Easy Access to Joy
Me at Shakori festival wearing my new favorite big earrings! A really joyful weekend!
MAKER SHOUTOUT!
Ear Candied earrings, fabric flow earrings using recycled, reused, and or repurposed fabric. They are hand cut & handsewn. Seen in action above!
Gwynne, the maker behind these magical creations, sent a justified warning in their package: that if you wear Ear Candied earrings you will receive a LOT of compliments. I received upwards of 17 compliments in one day, and it felt GREAT.
• • •
This week I want to write about joy and how to experience it.
Last weekend I attended the Shakori Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance, as I do each spring and fall, and it was a totally magical experience. It also came in stark contrast to my trip to Italy less than a month ago.
Italy trip: exploring all new things, lots of labor to make happen, constant motion.
Shakori: familiar, systems in place, know what to look forward to, vibing all day long. (I like to take a few sips from a lime flavored Liquid Death, then put red wine in to fill it back up. Shakori is about chilling out for me.)
These two trips both brought a lot of joy, but Shakori has been an especially great teacher to me for learning how to balance Exploration with Familiar Things to facilitate easeful joy.
I attended with my partner and a couple chosen family members. While we were discussing the idea of risk, one of my beloveds said, “I think several years ago it would have felt very risky to all of us to attend Shakori, for different reasons.” They were right: we all used to have huge anxiety about something (socializing, health, leaving home) that would have made it extremely stressful to attend. There was shared joy in the fact that we could each manage our anxiety enough now to have this totally magical experience.
Trusting myself is how I personally am able to do that, and parts work is how I facilitate self trust. If you are struggling with self-sabotage or feel like you’re stuck in the same pattern over and over, you’re not alone - I have felt this way and my clients usually all do too, at the start. If this is you, we would probably be a good fit for coaching, and you can follow up on that below if you’re interested.
I love to do the same things over and over: the same yoga videos, the same place for dinner, the same TV show rewatched. The familiarity allows my nervous system to relax to a point where I can discover something new about the repeated experience, or new about myself. Shakori is a great example of this: every time I do the contact improv dance wave, hang out at the tea tent, and groove out to amazing folk music. And every time, I am relaxed enough to discover new things about myself and to connect openly with the people I meet.
I think Joy lives somewhere between relaxation and discovery. When we can relax enough to see new things about ourselves, and to share ourselves vulnerably with those around us, we feel alive, we feel self-love, and we feel hope.
This is how I work. My 4-month coaching framework is built around making clients feel safe enough to reveal themselves so we can discover what depths of self care and creativity they are truly capable of. (We are all capable of these things at a very powerful level that it can be hard to reach on our own.)
Sending you love and joy this early May,
Isabel
My upward view from where I sat in the first picture.
Village Witch’s Corner
My intention this week :
Slow WAY down. My body and brain are asking for depth over production.
Question(s) I'm asking this week:
What does my body want right now? What does my mind need right now?
What I’m listening to:
I didn’t finish Wicked in time for the library and didn’t have the right energy to stick it out right now, so I am now reading This Ravenous Fate, a lesbian vampire YA novel. It’s REALLY good. I will definitely finish it in time for the library. Also, Beautiful Chorus.
Tiny Spell of the Week:
When you slow down, way down, what magic reveals itself in the nooks and crannies that widen into space?
