, he would throw his head back in agony and scream louder. I would, as quickly as possible, get him in the high chair and feed him a banana and he would eventually calm.

But I can still see that baby throwing his head back in agony, demanding what I was not willing to give him, and it still breaks my heart. I can still feel the weight of his angry head in my hand. I don't know if Luca and I did this for four days or four weeks. I really don't. It was sharp and painful and I felt I was failing him and I felt I had to do it. I knew full well this might be my last baby, this might be the last time I ever make milk and, thus the entire experience was heightened and all the more necessary. I needed my milk to run dry. (It took weeks and weeks, even after his last feed, which was on his first birthday. It was as if my body was protesting the development; it was as if my body was clinging to the past.) I needed to remember I existed—independently—again.

Weaning is really just separation. Weaning is letting go. It is deciding that what you're doing now is no longer working, and that you will do something different. Doing something different—something truly different, not just a different manifestation of the same old shit—is, I believe, always painful. In every rebirth, there is a death. 

As James Baldwin put it:

"Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety."

When it comes to motherhood, weaning is the hardest part—and it's all weaning. That might, also, be my take on life at large.

Joyce

their mothers. | rejoyce letters, vol. 1 of 2023

Hi Friend,

When I hear of more children shot to death at school, I cannot help but think of their mothers.

Their mothers: holding the tiny, squirmy baby so they can sleep. Waking up at four in the morning to feed them. Setting them down in their crib and, in the early days, when everything feels so tender and precious and scary and new, leaning in close to listen.

Is he breathing? Is she breathing?

Their mothers, pouring bath water over their soft heads to rinse off the gentle smelling soap.

“My eyes,” the toddler cries in agony. “You got water in my eyes!”

And maybe the mother feels pain, and apologizes. Or maybe she feels annoyed — this is the toddler, after all, who refused to take a bite of their dinner and then dumped it all over the floor. Either way, the next bath, she will pour the water again and she will use her hand as a shield.

A mother is, after all, a kind of shield. She protected her child from the sun, from the cold, from mosquitos and dogs and allergens. From germs. From loud noises. From profanity. From stairs without gates. From too-high playgrounds and too-rough siblings. From too-small things they could choke on. To think! Their mothers cutting all that food into teeny tiny pieces so their babies could learn to eat. Learn to chew. And swallow. And drink from a cup. Their mothers rinsing berries and cutting meat and endlessly washing tiny spoons and straws.

And to think of these mothers hearing the news, hearing the news every mother fears more than any other news, and rushing to the school with only one question, with the only question that has ever mattered.

Is he breathing? Is she breathing?

To say my heart breaks for them is an understatement. My heart breaks for us all.

Joyce

You're Doing It. | rejoyce letters, vol. 1 of 2021

Hi Friend,

"I can't do this," I said, desperately, to my husband. And then, more urgently, to the entire fluorescent-lit hospital room: "Someone help me!"

I am currently 31 weeks pregnant with my second son, and I've found myself reliving the labor and delivery of my first. How, as I labored in the hospital, I was so hot I felt like I was burning from within. How Stephen held a latex glove full of ice to my forehead and I squeezed his hand, hard, with each contraction. How he counted aloud so I could focus on exhaling, until I couldn't focus on anything. How the doula held up my water bottle to my lips and—in between spitting and screaming through pain—I desperately sucked out of a bendy straw she'd brought. What should I pack in my hospital bag? expectant moms ask, and I think of saying: maybe straws. For when you need to drink water while laboring but don't possess the energy to lift your water bottle. Also, Gatorade. I hadn't really touched the stuff since my collegiate basketball days, but in labor and early postpartum, I longed to drink it by the gallon.

But maybe not. Maybe a straw would be useless for you. Maybe you'd find Gatorade repulsive; when my husband ate a Peanut Butter Rx Bar and then came near to support me through a contraction, I snapped: "Get away from me! That smell is going to make me throw up." I, who—when I'm not laboring—adore peanut butter. But you're different when you're laboring. And everyone's labor is different. Just like everyone's child.

Some labors are several days long, slow, and drawn out. Many have complications, which I am lucky to have avoided the first time around. Some women choose an epidural, or a scheduled induction, or both. Some involve cesarean delivery, by choice or not by choice. All labors involve laboring. This is one accurately named component of motherhood.

[But I deeply resent the person who coined the phrase, "Sleep like a baby." Ha. If my baby had "slept like a baby," maybe I wouldn't have been Googling "Can you die of sleep deprivation?" four, five, six weeks postpartum.]

