Hit Joy Head On: Gratitude and Joy Avoidance

I'm ready  Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (affiliate link) by Brene Brown. One fascinating section of her book discusses joy avoidance. Joy avoidance is the process people use to mitigate the vulnerability they feel when touched by pure joy. Brene uses the example of watching her children sleep. Just as she gets the lump in her throat because they are so beautiful and she loves them so much, her mind begins every worst case scenario of things that can go wrong in their lives. It's as if she feels so open in her joy that she is afraid of it. If something horrible happened to her kids it would crush her, so she tries to squash the joy in hopes of avoiding the possibility of pain.

Ode to Marriage

I'm looking at my husband napping as I write this blog entry. I've been married for sixteen years. These days, that's a long time, but really, it seems like just days ago--a series of seconds and minutes and days we've been in proximity, experiencing the same things and comparing our feelings and reactions.