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Cory Muscara

4.8

Duration

Cory Muscara

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Counterintuitive Path to Joy

Personalized support for learning how to integrate mindfulness into your life. Delivered fresh everyday by our world renowned experts. Choose meditation duration:

Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness.

In today's session we're going

to talk about the relationship

between joy and pain.

Now, a lot of the time when we

think of having more joy in our

life, we think about cultivating

positive emotions, focusing on what

is good and even positive thinking.

And yes, there's certainly a big place for

these things in the context of cultivating

your happiness and your wellbeing.

However, that's not always the full story.

And I'd like to say something that may

feel a bit controversial, but sometimes

the greatest progress you can make

toward experiencing joy comes from first

making space to experience your pain.

So just notice what

it's like to hear that.

The reason for this is because trying

to find more joy in your life without

doing some of the deeper healing

work, the underlying pain that might

be there is sort of like trying

to row a boat downstream without

untying yourself from the dock.

The parts of you that need to be

vulnerable and open enough to be

touched by joy and to receive it are

often subconsciously damming the, the

stream of feeling so that you don't

have to experience painful emotions.

I don't know if you've experienced that

before or are going through that, but I

certainly know that's been an experience

I've had where something feels like it's

too painful, so we try to shut down to it.

And we might then not experience the pain,

but we also then don't experience the joy.

It as if there's an overall numbing

that happens in our mind and our body.

Joy requires a degree of

openness and letting go.

And if we're actively closing down to

protect ourselves from feeling pain,

then we won't be able to let joy in.

So as you consider cultivating

more joy in your life, check to

see what your relationship is for

making space to experience and

show compassion toward your pain.

This is a big healing journey and

today's meditation will help with this.

And you could also take time throughout

the day to stop, to breathe into any

discomfort that may be present and then

say to yourself, you're welcome here too.

It might be uncomfortable at first, but

over time, you'll notice more space and

ease arise in your mind and your body.

Thank you for your practice.

Let's settle in for today's meditation.

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