I chose a non-medicated labor with Cole. The non-medicated route can be praised, as if it signals inner fortitude, and I do think I went into it with some type of chip on my shoulder, like I was proving something to someone somewhere by rejecting pain meds, but honestly? The profound conclusion I drew when it was over was: "I get why people get epidurals." This has been a theme for me in motherhood. I silently judge another mom for something, then find myself doing that same thing at some future point. A couple mortifying examples: At six months, my child rolled off my bed. At 15 months, I found him in his playpen with own feces on his nose, his hands covered in poop. If you're thinking, "Well, I would never let something like that happen." I get it. I thought those thoughts too; I would have sworn by it. But motherhood is, above all, a humbling state of existence. I've grown to put less weight in the things I think I would surely do if I were simply, you know, living out someone else's life.

Motherhood: When your shoulders are so tired all the chips fall off of them.
Motherhood: Your baby is born and your ego, by necessity, must die.
Motherhood: More poop than you could imagine. And poop, you quickly realize, is the easiest part. Except for on days when it's the hardest part.

Ah, I haven't written one of these in a while and I'm getting wildly tangential. I came here to talk about one moment, really.

When I said, "I can't do this," followed by, "Someone help me," to everyone within earshot, which probably included any pedestrians on 7th Avenue north of 9th Street in Park Slope.

This was during "transition" in labor. The baby slides down, down, down, it's time to push, and the whole physical situation of pushing a pretty big head out of a pretty small opening starts to seem wildly irrational. Of course, I'd abandoned the world of rationality hours before.

My first break with linear thinking came when I was laboring, alone, in my apartment. Stephen was sleeping, and I was determined to let him sleep as long as I could, knowing that labor could span days and one rested new parent is better than none. I'd gotten out of bed at around eleven p.m. when I realized "trying to sleep" was a laughable exercise. I began wandering my tiny Brooklyn apartment, experiencing (what I now know as) fairly mild contractions. I took two showers, inhaling the scent of lavender soap. I recorded the time and lengths of my contractions in the notes app on my phone. I texted my sister. The unrecordable metric—intensity—escalated. A pain so distinct: I could feel it coming in, like the distant waft of the scent of pain, and then it overtook me, swallowed me, peaked, and then I could feel it subside, a wave going back to sea.

Soon, the mounting pain brought me to my hands and knees. I'd kick the tops of my feet into the floor and try to count through the pain, focusing on my exhale. Just like meditating, I told myself. Also accurate: Nothing like meditating.

I reached for my phone to record the time of my latest contraction. A cruel coincidence: It was two in the morning. Again. It happened to be daylight savings time, November 3, 2019, and I had just survived an hour of contractions—from 2 to 3 a.m.—and now I had to live through mounting contractions between 2 to 3 a.m. Again. I knew I couldn't.

I burst into our room, got into bed, woke Stephen up, and said, in a whisper, "I can't do this."

He was wide awake in an instant. "When you're running a marathon on a track, Joyce, you don't count the laps."

To a girl who'd spent large swaths of childhood at track practice and many years engaged in athletics, it was the perfect thing to say. Then, he began squeezing my hand and my hips and pushing my sacrum and counting me through the contractions, which was necessary, because numbers, for me, had slipped away into the land of the abstract.

But hours later, in the hospital, in transition, remembering a track metaphor provided no respite. Marathon? I might not survive the next minute.

"Someone help me," I cried. And what I longed for—more than anything else in that moment—was the most irrational thing of all: a substitute. I wanted out of the game. Someone to step in, tap my shoulder, and, you know, deliver my baby for me while I sat watching from the bench, ideally while sipping blue Gatorade.

When no one came to my rescue, and the excruciating pain continued in the face of my desperate pleas, just in case there was any confusion, I said, again, with utmost conviction: "I CAN'T DO THIS."

My midwife locked eyes with me and said in a voice of calm certitude: "You're doing it."

And then, something shifted within me. Because I knew, in my bones, that she was right. I was doing it. And I did it.

I won't pretend delivering a baby is easy. I won't pretend postpartum was a breeze. But I've reached for that moment a lot, in the months that followed, particularly during these hazy pandemic months. These months where it can feel like we've been repeating a suffering-filled 2 a.m. over and over and over. But we just lived through so much pain! Are we really being asked to endure more? Is it March of 2021 right now, or is it, again, March of 2020?

And there are days when taking a strictly rational lens of the world is an agonizing perspective. Swirling around number of cases, number of shots, number of people. Endless charts, endless trends. Spiking, dropping—is this data right? But what does it mean? What do we do? What do I do? It can seem an absurdly impossible place: another inconceivable big head/small hole scenario. And if that metaphor made you cringe, and you've never thought about this method of human arrival—that is to say, the miracle of birth—I encourage you to consider it. Because all of us have been on at least one side of the birth equation. We all came here via mysterious means which, quite frankly, don't seem like they would, you know, work.

And still, thousands of babies are born every day.

Hope springs eternal. And, I know, some days, the vague hope seems lightyears away, and the pain, well, the pain can rush over you and subsume you; the pain can swallow you whole. Suddenly, sturdy concepts like time, space, goals (ha!) are rendered flimsy, abstract.

