“You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”
~Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon
“The joy in your heart will set you free,” is what was whispered into my ear on my morning walk the other day.
The word free is one of my core desire feelings for 2014 so I’ve been thinking a lot about how to achieve it in my daily life. One of the things I have really been working on is not holding onto conflicts with other people. You know the type of things that are resolved but you keep going over the details in your head to the point of insanity!
So when that little whisper of a mantra dropped into my head, it clicked….the aha moment! I was on the right track of letting go and clearing out some useless clutter in my head so the joy in my heart was the key. Easy enough I thought but little did I know that this was just the beginning.
Here’s what started happening after my aha moment. During those morning walks I was now faced with a continuous stream of negative conversations. Conversations with the people that I felt I had unfinished business with, allowing me to say what I felt needed to be said.
Puzzling, right?
Trust me I was completely baffled because if joy was to live in my heart so I could feel that wonderful freedom then why was I having all of this negativity in my head now?
Just as before, my wise guardian spirit whispered in my ear and gifted me with this gem; for me to make room in my heart for joy I had to move out the negativity. So these conversations were my heart’s way of clearing space, telling me to say what I felt needed to be said so it could then fill that space with joy.
“Joy blooms where minds and hearts are open.”
~Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The side benefit to all of this was the more conversations I had the freer I felt too. So I stopped beating myself up for what I thought was bad and accepted it as a very good thing.
When you stop and think about it, how many things like this do we squash or deny because it seems illogical or bad karma? Sometimes you just have to open your heart and listen closely letting it tell you what it wants and needs.
I know that most of us have conversations in our heads about different things but did you ever stop and think that the reason behind it was to free up some space in your heart and soul for good stuff? Personally I had never allowed myself that thought or possibility until it was delivered to me by divine guidance.
Then I decided to take things one step further, wondering about the rants of my inner critic, if these too could be space clearing events? So I’m taking this on as an experiment, seeing if letting these rants flow without the accompanying guilt will also lead to an opening up of more space for joy.
Who knew that negativity could lead to the path of joy and freedom? This was truly an eye opener for me.
We are all experiments in this journey we call living and I hope that you too can take away something from one of my gems and try it out in your life.
I love your insights so I hope you will share them in the comment section below. Share this post with someone you know who might be looking for a little more joy in their life!
photo credit: Tim Shields BC via photopin cc