Could I be more joyous!? Could you?

Could I be more joyous!?
Could you?

I hope your answer, like mine, is, “Yes! I could have more Joy in my life!” You see, I know that there is no “cap” on joy, except as we put there for ourselves. Raising that “cap” or set-point is possible. When you do it, each time you do it, it is profound and powerful. I hope I never find my limit!

For years I've been toying with this idea of self-imposed limits - both high and low limits. It started as a pre-teen when I learned about body weight set points. The way I understood it, my body found a comfort-zone and could coast at or around that weight unless and until I did something to disturb the inertia.

Years later I noticed that I had a similar relationship with money. There was a certain range I felt comfortable making or having. Any higher or any lower and I would do something unconsciously to make it return to my set-point. Even when I wanted more income, higher bank balances or less out-go, I would subconsciously un-do any chance I had of making that improvement. Unexpected expenses, a sale that fell through, a client who didn't pay, a business training that cost more than it helped me earn. Somehow always right there in the same range.

If you think of it as a ceiling and a floor, there's a point at which you tend not to go below, your floor; and your ceiling is your top measure of comfort. That's how I experienced it with money, my weight... for years.

Then I started to think about this in a broader sense. What if we have Love set points? How about a cap on joy?

I began testing my intimacy-tolerance with this in mind. I was going around saying to myself and my journal: I long for intimacy. I wanted to have the experience that I imagined when two people connect on a soul-level. I wanted to experience conscious love connection. Not so much with a lover - although that was part of my dream too. I was longing for intimate connection with another person.

Trouble is, I had an intimacy set-point. I could only tolerate a small amount of revealing myself to another. Then I would be so uncomfortable I could no longer be present to them. So the whole thing would just crumble in a moment. Tells a bit about how challenging my relationships were at the time!

One day I realized that my mother had been extending a loving, generous hand to me, inviting the same kind of connection I'd be wanting. At least as many years as I'd been feeling this desire, my beautiful mother had been inviting me to meet her there. I refused her for years.

That's one of the ways this set-point prevents you from moving into a new experience. An opportunity to have exactly what you want is presented to you, but you can't even recognize it because it's unfamiliar to you, or you judge it and reject it. I rejected her. Well, if not her, I rejected her invitations to meet in this world I dreamed of.

In the back of my mind I may have thought, "Well, I want it, but not with her... Someone else."

But she was there, offering to be my guide into unfamiliarity, the place beyond the ceiling.

That day in the fall of 1995, right then and there, sitting in my San Francisco apartment, I picked up the phone, and uncharacteristically, I told her what I'd just realized. I apologized for refusing her. We had the most intimate conversation we'd ever had up till then. Our relationship has continued to grow more intimate and celebratory, more honest since that day.

A new world opened up. I moved beyond my intimacy-ceiling, and the new one wasn't yet in sight. Sure, I came up to it. I like to think I had more consciousness to approach it, but it was just as real (or imaginary) as the time before. Frankly, I find it's just as shaky and uncomfortable with each expansion.

We all have set-points, or the degree to which we can tolerate something we want... wealth, love, joy, the generosity of another, health, the quality of our surroundings, intimacy.

Let's come back to JOY.

Even if you think, "I couldn't possibly have a ceiling on joy," you do.

If you're not joyous everyday - or you imagine you could be happier more of the time, you have a set point. You're living in that little room with a floor and a ceiling that let's you only get so high and only so low.

Here's a fun (we're talking about Joy... so it ought to be fun, right?!), easy joy experiment you can try on. See how much more you can expand your experience of Joy and for longer and longer durations.

1. First, set some time that you can be alone for a few minutes, uninterrupted. Get comfortable, and receive a few breaths.

2. Now check in: on a scale of 1-100, one is you’re barely alive, one hundred is effervescent, vibrations of extraordinary amplification... Check in, and answer this question: How much joy do I feel right now? Just notice. No need to judge or manipulate your answer. Is it 28, 60, higher?

3. Next, check in again and see if this is where you most often experience yourself. Are you more joyous right this moment, or less... than usual. You can imagine adjusting a dial up a little, down a little to see what's familiar, comfortable. (When I did this recently, I was at 42 to start. I could turn it up to about 80 when my body started to shake and down to 20 when I began to feel a real dip in my energy. 42 is less joyous than I usually feel.)

4. Okay, now I invite you to imagine what it would be like to be as high on this scale as you REALLY WANT to be. Just imagine it. How does it feel in your body? Does your posture change - or the way your holding yourself? What's your facial expression? Are you still or moving? Silent or making sounds? Let your body adjust with the change you imagine would happen if you were as JOYOUS as you desire. Using the same scale, what number do you imagine.

5. Notice if there is anything else that comes into your awareness. Do you imagine images, colors, tastes, sounds, people, places? Your imagination can help bring this experience into even greater into your awareness.

6. Now, without changing anything, check in again: How much joy do you feel right now? Is it changed from the first time? Most of the people I have led through similar experiences tell me that their number goes up considerably after just that brief imagination.

Do this a few times each day for a 21-30 days, you’ll raise your ceiling on the experience of joy. The more you play with the scale and allowing your imagination... note: it doesn’t have to be the same each time. That’s just it, you’re expanding your upper-tolerance, and as you do, you’ll find that your experience changes.

I focused on joy for our experiment. You choose the area you want to expand. The same steps work for increasing your feeling of health, or wealth. For your curiosity or focus. For generosity or receiving. Even for faith. Try it on... I mean really, the worst that could happen is you have a few moments to yourself each day, noticing. The best... well, perhaps the sky’s the limit!

Let me know what you discover and experience in your life as you join me in the “Could I be more joyous?” Experiment!