But I try to remember, when I feel I have reached the brink, when I enter the realm of "I can't do this" thinking, that, in fact, I am doing it. Maybe some people are setting ambitious life goals and I'm over here trying to remember to exhale fully. But I'm still doing it. I'm still showing up. I'm still in the game. There are no substitutes. Whatever I'm doing is it. This is it.

So that's what I came here to tell you today. That's all.

When you feel like you can't go on, you are going on. When it feels like you simply can no longer do this: You're doing it.

You are doing it.

You are.

You are.

with Love,

Joyce

Thank You. | rejoyce letters, vol. 51

Hi Friend,

I wanted to take this time to thank you for reading my writing. Some of you have been reading along for over a year (my first letter was sent April 9, 2018!), and others have joined the party more recently.

Regardless of how long you've been subscribed or how many letters you've read, I am immensely grateful for each one of you. Each week when I send these out, I paste your email address individually into the BCC line and think to myself:

The divine light in me sees and honors the divine light in {your name}.

And take a meditative inhale and exhale. If I know you, I visualize you in that moment. If I don't, I hold your email address in my heart.

I understand a listserv would be more efficient; however, I am past the point of believing efficiency is the aim of life.

So with a heart full of gratitude, I wanted to inform you that I'm taking a break from writing these for the foreseeable future.

One reason for this is other personal pursuits. I am going to Europe from May 9 - May 26 (first to a meditation retreat in Southern France, then to a sister trip in Paris and London). Also, there is another creative project I want to put my whole heart into for a while. I will be sure to let this group know when anything manifests on that front! :)

Another reason I'm choosing to take a break is more internal. I feel I am on the precipice of change right now. The precipice of an expansion of my awareness. It's difficult to describe the feeling—as it's a feeling of the heart, not a mental thought.

Perhaps, I stand on the precipice of knocking down some inner barriers within me. Although it's difficult to narrow down his immensely moving body of work, if there is one guiding Rumi quote for me, I think it is this:

”Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."

I think in my first wave of spiritual development, I found some barriers. I have the feeling I am about to find more. Perhaps deeper and darker than the ones I initially found, but also more freeing to finally identify.

Many of these letters have been about, more or less, my knocking down barriers and, thus, seeing life in a new way. I was so excited by my new perceptions that I felt compelled to share, with the hope that maybe my words could spark something within someone else, could help them see things differently.

Marcel Proust says:

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."

And Wayne Dyer says:

"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."

And Henry David Thoreau says:

"The question is not what you look at, but what you see."

And Anaïs Nin says:

"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."

Many of my letters were inspired by me seeing things anew. Polishing my own lens. And now, I feel called to go within, and do more polishing and less public sharing. See if I can see everything anew—again.

I believe I can.

Have you ever known an addict? One thing about addicts is there sometimes seems to be no such thing as rock bottom. Rock bottom always has a basement. I love addicts, for many reasons, but one is I believe they are staunchly on the vertical path (they just happen to be traveling down instead of up).

They often don't agree with the rules of life as set by society, so they drop out of the game. So many people blindly devote their entire lives to a game they don't even know they're playing. Often, addicts have a sense of clarity and an ability to call the bullshit on mainstream society.

I am not trying to glamorize addiction—it can clearly be horrifically brutal in myriad ways to those who are addicted (to anything) and to those who love addicts.

I am just pointing out that most addicts reject societal norms. They don't buy in to "the system." And most people dedicated to a spiritual path must, by definition, do those things as well. You must reject how the masses view things in order to view things differently.

And just as there is truly no "rock bottom" when it comes to addiction [or, as I've heard it said, you only hit rock bottom when you stop digging], there is also no "top level" to seeing things more clearly. There is no "point of arrival." There are infinite levels of clarity. There are infinite levels of spiritual ascension.

The horizontal path is finite. The horizontal path is constrained by the illusion of time, of birth and death. The vertical path is eternal.

Consider the symbol of the cross: A short horizontal line across, a longer vertical line pointing up. Where did Jesus go before he ascended into Heaven? As the Apostles' Creed reminds us: he descended into hell.

The truth is we are each somewhere on our own vertical paths—and whether you find yourself immersed in your own personal hell or seeing things through a newly polished, more peaceful lens, know that, even if it feels like you can't change a thing about your current life situation, you can always look inside and change your perception. You can always change the way you see things.

So that's what I plan to do next. Look inside more deeply. And then more deeply than that.

If this inner looking results in new perceptions I feel moved to share, I will. But it's impossible to predict when those new perceptions will emerge—when you are on the edge of anything, you must step into the unknown and embrace the mystery.

I will close this letter how I've taken to closing my yoga classes. Imagine me saying this to you seated cross legged with my eyes closes and my palms pressed together at my heart:

May you be safe.

May you be healthy.

May you be happy.

May you live with ease.

The divine light in me sees and honors the divine light in you.

