Good morning and welcome to the artist morning.
My name is Darius and I am so grateful that you and I get this time together.
Our practice today will be on the theme of joy.
Joy has a cousin that goes by the name of awe.
It's got a second cousin that goes by the name of wonder.
Joy,
Awe,
And wonder will be our playmates today.
If you are open to it,
If you are interested,
If you are willing,
Together we will cultivate an environment where we invite the energy of joy,
Of awe,
Of wonder into our lives.
Let's begin our meditation.
Find a nice comfortable seat.
Allow yourself to settle in while continuing to keep a tall posture,
Gentle tall posture.
Shoulders gently back,
Allowing the heart space to open.
And if your eyes are still open,
I'd like to invite you to close them now as we begin to go inwards together,
Really going slowly.
There's no rush,
There's no place we need to be.
Just taking a moment to land,
To come back to yourself,
To your body,
To your breath,
Into your heart.
And if it's available to you,
Let's begin to take deeper breaths.
Slow,
Intentional,
Deep breaths in and out,
In and out.
These deeper breaths have a rhythm to them.
It's almost hypnotic,
The rising and falling of your body as you breathe in and out.
And this rhythm allows us to slow our nervous system down and go deeper in this place where our nervous system begins to slow down and our mind begins to quiet.
There is safety here for us.
There is calm here for us.
And if your mind is wandering,
Just let it.
That's okay.
Creative minds wander sometimes thinking about the past,
Thinking about your to-do list,
Thinking about how ridiculous this meditation is.
It's never gonna work for me.
Your resistance is so welcome here.
You can't get this wrong.
Giving you a moment to reconnect with yourself,
Allowing a gentle softness,
Melt away any tension in your forehead,
In your jaw,
In your neck and shoulders,
Down your back.
Just melting away any tension you might have.
And as we slow down and go deeper,
If you pay very special attention,
There is joy inside you.
It might be subtle and it might be loud.
I'll guide you closer to this joy.
But before I do,
Just take a moment to see if you can find it,
If you can feel it.
What does it feel like?
What does it sound like?
For me,
Joy sounds like a laugh.
Sometimes the laugh of a child.
There's a giddiness to it for no reason at all.
Joy requires no logic,
No practicality,
No reason.
As I feel it,
A smile grows on my face.
And as it does,
It begins to amplify the joy.
I begin to feel tingles up my spine.
It's like I'm about to laugh,
A ridiculous laugh,
As if I am on the inside of a joke.
And we're gonna take a little risk here,
And maybe you hate it,
And maybe you love it,
And maybe something else,
And you don't need to do it.
But I'm curious if you can feel that laughter,
That joy inside you,
What would happen if we allowed it to come through us,
If we tried a little laugh?
That's the joy that's inside me.
It's silly,
It's goofy.
Is there a little laugh you'd like to play with?
And if it's not a laugh,
Maybe it's a smile.
And just notice what happens.
Does it amplify your joy?
Does your joy run away?
Or something else?
For me,
Joy is different than happiness.
Happiness is joy's more structured,
More practical older brother.
It has rules,
It has goals,
It has focus,
Whereas joy doesn't care about any of that.
Joy will just belly laugh at any moment.
Joy is grounded in silliness,
And silliness is one of the most sacred things available to the human experience.
Joy does not require everything in your life to be perfect.
Joy is not waiting for the world to be perfect.
Sometimes joy is an act of liberation in a world that can be very intense.
Joy is a reminder of how sacred our lives are,
How special it is to be here.
I don't try to connect my joy to a thought or to my mind.
It doesn't work like that.
I don't need to be thinking about what I'm laughing about.
It just comes through,
It shoots through,
It flows through.
There it is again,
That silly,
Silly thing.
One trick I found for joy is when I begin to feel it,
Sometimes deep inside my belly,
Inside my heart.
When I breathe deeper,
It almost pulls the joy up,
Up my lungs,
Out my vocal cords.
My breath,
When I breathe is like a dance with joy.
Maybe that's not how your joy works,
But if you're open to it,
Play with taking deeper breaths and just freeing your voice and seeing what your joy has to say.
If you're open to it,
Let's try it together now.
Let's take a couple deep breaths and just see what happens.
Breathing in and out.
It's the silliest thing in the world.
I don't understand it,
Not even for a second,
And I have no interest in understanding it.
Now,
I have a very important message to share with you before we go into our last song here.
You might be having a hard time finding even one morsel of joy.
I have two things to say to you.
One,
I promise you it's there.
And two,
Everything worth doing takes practice.
For years,
I have been practicing,
Connecting with my joy and freeing my joy.
If this is your first time,
It might be more difficult for you.
The good news is practicing joy is one of the simplest things we can do because it's everywhere.
Joy is everywhere.
It's all around us.
It does not have an agenda.
It does not have rules.
Joy is not waiting for you to do something or be someone.
Joy is everywhere.
Maybe you have forgotten how much awe and wonder surrounds you always.
Joy and awe all around you.
I'm gonna stay quiet for the rest of this song and just allow you to feel and be and flow and dance.
If your brain tries to place down logic and practicality,
My invitation to you is say,
Thank you beautiful mind,
But I'm good.
Let your brain just have a moment to take a little baby nap as you continue to explore.
Bravo,
Dear artist.
Bravo,
Dear creator.
You made it to the end of this meditation and for that I am so grateful.
Let's take one deep breath allowing ourselves to return back to our bodies.
Breathing in and letting it go.
For those that are joining live at the artist's morning,
I'm going to put 20 minutes on the clock and share a journaling prompt and invite you to do some private personal journaling together here.
And of course if you're catching us on a replay,
Perhaps on insight timer,
You can do the same.
Put some time on your clock and see what's here and ready to be expressed through you.
Thank you for meditating with me.
My name is Darius and I will see you next time.
