Finding Joy

Have you ever noticed that there is something within you that resists feeling good, resists abundance, resists thriving? This may sound silly at first, because—let’s face it—who doesn’t want to thrive? Who doesn’t want to feel good? Who doesn’t want more abundance and prosperity in their lives? It is our instinctual nature as humans to feel good, to thrive, and to be happy. If I were to walk down the street and ask random people if this is their primary motivation in life, behind everything they do in the day to day, they would most likely reply, “Yes, of course!” And yet, a closer look might quickly reveal that although this is the case on the surface, underneath, many people are blocking the reception of their own good. Why is this? Why do we have this peculiar trait? I would like to share my own experience of this with you so that it might possibly shine a light on your own, thereby freeing you to thrive. This is your inherent birthright as a human.

Let me start by telling you about my middle name. It’s Joy. Sara Joy Fishkin. I don’t know exactly how my parents arrived at my name; that process is always an enigma to me.  I feel that I have always carried Joy with me and that it comes from a living essence connection with the Divine. We all have this, though some don’t have the awareness of it. Look at babies; why are they so happy? Simply because they have yet to distinguish themselves as “a separate such,” as one of my teachers used to say. They are still existing in their unadulterated essence state, which is one of union with Source, which is pure love. They don’t experience themselves as separate, and therefore there are no blockages to expressing the pure love and joy that naturally courses through them. They are still free.

I was born into a family that had so much goodness in it, and for that, I am so grateful. My parents are incredibly loving, wonderful people, and yet, in the early days, they did not get along. They divorced when I was seven, and then my mom proceeded to quarrel with my stepfather, quite a bit. It was not unusual for me to hear yelling, door slamming, and tires screeching out of the driveway. I would worry about my dad, who was alone for several years before he found his new partner, and I perceived him as being very sad. I also knew he was short on money, and I worried about this as well. As a natural caretaker, I felt responsible for everyone and everything, and I also felt that I couldn’t express my joy around people who weren’t thriving. I didn’t consciously know any of this at the time; as children we do not have any conscious faculties until we are about eight years old. As adults, the conscious mind is the “guard at the gate,” so to speak, meaning that we can choose what to believe and what to discard as false. We can reason with ourselves.  As kids, we can’t do this, so everything goes into our subconscious minds as truth. The subconscious mind can’t distinguish true from false; it can only accept everything as true, and readily accepts beliefs that are repeated with emotion. The other unique thing about the subconscious mind is that it perceives everything to be about itself. This is often problematic, because as children we can tend to feel that everything is our fault, and therefore we are inherently bad. The subjective mind can only operate deductively, so in this case, we experience negative repercussions. Later, in another post, I will explain why this deductive way of operating is actually to our advantage, once we know how to work with it intentionally.

Back to the story…..

As a child in this family, with no “guard at the gate,” I assumed that I was responsible for everyone’s suffering. In addition, I didn’t feel comfortable being happy when those closest to me were not, and therefore I dimmed my joy in order to not “betray” them. The mind of a child works this way, though as children we don’t know that we are doing it. It’s just “how it is.” Another word for this is “paradigm,” which is something you will hear me talk about a lot. Essentially, a paradigm is a subconscious belief that is tightly woven together with a multitude of habits. This is the first time that I dimmed my joy and shut the door on thriving. I also developed the habit of amplifying my upsets in order to receive attention, because I found that when I was happy, people mostly left me alone. When I wanted to be seen and cared for, I had to be hurting in some way. Another paradigm.

Fast forward into my early twenties. By this time, I was quite accustomed to feeling somewhat disturbed most of the time, even though outwardly I was doing many fun and wonderful things. I appeared to be enjoying life, but there was a level of angst that was always with me. Simultaneously, there was also the knowing that the joy still existed within me, but now it manifested as a longing to return to it, which fueled my spiritual search. During this time, I traveled a lot, mostly in Mexico and Central America, and I gravitated to places where people were very poor. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my sadness at seeing their hard lives created another internal reason why it wasn’t okay for me to thrive, especially financially. In the winter of 1997, I witnessed the direct aftermath of a massacre of Zapatista supporters in the Chiapas highlands. I was part of a group that was bringing a load of gifts and supplies to this village for Christmas, and when we arrived, 50 people had just been shot and killed in church the day before. For the next several weeks, we helped this community the best we could, in the pouring El Niño rain. We helped dig a massive grave, transported dead bodies, and various other things. The smell of death was in the air for at least a week. When I returned to San Francisco, I was a changed person. My mentor, Bob Proctor, has said that there are two ways to change a paradigm. The first is constant spaced repetition (autosuggestion), and the second is emotional impact. He never recommends the latter, because often it is a negative shock. This is what happened to me. I returned to the states with a new paradigm: It is a betrayal to thrive when there is so much suffering in the world. It is a betrayal to have money when there is so much poverty and people are dying because of it. This world is a totally messed up place and I cannot be happy here. Again, I didn’t consciously know this, I just became this. Consciously, however, I wanted to get my life together. I wanted to connect with my passion and share it with the world. I wanted to receive ample financial compensation. I wanted to thrive. These desires were all in my conscious mind. However, for the reasons previously described, under the surface (subconsciously), I was not having any of it! No way, José! And the truth is, the subconscious mind always wins, because it is in direct connection with the Higher Creative power. In fact, it IS the presence of the Higher Creative power. We don’t ever get what we consciously want, we get how we feel about what we want. It is for this reason exclusively that many people are frustrated with their lives. They know what they want, but underneath they can’t give themselves the permission to have it, and therefore they can’t receive it.

This went on for many years. I kept trying to create a satisfying livelihood for myself. I kept trying to find my joy. I kept trying to thrive, but I couldn’t because of what I just explained. I tried in many beautiful ways and, looking back, I wouldn’t trade any of it, because I learned many valuable lessons and acquired many useful tools, both spiritual and material. The frustration finally brought me to my knees, so to speak. Sometimes this is what it takes, and this is when I encountered Bob Proctor. He helped me to understand my mind and my relationship with Infinite Intelligence. He explained to me that I exist on three levels: I am a spiritual being, I have an intellect, and I have a physical body. I had already been working with a slightly different variation of this model, through my studies of Gurdjieff’s teachings, but the way Bob explained it and taught me how to apply it directly to my life was new to me. He taught me how to access and change my paradigms, therefore changing my life. Through this work, I have recovered my connection with my innate joy. I am thriving. I am happy. I am financially abundant. I have embraced prosperity, and it has embraced me. I know, without any doubt, that this is possible for every single person, and as each person becomes able to choose joy over suffering, the entire planet will thrive. This is what is meant by “heaven on earth” and I feel so blessed and honored to be a part of this process, one life at a time.