Namaste.

with eternal Love and with infinite Light,

Joyce

Observing. | rejoyce letters, vol. 50

Hi Friend,

How are you feeling? Can you notice how you feel in this moment without attaching a story to it?

Here's what I mean: So often, our brains do not simply observe how we feel, they observe and then attach. And it happens so quickly it doesn't feel like you are noticing the emotion, instead, it feels like you are the emotion.

For example: I feel angry. I shouldn't feel angry. I'm supposed to be a good person. Why am I angry? I'm enraged. God, now I'm angry about being angry. 

Or: I feel sad. Damn it, I'm always sad. It's not only sad, it's pathetic. I'm sad and pathetic. I'm thirty years old, and still so sad all the time. Do I have no perspective? When will I stop being sad? 

Those are just two negative feeling states, but the same can be said for most negative emotions: the judgements we attach to the initial feeling can be more damaging than the feeling itself.

We can feel angry that we're angry, sad that we're sad, frustrated that we're frustrated, upset that we're upset, disappointed we're disappointed, and on and on.

A dear friend recently sent me this quote and I can't stop thinking about it:

"Observing without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence." 

This quote, I believe, comes from Indian philosopher Krishnamurti, and my friend read it in Marshall Rosenberg's book Nonviolent Communication.

I often think of the power of observing without evaluating when I'm practicing or teaching yoga asana.

For new students (and I did this for years), it's very common to spend the entire yoga class worried about what others are thinking of you.

Is everyone able to balance in this pose except me? Is everyone's bridge pose higher than mine? Is everyone's forward fold deeper than mine? Am I the only one who can't do crow?

This is an exhausting way to practice. So most people reach the point where they either stop going to yoga class if they can't break this habit, or they stop obsessing over what others may or may not be thinking of them during class.

But the next hurdle in asana practice to observing without judgement—a harder hurdle, I think—happens in your own mind. Can your mind observe where you are, right now, today, and not attach a story to it?

For example, instead of the mind doing this: I don't understand why I can't hold warrior 3 on my left foot today. I did it yesterday at home but of course now I'm in a class and I keep falling over like a loser. Why could I balance on my right foot but not my left? It makes no sense.

Can the mind do this: I'm having difficulty balancing on my left foot right now.

I consider this the pinnacle of yoga practice: noticing where you are, without judgement. Without a longwinded story. Without making it all into a problem and swirling and swirling and swirling in your mind. Keeping your peace in all circumstances.

And, of course, since yoga always extends well beyond the confines of the mat, the same goes for emotions. 

Can you say: I feel angry right now. Or, I feel sad right now. And leave it at that? Can you drop the string of stories you've attached to those emotions?

In one of Rumi's most famous poems—The Guest House—he encourages us to take it a step further with our emotions. He says:

"Welcome and entertain them all!" 

and:

"Be grateful for whatever comes 

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond."

I think acceptance (welcoming your emotions) and gratitude (being grateful for whatever comes) can have transformative properties. As they say:

What you resist, persists.

If you keep resisting sadness, you'll get more sadness. But if—perhaps counterintuitively—you accept your sadness and are even able to cultivate gratitude within your sadness, you might just find a path to peace.

Observe without judgment, observe without evaluating, just observe—and then see how you feel.

with Love and with Light,

Joyce

Forgive. | rejoyce letters, vol. 49

Hi Friend, 

In Christianity, this is a Holy week, the week before Easter. 

I've written before about being raised in a pretty strict Presbyterian household. As a child, I went to Church every Sunday, youth groups, Vacation Bible Schools, Christian week-long sleep away summer camps, etc. I still have many Bible verses memorized and know So. Many. Songs. 

I can sing you the Ten Commandments, the twelve disciples, the Lord's Prayer (with accompanying sign language), and on and on.

As a child, I felt a mysterious connection to Bible stories (I read the Bible twice through probably before I was 14. So many questions about circumcision and concubines), but as I got older, despite all the exposure, my religious connection waned.

So many Biblical interpretations take things so literally—and that was a challenge for my (somewhat) logical mind.

Only recently have I begun marveling in the metaphorical meanings of some of these stories and verses that have long lived in my mind, and appreciating them in a new light.

So let's talk Easter, a classic Christian holiday. 

The story, in short, is this: Jesus is betrayed by his disciple Judas, Jesus is sentenced to crucifixion by Pilate, Jesus is crucified, and three days later, his tomb is empty. Jesus has risen from the dead.

This story has so much depth for metaphoric interpretation, and is rich with meaningful details: from Judas's betrayal with a kiss, to Pontius Pilate washing his hands, to Jesus carrying his own cross, to the crown of thorns.

But, for today, I want to talk about Jesus's last words on the cross. There are four gospels in the New Testament and three which mention his words while dying (Matthew, Luke, and John); although there is some overlap, they don't align perfectly. In accumulation, they record Jesus saying seven phrases on the cross, thought of holistically as Jesus's "Seven Last Words." Theologians usually write or preach about his last words by addressing all seven phrases—though there isn't a single place which records all seven in succession. 

