Welcome to Joy Lab!: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Joy Lab podcast, where we help you uncover and foster your most joyful self. Your hosts, Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr. Aimee Prasek, bring you the ideal mix of soulful and scientifically sound tools to spark your joy, even when it feels dark. When you're ready to experiment with more joy, combine this podcast with the full Joy Lab program over at JoyLab.coach
Henry: Hello, I'm Henry Emmons and welcome back to Joy Lab.
Aimee Prasek: And I am Aimee Prasek. So we are in our month of Awe, and we are talking about strategies to help us get in the game of our life to tap into our authenticity. The last two episodes really give a good foundation for what we're getting into here. So head back there now if you haven't, but if you're like really wanting to be in this right now, certainly you can go back after, get sort of a better understanding of authenticity and some common [00:01:00] obstacles. Today we are getting into our first strategy that Henry calls the Road Most Traveled: Awakening Through Suffering. So, Henry, do you wanna start us off? Walk us through.
Henry: Sure. And, and let me just kinda recap quickly what we talked about in those first couple of episodes about authenticity. So for folks who haven't heard that yet, well even folks who have, so first of all. Becoming one's self sounds like the simplest thing in the world. Like almost how can I not do that?
Henry: I, I am myself, but it is not as easy as it sounds to be truly oneself. And I think that true self or higher self is constantly evolving too. It's not a one and done thing. It's kind of a, a moving target. And there are just so many things [00:02:00] that get in the way, you know, including the, the masks we that we put on where we're trying to be someone we're not, the pain that we're carrying that we maybe are trying to cover up or suppress or simply just not deal with, so we just keep carrying it. The point being that it takes quite a bit to wake us up to true self. It really it takes quite a bit, at least in my experience. And I think it's the work of a lifetime never stops.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: And then another point that we made that some might not entirely like to hear or maybe not even agree with, and that is that from our perspective, it's possible to fail at becoming fully ourselves. We can choose not to do it in other words. But, [00:03:00] here's where we're getting what we're getting into today. Life has a way of conspiring giving us the opportunities repeatedly to wake us up. And I really believe this, that as long as we're living and breathing, there is still time to awaken and really fully enter our lives.
Henry: So, so let me pivot here and talk a little bit about, about authentic joy, okay. Because we talk, you know, obviously we're, we're talking about joy in Joy Lab all the time, and we've, we've said many times that we're not focused on toxic positivity or you know, thinking that we have to run around being happy and leaping in the air at the time.
Henry: So, so what is authentic joy? What are we [00:04:00] talking about here? And I believe that true joy is more than a feeling. It doesn't mean that we're having a particular emotion. The emotions come and go. Some of them we like, some of 'em we don't like. That's not what this is about, and I do believe that living our own lives, being fully ourselves is a really important part of, of what makes for authentic joy not trying to be something that we're not. So in Buddhist psychology, in theory, there's, there's a phrase that many of you have heard about the 10,000 joys and the 10,000 sorrows. And I like this concept because it kind of gets to this point that in our lives we're given more or less equal measure of these two. And we often think [00:05:00] that the, the one is good and the other is bad. We want more of the joys. We wanna avoid the sorrows. But that's really not what this is, is telling us. It's telling us that life encompasses all of those and we can carry with us a sense of equanimity, a sense of presence,
Henry: a sense of giving and receiving love no matter what's happening. And these are some of the important building blocks of joy. But, in terms of our topic for today, it is possible for us to awaken through either of those. We can awaken through the joy and we can awaken through the pain or the sorrow, sadness, loss, what have you.
Henry: Any of those things can awaken us. In my experience, and I think most of you would agree with this, if you look around [00:06:00] you, the vast majority of human beings, if they are in the process of awakening. It is through some kind of pain or suffering because that's what most of us are carrying and dealing with.
Henry: Stress, loss, you name it. Emotional pain is a great awakener. It's not something we're recommending. We're not advocating for this, but it's going to happen to us anyway, obviously. None of us can avoid pain and loss, we may as well try to use it to help us awaken. So with that background, I just wanna share a story and I'm going to read this so I, so I really get it right.
Henry: This is a beautiful little story that I think in a very fun way and a very true way, kind of talks to us about how we might awaken through pain or suffering. It's [00:07:00] called An Autobiography in Five Short Chapters. And I, I feel like I can read it to you because I got permission to put it in one of my books by the, estate of the, the author Portia Nelson.
Henry: So here's the story. An Autobiography in Five Short Chapters.
Henry: "Chapter one. I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in, I am lost. I am helpless. It isn't my fault. It takes forever to find a way out.
Henry: Chapter two. I walk down the same street. There's a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don't see it.
Henry: I fall in again. I can't believe I am in the same place, but it isn't my fault. [00:08:00] It still takes a long time to get out.
Henry: Chapter three. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in. It's a habit. My eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.
Henry: Chapter four. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.
Henry: And chapter five. I walk down another street."
