by Gaye Freedman | Apr 16, 2023 | Joy
Finding Joy in the Midst of Chaos is about waking up to JOY. Have you ever, experienced joy? A moment that took you out of the ordinary and and filled you with overwhelming delight.
As a child, you knew that life was touched with wonder, and each day was an adventure. But, you became “educated” and in the process you lost the ability to see the beauty and the wonders daily of the world around you. You lost the ability to see joy in your daily lives.
The American Dream has became a nightmare. We sacrifice ourselves trying to achieve it . We spend our days in office buildings, warehoused like cattle in tiny cubicles working under artificial lights, breathing recycled air. (Margot Anand)
We long for the life we see in our dreams, but we believe, that as grownups we need to be rational, logical, mature, stoic, we forget about the magical, mystical, mysteries of life. We are disconnected from our spirit and increasingly from other people. We forget that each life is sacred and each life has the possibility of living joyfully.
You can create joy by surrounding yourself with things that are beautiful . You can create joy by surrounding yourself experiences that bring you joy. You can create joy by surrounding yourself with people who bring you joy, or with people who make you laugh. You can create joy by experiencing your senses. When your senses are awake, joy is available.
In these moments, you know it is possible to live life joyfully, to be creative and free. To make a garden grow, you cultivate the soil, to experience joy you must cultivate it. Through love, laughter, connection and attention and by being present to the world around you. You can transform your life with joy.
by Gaye Freedman | May 21, 2022 | Joy
In 1998 I was sitting on the deck of my beautiful home in the hills of California, surrounded by trees. The lights of the city twinkle below me, the starlit skies twinkle above me. I thought of my life, my friends and how lucky I was. I was happy. I felt on top of the world, things were good. I could not have imagined that circumstances would turn my life upside down.
Shortly after that night my husband was laid off. We were forced to sell our home and move to another state. But we considered ourselves lucky. We sold the house in June 2008. The housing bubble burst in September. We had dodged a bullet, we bought a new house and started over. We had our savings, my husband started a business, I worked, we were doing well.
Then in 2011 THE RECESSION. My husband lost his business. I lost my job, and no one was hiring. We learned our son was battling addiction. Our savings were depleted, and our home went into foreclosure. We needed to find a place to live fast. We went from living in a big house to a tiny apartment.
After a year of scraping by on very little income, my husband found a job…in Florida. My husband accepted the job in the middle of December, but he was required to be at work the first week in January. We cleaned out the apartment, sold what we could, gave away what we could and drove from Las Vegas to Florida in a week. We had moved twice in two years, it was crazy.
Life was not as grand as it had been, but we survived, we had each other. I worked funky jobs to keep us afloat. I worked as a telemarketer; I folded laundry in a hotel. I cleaned houses, I worked in a children’s shelter and I was bill collector.
None of these jobs required a Doctorate in Education which I have. I was on a first name basis with the local pawn shop and went there so often they gave me frequent user card. But it was okay we weren’t homeless. We had landed on our feet. We used the last of our savings to support our son in becoming clean and sober and we helped raise our beautiful grandson.
Then after working a year and a half at the nonprofit, my husband was laid off; 9 months later he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. I was laid off six months after that. But as I started to panic, a calm came over me. I said to myself. Stop. You have been here before. I made a conscious decision to see circumstances in a different way. Suddenly, I wasn’t afraid. I had been here before. I had been to hell and back and this was just one more bump on the journey. In all the crazy things that have happened to me in 10 years, I had survived. I had learned to be become resilient and I had learned to appreciate the small joys I had in life. I had developed a joyful mindset.
I love the quote by George Santayana.
“The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns.”
by Gaye Freedman | Feb 3, 2021 | Joy
The Worst Year Ever – 536 AD
“In 1349, the Black Death killed half the population of Europe. In 1520, in the Americas, smallpox killed between 60 and 90 percent of the continents’ original inhabitants. In 1918 the Spanish Flu led to the deaths of over 50 million people. And 1933 saw the rise of Hitler. However, historians are unanimous in their choice. The title of the worst year in history is easily held by the year 536 AD.”
Why? Researchers led by Medieval historian, Michael McCormick, and glaciologist Paul Mayewski, discovered that a volcanic eruption in Iceland in early 536 led to incredibly large quantities of ash being spread across much of the globe, creating a fog that cast the world into darkness. This eruption was so immense that it altered the global climate and adversely affected weather patterns and crop cultivation for years to come. It plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into complete darkness for nearly 2 years. Global temperatures plummeted. Famine was rampant and crops failed across Europe, Africa, and Asia. This caused starvation and economic disaster and in 541 A.D. an outbreak of bubonic plague led to the death of nearly 100 million people and almost half of the Byzantine Empire.
2020 may have been difficult but it has nothing on 536 A.D. The next time, I’m sitting on my couch shouting at the TV because I have to shelter in place, or I think of complaining about how hard my life is. I’m going to read this article and be grateful, that at least I don’t have to deal with the bubonic plague.