Don't fear, I'm not going to talk about all seven. :) I am only going to mention the phrase that's usually considered as spoken first, documented in Luke 23:24:

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

I distinctly remember a sermon from my childhood where the Pastor—staying true to literal interpretations—described how crucifixion logistically works. Yes, your wrists and feet are nailed to a cross which would undoubtedly be a severity of physical pain few of us have experienced, but, usually, this won't kill you. It often takes several days for those strung up on crosses to die, with the ultimate cause of death usually being exhaustion and asphyxiation. You suffocate yourself because you no longer have the strength to hold yourself up to breathe and your rib cage, essentially, collapses around your heart and lungs.

So Jesus, a teacher of Love and peace, a teacher of "turn the other cheek" and "Let he who has not sinned throw the first stone," a teacher who associated with societal outcasts (prostitutes, those with leprosy, tax collectors), died because of a collapse of the Heart Chakra, the body's energetic center for Love and forgiveness. (It would feel less appropriate if Jesus, for example, had been hung or beheaded—he was never preaching from his Mind; he was always preaching from his heart.)

He preached Love and acceptance and forgiveness, and the world rejected it. Not with subtlety, but with horrific violence.

(There is metaphor to that alone, most definitely. I think sometimes people imagine if they become these super loving, generous people, then they should therefore also become super popular and well-liked. Sadly, history would suggest otherwise, my friends. But I think a part of spiritual growth is relinquishing the inner need to feel super popular or well-liked—and be loving and generous anyway.)

And while he was strung up to die, while the world was actively rejecting his message, Jesus was still teaching love and acceptance and forgiveness.

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

I do not think it's a stretch to say that every spiritual tradition or religion has an element of forgiveness. 

Forgiveness is a strong thread running through nearly every spirituality book I've ever read. In Anatomy of the Spirit, Caroline Myss claims:

"By far the strongest poison to the human spirit is the inability to forgive oneself or another person. It disables a person's emotional resources." 

Perhaps you have negative associations with Christianity specifically or religions as a whole. I get it. And I'd like to posit that forgiveness is still very worthy of your attention. I've found peace, when seeing the symbol of the cross or walking by a church, rather than viewing it as a symbol of oppression (and I'm not denying that Christianity can be oppressive), viewing it as a symbol of forgiveness. To make the cross mean that for me. 

Rumi says: 

"Grace comes to forgive and then forgive again."

I see forgiveness as an ongoing, daily practice. As a lens through which I attempt to view all people and circumstances. As a way to reflect on my past and approach the present. I see forgiveness as a path to peace.

So, maybe—even if you've held a grudge for months or even years—you could open to the possibility of letting it go. Dropping it. Transmuting the negative experience with the balm of forgiveness. Not half-assed forgiveness. Not, "Oh yeah I forgive her," but you bitch about her every chance you get. Or, "Yeah, I forgive him," but you can't be in the same room as him for more than two hours without losing your shit.

That's not real forgiveness. That's lying to yourself.

I'm talking (metaphorically) hanging on the cross and forgiving the people who nailed you up there. That is the level where forgiveness is transformative. That is the level where forgiveness can be life changing. 

So what if you let your grudges die?

It's Easter week, after all. The perfect time to die to an old way of living, and rise again. 

with Love and with Light,

Joyce

p.s. Perhaps a more comical way of looking at forgiveness, which I still find helpful, because I like looking at it from all angles:"Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past." :)

Compassion for the Unhappy. | rejoyce letters, vol. 48

Hi Friend, 

One of my favorite yoga sutras is what I think of as the four locks, four keys sutra:
1.33 By cultivating attitudes of friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous and disregard toward the wicked, the mind-stuff retains its undisturbed calmness.

In Sri Swami Satchidananda's translation and commentary in The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, he goes on to say that even if you plan to ignore Yoga entirely, remember at least this sutra. :)

He calls these the four locks of the world: happy people, unhappy people, virtuous people, and wicked people.

And the four keys to keep your peace of mind when you encounter them: friendliness, compassion, delight, and disregard. 

[Note: some translations say "equanimity" instead of disregard, and "non-virtuous" instead of wicked.]

Learning this framework has certainly made me realize how strangely difficult it is for us to simply be friendly toward happy people—it's often easier to judge or resent happy people, it seems—but today I want to explore what I think of as a slightly more difficult lock: unhappy people.

Personally, I find I can have compassion toward an unhappy person up to a point but then I hit my limit, so to speak, where I feel that the person needs to do something other than complain about their current situation. It becomes challenging for me to show compassion when I feel like the unhappy person is (at least partially) culpable for their own unhappiness, and that if only they'd take responsibility and make some life changes, the very things they're unhappy about could change and their lives would improve.

