Michelle is a student that has been coming twice a week to my Qigong classes on Zoom for over 2 years. No one in the class has ever met Michelle in person, she lives in another part of the country, no one in the class even knows what Michelle looks like, she keeps her video turned off. Yet we have all felt her joyful spirit permeate our sessions every week. Michelle in not full of joy because she has a perfect life…far from it. Michelle came to my class because she was recovering from a terrible accident’ she was hit by a car while riding her bike. I also discovered that just prior to her accident she lost both of her parents unexpectedly in a very brief period of time. Recently she was given only 2 weeks to vacate the condo she had just moved into. She had to find a place to live and try to move while dealing with a bad case of Covid.
Joy is not an emotion that depends on what is going on in our life. Joy is a state of being that is dependent on our life view. For some people joy is inherent in their personality, their makeup, but for most of us joy needs to be cultivated like a beautiful rose bush. It needs attention, feeding and nurturing. Joy is different from happiness in that it doesn’t depend on something good happening. Michelle certainly has not been happy about the current events in her life, but her joyful spirit has kept her going. Throughout all of her turmoil she never missed a Qigong class because she knew she had to keep nurturing her joyful spirit to survive the onslaught of unimaginably horrible events in her previously “happy” life. The last couple of years have brought previously unthinkable challenges to all of us. It has become quite clear, at least to me, that keeping ourselves in a high vibration has become essential to our wellbeing. The higher our vibration the less likely we are to contract a virus or fall into a depression about the state of the world. If you are not sure what I mean by a “high vibration” think in terms of the last cold you came down with right after a particularly bad week, when you received bad news or just everything seemed to be going wrong. The vibration we put out is what we attract back.
Joy is a light that fills you with hope, faith and love.” I think we could all use some more hope, faith and universal love in our lives these days!
I will be offering a 10-Week Program on Zoom starting on Monday September 19th called: Journey into Joy for Self-Healing. It is the next in the 60 Weeks of “Journey into Self-Healing Programs” I have been conducting on Zoom since the first weeks of the pandemic. During these 10-Weeks we will explore topics that promote and nurture and build our JOY muscle. Some of the topics will include:
- Joy vs Happiness
- Accepting What We Cannot Change
- Attitude of Gratitude
- Training the Monkey Mind
- Forgiveness
- Service to Others
- Peace of Mind
- Nirvana/Dissolving into Bliss
- Let the Magic Begin
We will explore these topics through meditation, discussion, writing, process, poetry, exercises, and Qigong.
Sign up Today! Call Judy Milinowski 203-253-1738, milinowskij@gmail.com or judymilinowski.com