Henry: Now, I love that story and it feels so true to me. Um, How many of us recognize ourselves in one or more of those [00:09:00] chapters? You know, I think probably we've each experienced all of them, but over time, at least in my life experience, it feels like after too many times of falling into the same hole, I do start to wake up. I do start to see what I'm doing and that it is something I am responsible for. And over time I think the biggest noticeable change is that it just doesn't take me as long to get out, you know, I can get into a bad mood. It used to last days maybe longer, and now it might last the rest of the day, or even just an hour or sometimes just a few minutes and, and then, you know, gradually learning to take more and more responsibility. Essentially taking responsibility for our own lives and our own inner experience, to the point that we can choose something really different.
Henry: We can learn to let go of these habits that we've created that are at least part of what causes the, the suffering that we [00:10:00] experience and do it really differently.
Aimee: Mm, I I love that Autobiography in Five Short Chapters as well. And even though it's, it's titled short, thatit can take Like a long time to, to go around those holes, to get outta those holes. So, you know, it's not maybe five different walks, but each chapter I think is multiple strolls. Sort of on that note, I think for me it's helpful to, to think about change, growth after loss after something tough, trauma, facing something really hard, whatever, to sort of reframe it as an earthquake. So I love this sidewalk metaphor. I'm gonna go with an earthquake now as well. So a big event happens, or sort of the [00:11:00] slowly and suddenly phenomenon where you realize you're stuck in a hole and it really shakes your foundation.
Aimee Prasek: So stuff comes crumbling down. Then the dust settles, you look up and maybe your life doesn't even look the same. The way you saw the world or interacted with the world. Maybe all of that came crashing down with a single event or a series of patterns that led to that realization. And I've shared this before, that when my dad died when I was 17, he died of suicide, it was an earthquake for me, a crushing blow. And the other piece was that when he died, my mom was completely in the dark with their finances. And so after his death, she quickly came to realize that we had lost everything. The bank accounts were drained, the credit cards were maxed. There was no more life [00:12:00] insurance. We were defaulting on our house, cars, not paying any of the bills, all of it. So it was really... like, felt like a literal earthquake. We went from kind of a swanky million dollar lake home with a bunch of stuff, to no place to live. Everything was sold for extra money to just get through. Everything came crashing down and life did not look the same the next day. And I think we all have moments like this, as you said, Henry. Details are all different, of course, but we all have moments like this. We will all have earthquakes in our lives. And here's my point, I hope, after an earthquake, there's search and rescue, there's cleanup, there's lots of people that come together to assist, and then there's planning and rebuilding. And it's in that messy process [00:13:00] where I think that growth happens, kind of what we're getting at here, that healing can happen. Henry, you said, something I think is really important. Emotional pain is a great awakener. You didn't say a bad thing that happens to you is a great awakener. So the earthquake isn't it. It's the emotional pain and what we do with it. And I think that speaks to something called post-traumatic growth. That I wanna just touch on for a moment.
Aimee Prasek: So we've probably all heard the phenomenon of post-traumatic stress, but that's not the only outcome after trauma or a bad event or something, growth is an option. So with post-traumatic growth, that's what happens.
Aimee Prasek: We create some kind of positive change or changes some growth in our life after something hard- through something hard. And importantly in post-traumatic growth, the growth [00:14:00] really comes from us struggling to deal with the loss or the event. Struggling. That's a important piece in the research on this.
Aimee Prasek: It's in the struggle, so we don't ignore or shut down. We assess, we gather some help. We clean up, we rebuild, we struggle, but we are wired to do this, and it takes time and attention and effort. And with post-traumatic growth and awakening, as we're talking about right now, I think the other piece that's helpful to know, sort of in that line of struggle, this process is not the same as psychological comfort, which sucks in some ways, right? I'll link to some great studies, some papers in the show notes on post-traumatic growth and this idea, but it is essential. It is a key piece of this. Just like that journey to finally walk down another street, as you noted, Henry, we're gonna fall in holes. We're [00:15:00] gonna get stuck before that new street. And that struggle,that's the awakening, that's the process of the awakening. So in a paper from Tedeschi, Park, and Calhoun, they have this great little blurb that I wanna share. Here's what they wrote about post-traumatic growth. "Growth will not necessarily decrease pain or increase happiness. But on the contrary, significant growth may only occur when it is proceeded by or when it occurs together with significant amounts subjective distress." So as you said earlier, I don't think we need to summon distress and tough stuff to grow, but we will have those things in our life. We will have distress. And if we're facing it and we're struggling with it, then we're working into that space of [00:16:00] awakening and growth. And it is a great awakener. That distress can be a great awakener.
Aimee Prasek: That struggle can be a great awakener. It doesn't mean that we're failing at it. So maybe you can get more into that though, Henry. How can we awaken through this tough stuff? Like what are some signposts we can kind of plan for, look out for?
Henry: Well, I think that, I think that the tools, the inner abilities, the skills that we can develop are very similar here as the same tools that we would, we would say help people to awaken through joy, let's say. So we've talked about this, it is the, essentially it's, it's our model of how to apply mindfulness in life.