When we were discussing this sutra during teacher training, I told that to my yoga teacher and I was blown away by her answer. She started by saying:

Well, that's not compassion. That's judgement. 

Which felt like a punch in the gut, and also a helpful label. A lot of us are trained to be "problem solvers" for others—but calling the habit judgement struck me. It's true. If you walk around saying: "Why doesn't he just do X, then he'll get Y." You are judging him for not doing X. You are in a state of judgement. You are dressing it up, of course. Pretending you are a smart, solution-oriented, helpful problem solver, but really you're just judging. And, as the adage goes, when you judge people, you have no time to love them.

My teacher then went on to say:

You would have to know an immense amount about this unhappy person to truly know what's best for them. Do you know everything about their inner life? Their childhood wounds? What they might be secretly working through right now unbeknownst to you? Do you even know every detail of their current predicament of which their complaining? Probably not. So to even claim you know exactly what they should do is a bold claim, bordering on arrogant. 

To boldly say, "I know what's best for him." or "I know what's best for her." usually takes a certain level of self-delusion. How often do you feel like you don't even know what's best for yourself? Yet, you're positing to be an expert on someone else's life.

But let's just say—MAYBE, and it's a long shot—you do know exactly what this unhappy person should do to stop their current suffering. That is, you are offering sound advice. Well, how can you be 100% sure that taking that action right now is actually what they most need? Humble yourself. Maybe more suffering is exactly what this person needs right now in order to awaken to the answer within them.

This can be so hard to accept, because I'd guess most of us have unhappy people in our life whom we deeply love, so to accept that maybe this person I love needs to suffer more in order to wake up is no small feat of acceptance. And yet, consider the story of the lotus. In order for the lotus flower to bloom, it needs to grow in mud. The deeper and thicker the mud, the more beautiful the bloom. Sometimes, I remind myself when I'm suffering: No mud, no lotus. But how hard it can be to watch loved ones stuck in "the mud"—we want to yank them out. But yanking them out does not help them bloom. It could, in fact, do the opposite; it could delay their growth.

My teacher finished by saying:

The only true way to help someone else is to empower them to help themselves. You don't empower people by throwing answers at them or by solving problems for them. You empower people by loving them. Holding space for them, allowing them to be seen and heard. When people are seen and heard, they can get in touch with the answers and clarity that already live within them.

I wanted to share her answer with you today, because it's stuck with me for so long. As you face each of these locks in your life—happy people, unhappy people, virtuous people, and wicked people—know that the keys are already within you. And maybecompassion is what unhappy people need, not elaborate solutions. And remember what Jack Kornfield reminds us about compassion:

"If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete."

with Love and with Light,

Joyce

p.s. Rumi says, "Close the language-door and open the love-window." There are many interpretations as to what this means, but I consider it a gentle reminder that compassion for others doesn't always involve tons of talking. "Close the language-door" might be the most poetic way ever of saying, "Shut your mouth." (: 

Expand. | rejoyce letters, vol. 47

Hi Friend,

Last week, one of my cats, Tywin, got sick for a number of days. I took him to the vet on Tuesday, and then he got worse.

So, on Wednesday, I canceled all my plans and spent all day trying to coax him out from hiding under the couch or bed in order to force him to eat and drink. You can lead a cat to water in hundreds of ways, it turns out, but you cannot, as the adage goes, make him drink. Since this little guy had never refused a meal since the day we adopted him—October 7, 2014—I knew his refusal to eat was a huge red flag. After a long day, I was at a loss. I took Tywin to the emergency room and he was admitted to the pet hospital overnight.

I was pervaded with a sense of hopelessness when I left him in the hands of strangers—experts, yes, but still strangers—as I was completely unable to communicate to him some basic information like:

This is for your own good.

I will be back.

I promise.

Of course, he could never understand any it. To him, I was abandoning him, handing him off to people who were poking him and prodding him and putting him in a cage and shaving off his fur. I, the responsible party for these atrocities, was more or less evil incarnate.

Years ago, I read the novel Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, a quiet novel about an aging pastor in the small town of Gilead, Iowa, and ever since then I've occasionally contemplated what the thoughtful pastor said on cats while musing about his own pet cat named Soapy. 

I cannot remember the exact passage, but I remember the gist, and the gist is what I contemplate.

The gist is this: To us, there is a clear limit to what a cat can understand, but the cat doesn't know that. To the cat, he knows everything there is to know about the world. 

And what if we, as humans, are like that too?

My cats consider the whole world to be a 800-square foot (that might be an overstatement) apartment. That's it. They have no interest, for example, in arguably the best part of our Brooklyn neighborhood, the 526-acre Prospect Park. Why would they? They'll never go. Right now, Tywin is out on our balcony squawking at the same bird that often perches atop the neighboring building. To him, the six or so birds that frequent that specific rooftop encompass birds as a whole. He knows nothing of the many species of beautiful birds living near my parents' cabin on the Allegheny River I wrote about here. How could he?

