The Quarantine Chronicles: Day 12

Hello, Dear One,

So glad you are here.

A lot of creatives that I have been talking to recently, particularly musicians, have been feeling antsy and insecure.

To be honest, this is normal. Most artists are antsy and fight insecurities on a daily basis.

But with the Quarantine in full blown 'potential-never-endingness', and all the festivals and concerts canceled this summer, things feel a tad bit more...intense and serious.

It's easy to get swept away in a social media tizzy and feel envious of all the musicians who have already "made" it and had a big audience before all of the pandemic happened.

And even if you are not a musician in the same predicament...the invitation to jealousy and comparison through social media is out there for everyone.

Today, however, we are going to be using our imaginations and creative juices to generate some joy.

Good news, right?

This is from the book, Lost Connections by Johann Hari. He talks about his friend Rachel who discovered "an ancient technique called "sympathetic joy," which is part of a range of techniques for which there is some striking new scientific evidence.

It is, she says, quite simple. Sympathetic joy is a method for cultivating "the opposite of jealousy or envy...It's simply feeling happy for other people."...

You close your eyes and picture yourself. You imagine something good happening to you -- falling in love, or writing something you're proud of. You feel the joy that would come from that. You let it flow through you.

Then you picture somebody you love, and you imagine something wonderful happening for them. You feel the joy from that, and you let that, too, flow through you.

So far, so easy. Then you picture somebody you don't really know -say, the clerk who serves you in the grocery store. You imagine something wonderful happening to him. And you try to feel joy for him - real joy.

Then it gets harder. You picture somebody you don't like, and you try to imagine something good happening for that person and you try to feel joy for that person. You try to feel the same joy you'd feel for yourself, or for somebody you love. You imagine how good they'd feel, and how moved they'd be."

Apparently making a loving kindness meditation out of this vicarious joy, for about 15 minutes every day, perhaps makes a subtle difference at first, but after a few weeks "the toxic feelings slowly abate."

Envy, insecurity and depression evaporate. "You start to see the happiness of others not as a rebuke, but as a source of joy for yourself, too."

It's happiness. It's warmth. And it's scientifically proven that this particular style of meditation changes people.

Johann Hari's friend Rachel said, "I've pursued happiness for myself my whole life, and I'm exhuasted, and I don't feel any closer to it-- because where does it end? The bar just keeps getting moved."

But this different way of thinking produced a different kind of pleasure and offered her relief from the anxious thoughts she'd been plagued by.

"There's always going to be shit coming into your life to be unhappy about. If you can be happy for others, there's always going to be a supply of happiness available to you. Vicarious joy is going to be available millions of ways every single day. If you want to look at other people and be happy for them, you can be happy every single day, regardless of what's happening to you."

Try this sympathetic joy meditation today and see if you can use your imagination and experience that vicarious joy as you create something for someone else.

It could be as simple as imagining a friend (or even someone you struggle being envious of) experiencing success or love or their dreams coming true and maybe you send them a description of what you imagined. Maybe you send them a drawing of what you imagined, or a melody, a poem, or a prayer.

Experiment with the combination of creating and vicarious joy. Celebrate the people around you...

Celebration is a door to breakthrough in many different ways...from your own sanity to your eventual success.