Enjoyment: Next Stop Joytown

photo and art by author, Jenny Lane

One of the kindest, most loving things we can do for one another is to take responsibility for our thoughts, actions and feelings, for our own happiness, for our own love, for our own joy and for our own care.

If you’re in pain right now, it’s ok to feel that way. All I ask is to, please, dwell not in it. Reach out for help to kickstart your own self motivation, or kickstart yourself.

If my choice is to constantly talk about my pain, think about my pain, dump my pain daily, on myself and others (I’ve done it!) with no actions or solutions, you know what I’ve got?

A one way ticket on the pain train to Sufferingville.

Own your pain, stand up to it and find solutions in learning, in listening, in self-compassion to heal the pain. Ask for help!

Please get off at the next stop, immediately and go see Joytown, it’s quite lovely.

Even if it’s only a day trip for now, an hour visit, or just a glance, get there. Stay a while, then stay a little while longer.

I’m not in pain, tell yourself, “I’m healing.”

I’m not sad, tell yourself, “I have feelings of sadness.”

They come and go. And it’s perfectly okay to have them!

I am not the sadness, the sadness is a state of being, it is not me!

Just like happiness is not perpetual, neither is sadness. Own your feelings, don’t let your feelings own you.

When we have a cold we don’t say, “I am a cold.”

No, it’s just a temporary issue, a state of being, not our being.

Why we think sadness is who we are, is beyond me.

You have feelings and thoughts, they aren’t the definition of you.

And we need help working through these feelings of pain.

Sometimes, we need professionals trained to help us through these things. They are essential to the healing process.