And what if I, too, am living with massive blind spots in my worldview? I happen to believe that I am. 

I've found through meditation, yoga asana, and spiritual work in general, I've been able to expand my perspective a bit. And once I expanded my perspective—even a little, around certain situations and relationships—I realized I could probably expand it infinitely more. And maybe "truths" I've clung to my whole life, aren't nearly as "true" as they once seemed.

I believe cultivating skepticism around your beliefs and also a desire to expand your awareness are key, because if you don't, you'll likely interpret situations inaccurately, and, thus, create more suffering for yourself. 

In the yoga sutras, the first obstacle is ignorance, avidya. All other obstacles stem from ignorance. But how often do you admit your own ignorance? What's more ignorant than being ignorant of ignorance?

I visited Tywin on Thursday before his abdominal ultrasound and how did he react? He bit me (hard) above the eye. At thirty, I have the first black eye of my life, and I got it from my five year old cat. :)

When we are unable to see the the big picture, we often react similarly. Robison writes in Gilead:

"And often enough, when we think we are protecting ourselves, we are struggling against our rescuer."

I wonder if, when we are in difficult situations that are ultimately for our own growth, the Universe [or God or the Divine, etc.] longs to tell us:
This is for your own good.

I'll be back.

I promise.

But we're too busy throwing tantrums to listen. Why do I have to be poked? Why do I have to be prodded? Why do I have to be taken from my comfortable home and thrust into this hellhole?

In those moments, we're wholly committed to a narrow life view. To constricted consciousness. To the fog of our own ignorance.

Years later, we may admit the hardest situations of our lives are the ones we grew the most from. How often have you heard the narrative, "Getting dumped/fired/rejected/injured ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me..."? You probably have your own personal story or two using that structure.

But when it's happening, in the present, we often have blinders on. We are the equivalent of an ignorant, sick cat, who would much rather hide under a bed and be miserable for days than go to a hospital where vets can actually help him.

This is why expansion of awareness is necessary. It decreases the amount of suffering in your life, since most suffering is self-made. (You'd never make yourself suffer intentionally but when you're seeing life through the lens of ignorance, you can't help it.) 

There is an element of humility required. You have to admit how little you know. I think recognizing the fog of your own ignorance is a "first step" on the road to expansion. 

Rumi says:  

"Alas, don't tell me the Christians are lost.

Don't tell me the Jews are lost.

Don't tell me the infidels are lost.

Alas, my brother, you are lost.

That is why everyone seems lost."

[Aside: One could replace "Christians" and "Jews" with any distinct group of people. For example, "Republicans" and "Democrats."]

For all Rumi's poems about love, he also has some that punch you right in the gut. But recognizing your position can open the door. It allows you to take steps toward changing it, toward polishing your lens and expanding it. Writer Anaïs Nin says:

"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."

How are you seeing your current life circumstances? 

Could you broaden you perspective? 

Could you zoom way, way, way out? 

Could you expand your view? 
Could you welcome expansion?

Breathe it in, breathe it out, feel it in your bones?

I believe the more we expand, the less we suffer. Through expansion, we create space. Space for peace to enter our lives.

with Love and with Light,

Joyce

p.s. An affirmation I like: "My perspective is expanding each day." 

p.p.s. I'm ecstatic to report Tywin returned home Thursday night and seems to be back to normal. :) For the record, I was hardly mad when he bit me in the eye. I texted Stephen something like: "He bit me in the eye! He seems to be doing better!!" Thanks to all those who checked in on him. Hug your pets today. xo.

Days. | rejoyce letters, vol. 46

Hi Friend,

For a while now, this Annie Dillard quote has been haunting me (in a good way) so I wanted to share it with you:

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing."

I love this quote because it feels so obvious and also so profound. Equal parts "duh" and "whoa." :) That's often how Truth feels for me.

I once heard a lecture where a woman claimed that in order to gauge your health, all she needed to know was what you did in the last four days. Not what you should or could have done. Not what you plan to start next week or your dreams for next year. What you are doing now. In the last four days: what you said, did, ate and drank, who you associated with, how much you slept. 

The concept stuck with me as a self-gauging tool to monitor my own health. There is a big difference—as we all know—between wanting to run and running or planning to eat healthy and eating healthy. There is an equally big difference between wanting to be kind to your spouse or your colleagues and being kind to your spouse or your colleagues. Even the colleague who yells into speaker phone and constantly crunches chips two cubes over. 

But how we spend our days is how we spend our lives. What you are doing with your time today—is what you are doing with your life. 
What do you spend your days talking about?
At some level, I believe the conversations we consistently have inform our whole lives. 
For six years, I spent a large chunk of my life discussing healthcare software, as it was my profession. But at some point (almost a year ago), I simply had to stop. Since I earned good money, my career was perceived as "good." And, for the last two years of this career, I didn't work too many hours, and frequently worked from home, so my job was also perceived as a "sweet gig." And yet, I was spending my days discussing things I didn't care about at all.

