The joy gap

The instinct when we feel stifled is to try to remove the stifled thing — to push it out of the way so the joy can come in. But that’s not actually how it works.

The stifled feeling is not simply blocking the life force. It is the place where the life force is waiting.

When you can turn toward it — find it in your body, be with it, not to process it away but just to let it be there — it starts to shift on its own because you gave it the only thing it actually needed, which was your presence.

Accepting something doesn’t mean liking it. It means acknowledging that this is what’s here right now. And that this, too, is from Hashem. Handmade for you. Even the feelings you didn’t ask for.

This might be describing exactly where the collective is right now. And the teaching is the same: we don’t get to joy by pushing the grief or the fear or the numbness out of the way. We get there by turning toward it. By letting it be here.

Is there something you’re still trying to push away from this Adar? What might it feel like to just let it be here for a moment?

Supporting your sensitivity,
Rena

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