Every time I get sick, I promise myself that I’ll never take a healthy day for granted again. I vow to be mindful of how much energy is coursing through my body or how clear my head is. This usually lasts for a week or so. But when I lost my mojo last year, I took a similar vow to appreciate the mojo when I got it back, and this one has stuck.

Now, I’m determined to fully experience positive energy, to remember what it was like to lose it, and to be reflective about some of the things that helped me to get it back. Most of them were little things, but one of them was a biggie: finding joy, and spreading it.

A year ago, I was looking around a crowded room and thinking, No one here has to deal with what I deal with. But in the course of one week I had two interactions, one with a stranger and one with a dear friend, that each reminded me about joy how I could still experience it and share it. Suddenly, I started looking around that crowded room and thinking, What quiet troubles are in these people’s lives and on their minds that I can’t even imagine? And what quiet joys might there be that can get them through the day?  

Showing up

One of those memorable interactions was with a dance student who was in so much emotional pain that she needed to share it, even though she barely knew me. She asked me, “How do you cope when you go through pain? How do you dance and teach and laugh?” I wanted to be able to give her something to hold onto, or even just a tiny moment of relief. But the only answer I could come up with was a completely inadequate one: “In those moments, I can’t NOT dance and teach and laugh.” 

Now, before you go thinking I’m someone who’s really good at coping with adversity, or even someone who’s mildly competent at it, I have to say up front: I have to really force myself to do those things when I’m feeling down. And I usually only manage to make myself do them if there is some level of obligation. Teaching is amazing for this. Although I truly love to teach, on my worst days I show up because people expect me to. But teaching never, ever fails to snap me out of whatever mood I’m in. For this and for many other reasons, I am deeply grateful to my students. They help me find purpose and peace and happiness when I need them most. They remind me of the good things in my life that remain intact. They show me that I need to give even when I most need to take. And they remind me of the reasons to dance and laugh and connect.

Clearly, teaching isn’t a relevant or feasible strategy for everyone. But showing up is. When the mojo is gone, most of us need some kind of push to help us find it. And when the mojo is REALLY gone, we need a push even – or especially -- to do those things that we truly love. Remember that old adage “90% of life is showing up”? I think there might be a grain of wisdom in this -- not because showing up is sufficient to get by, but because sometimes we have to show up in order to remember our purpose.

Reminding ourselves and others

The other interaction was with one of my oldest, dearest friends, who gave me a mound of good advice about dealing with life’s little – and big – setbacks that was also, as usual, garnished with humor. And at the end of our conversation, she said sagely: “Don’t forget about joy.” Suddenly all the pieces came together in my head. I thought of the class I had taught earlier in the week, and how at least one student had seen me not as the exhausted, mojo-less person I saw, but as an energetic, joy-filled teacher. I realized that I was both of these people. And I saw an ironically beautiful cycle: I had to force myself to find joy in order to spread it, and I had to spread it to find it.

I wanted to go back and share my friend’s message with that woman who was in so much pain. But I never saw her again, and so the best thing I can do is to say it over and over again, to you and to myself: Don’t forget about joy.

Where are the little moments of joy in your life, even – or especially – the ones you have to force yourself to find? And how can you connect with others in those moments to spread the joy, both to them and within yourself?

Remembering joy,

Suzanne