Healthcare software does not interest me. It does not make me feel alive.

So I had to spend my days differently, since I longed to spend my life differently. I know many people were not comfortable with me leaving a high-paying "sweet gig" with no plan. But as my friend Lacy (who now has a new Meditation app out!!) says:

"It is not your job to make anybody else feel comfortable about YOUR life."

I'm not only talking about career, of course. What do you talk about with your friends and family?

In the last four days, did you hang out with people who made you feel inspired or who made you feel annoyed?

Have you ever gone four days without complaining? (I, probably, have not.)
It seems many people crave big life changes—a new job, a new romantic partner, a new place to live, a more healthy body, etc.—but few are willing or open to making daily changes. Or to even acknowledge that big changes start with daily changes. But where else could big life changes possibly stem from?

You cannot change your life without changing your days. Change always happens in the present tense.

Usually when I share Rumi quotes, I share excerpts from his poems, but in addition to his poetry, 147 of his letters survive. So today I'll close with an excerpt from one of his letters:

"Before death takes away what you are given,

give away what is there to give.

No dead person grieves for his death. He mourns only what he didn't do. Why did I wait? Why did I not...? Why did I neglect to...?

I cannot think of better advice to send. I hope you like it. May you stay in your infinity.

Peace."

with Love and with Light,

Joyce

p.s. The only book I've read by Annie Dillard (who won the Pulitzer for Pilgrim at Tinker Creek) is The Writing Life which is enjoyable if you like books on writing. My favorite books on writing are Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird and Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic (which is on creativity at large and, I think, applicable to all).

p.p.s. When changing your days, no need to start big. You do not need to blow up your whole life in a fit of rage. Start small. What's one thing you can do differently today? What's a single healthy decision you can make today that differentiates you from the you of yesterday? Is there one mean remark you can keep to yourself, one angry email you can resist from sending? As Lao Tzu reminds us:"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

Feel Deeper. | rejoyce letters, vol. 45

Hi Friend,

I recently listened to an interview with the late Elie Wiesel, who was a writer, professor, Holocaust survivor, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient. (He wrote 57 books including Night about his experiences in Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp and Buchenwald concentration camp.)

He said that though he's hesitant to prescribe a "formula" for how to live—since everything is so personal and individual—he consistently shared this message with many of his students:

"Think higher.

Feel deeper."

I felt moved to share those four words this week. Four words that, I believe, could be transformative if you lean into them fully.
I went to Poland in September to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau. I was in Europe paying respect to my ancestry and, since my maternal grandmother was one-hundred percent German, I felt compelled to visit what must be one of the most abhorrent manmade monstrosities in the history of the human race. I believe in looking at and learning from all sides of the past. 

I have nothing profound to say about my personal experience visiting the camp. (I recommend reading Night or visiting any number of Holocaust museums. In NYC, the Museum of Jewish Heritage is worth a visit.) Any words I could string together about Auschwitz-Birkenau would inherently come up short. The horror of the place defies the bounds of language and logic. As I walked through the grounds, my mind felt unable to compute what I was seeing; it's the closest I've been to hell on earth.

Yet, I was there by choice for a day trip from Krakow. The next day, I'd bus to Berlin. Elie Wiesel was sent there as a teenager and forced to labor with his father in unspeakable conditions. His mother and younger sister were murdered immediately upon arrival. His advice?

Think higher.

Feel deeper.

Feeling deeper is something many of us are trained to avoid. Emotions are seen as useless and excessive in a full-blown capitalistic society, so we've been taught to shut off our emotions—especially negative ones. But when we shut down before we can truly feel things, we stunt our emotional growth.

Rumi says:

"Darkness is your candle.

Your boundaries are your quest."

Wiesel adamantly condemns indifference. I consider indifference the opposite of feeling deeply.

He says:

"Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil...The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference. Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies. To be in a window and watch people being sent to concentration camps or being attacked in the street and do nothing, that's being dead."

My wish for you is that you may feel deeper this week, even if that pushes you beyond comfortable boundaries. It is only through feeling that you can get in touch with the essence of being alive, the essence of our interconnectedness. 

I believe we are all one. And if you allow yourself to feel deeper, you will naturally begin feeling connected with other people, even people whom you perceive as wildly different than yourself. The more you feel deeply into your own emotions, the more compassion you have for others, and as your compassion grows, you begin to actively create a more loving world. A world where—one can hope—the terrible atrocities of the past are never replicated in the future.

Because some are guilty, but all are responsible.

As George Orwell says: "Either we all live in a decent world, or nobody does."
Creating a decent world starts with you. Think higher. Feel deeper. Your boundaries are your quest.

with Love and with Light,

Joyce