Henry: So let me, let me just say, I think that there are three essential qualities that we need in order to awaken and we don't [00:17:00] have to have these perfected, by the way.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: We just need a little bit of them, and if we can use them and kind of honor their place in this process, I think that we get better and better at them.
Henry: So here they are, awareness, stillness, and openness. This sounds a little different from our, our three part mindfulness. I want to kind of bring us back to that. But these are the inner qualities. Just we have to pay attention. We do need some degree of equanimity so that it allows us to pay attention and to feel what we're feeling.
Henry: So before we jump into action and try to do something, we do need some periods of stillness. This is something I have just begun to appreciate more and more in my life [00:18:00] recently. And then thirdly, we need to stay open. We need to keep our heart open. We need to be permeable, which we've talked about in our podcasts before.
Henry: And that permeability, it allows things to enter and things to exit. It allows us to feel whatever we need to feel, but also to let go of things. So the, the three steps that we often talk about is, the first is to see clearly what is. And so whether that you use the example of the Autobiography in Five Short Chapters, or Aimee's example, there's a point at which there's a recognition and saying, okay, this is what's happening. And your, your family was forced to do that really quickly, Aimee, you know, there was no choice really, but to see that your finances were just [00:19:00] poof, they were gone.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: And so that awareness allows for the next step, which is to be able to face what's happening, the truth of it.
Henry: Without flinching really, you know, maybe you flinch, but you, you still are able to find a way through and that really is the practice of acceptance. Again, I, I think having awareness and, and stillness is what allows for this to be a really full and genuine experience of acceptance. And so, I don't know this, but I imagine that your mom at that stage, Aimee, she didn't like it, but she absolutely had to accept this is the reality and so I, or we need to we need to do things differently. We gotta take action. We gotta take some major, major [00:20:00] steps here.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah. Which can be really helpful to be forced into action in some points, but it can also keep you really busy
Henry: True,
Aimee Prasek: so that you don't kind of look below the mess. You just keep kind of cleaning up the external
Henry: True.
Aimee Prasek: damage. So, yeah, it's sort of like still have to come back.
Henry: True. So, you know, if at age 17 and in this, this, uh, earthquake of your life, if you had been able to just have the, just the capacity for stillness, I think, you know, it might have, things might have gone differently in the years that followed, but it, it didn't, but you eventually got there, didn't you?
Aimee Prasek: Yeah. It took a lot of, sidewalks.
Henry: A lot of sidewalks. Yeah.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah, a lot of cleanup.
Henry: An earth, an earthquake will create a lot, a lot of holes in the sidewalks.
Aimee Prasek: I found them all you guys. If there's a lot of deep ones out there, but yeah, so you know, it can take a long time [00:21:00] that's okay.
Henry: Yeah. And then the third stage of applied mindfulness is to choose wisely while listening to our own heart. So if we're, if we're trying to do this authentically, that last part is really important. Listen to our own heart. Be able to discern through this inner guidance that is always there. We're gonna talk about this quite a bit more in a couple of episodes, but, but it is there if we can listen to it.
Henry: And that does require that acceptance and that stillness that come before it.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah. And I said, you know, after that earthquake I shared that it took a, a while me to clean up. I'm still cleaning up, but I think what was so important about that is [00:22:00] I did do the work right? I got into the mess, and I think if you're, if you're willing to go there, even though it might take a while, every hole I climbed out of I was doing better. So it wasn't that it was 10 years of agony. Every new choice I made supported my wellbeing and supported my coming back to self, my authentic nature. So it doesn't have to be as terrible as maybe I tend to describe it at times, but, it is a journey. So I think the other piece to then kind of close us here as we get ready for some more strategies in the next episode, next episodes, is that we already have those abilities, as you said, Henry. Awareness, acceptance, [00:23:00] openness, like that's within our capacity. There's nothing new that we need. We can work on that. We do that here at Joy Lab. We work on those skills, but they're already part of us. So there's no things you need to go buy. There's no, you know, external solution that is hidden from you that, uh, is not available to you. It's within us. So we are empowered. We are already empowered. Next episode, we will work on another of your superpowers, not just working through this, path of suffering, but also, walking this path of joy. So it'll be a nice reprieve, invitation, another path. They all come together, to help us tap into our authenticity.
Aimee Prasek: So be sure to listen in. And I'm gonna close us with some wisdom from an author you may know, Dr. Henry Emmons,
Henry: What?
Thanks for joining us!: I know, from his book Staying Sharp. I think it's a [00:24:00] great quote to close us today and also really set us up for next episode where again, we'll get into that path of joy. So here it is, "We all have our stories and we need to honor them. We need to bring our inner lives out of shadow, into the light of personal and communal reflection. We need to live divided no more, and an honest grappling with our struggles can get us there. But the path of suffering is not the only way to get there, and it is certainly not the easiest or the most enjoyable way. There is also the path of joy." Thank you for listening to the Joy Lab podcast. If you enjoy today's show, visit JoyLab.coach to learn more about the full Joy Lab program. Be sure to rate and review us wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
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