Our culture is deeply broken--or sick--whatever your preferred metaphor. It has departed so far from a path of health that by default it makes those of is who inhabit it unhealthy -- quite literally physically sick, but also spiritually, psychologically, and sexually unwell. We find ourselves alienated from a sense of intimacy with others, with ourselves, or with the natural world.
This website will offer you resources to explore the particular ways our society is sick, because analysis is important, as is working together to change our culture for the better.
But to me, the most urgent thing is to figure out how to live better right now, while our culture is still a mess, even if we don't always understand how it got that way, or if we suspect something may be going on below the surface that we don't yet understand.
How do we build lives of principled joy in the midst of a broken world? How do we raise our children to be just slightly more healthy than we are? How do we participate in businesses and faith communities that do not serve the status quo? And when they do despite our best intentions, how do we build our awareness and our willingness to acknowledge that they are doing so, so that we can correct course?
Obviously if we have to fix everything before we can be happy, we are doomed. Fortunately, I don't believe that's the case! Whether you are an individual or an organization, you might be ready to work with me if you're willing to do the following three things:
First, you are ready to entertain the notion that a Cartesian, either/or model of the world just might be faulty.
This website will offer you resources to explore the particular ways our society is sick, because analysis is important, as is working together to change our culture for the better.
But to me, the most urgent thing is to figure out how to live better right now, while our culture is still a mess, even if we don't always understand how it got that way, or if we suspect something may be going on below the surface that we don't yet understand.
How do we build lives of principled joy in the midst of a broken world? How do we raise our children to be just slightly more healthy than we are? How do we participate in businesses and faith communities that do not serve the status quo? And when they do despite our best intentions, how do we build our awareness and our willingness to acknowledge that they are doing so, so that we can correct course?
Obviously if we have to fix everything before we can be happy, we are doomed. Fortunately, I don't believe that's the case! Whether you are an individual or an organization, you might be ready to work with me if you're willing to do the following three things:
First, you are ready to entertain the notion that a Cartesian, either/or model of the world just might be faulty.
You will be astonished how much of a lifelong recovery that is, rather than a one-time acceptance of fact. I will probably mention it again and again! (My friends have grown to anticipate me, "Here comes Joy; she'll say it's not either/or, it's both/and!" It takes that attention to noticing and remembering precisely because this false world conception has so permeated our way of talking about, picturing, and living into our lives.) Moving into both/and space allows you to embrace the mind-boggling and grace-filled paradox that, as my friend Tema Okun says, you are perfect just the way you are, and you also need to change.
Second, you are willing to look at yourself with compassionate curiosity--to go under the surface of who you are and probably acknowledge some difficult realities about yourself, but to do so with kindness and love toward yourself.
I don't know which half of that process is more difficult. Many of us spend our lives bouncing between defensively pushing away hard truths about ourselves in our deep need to feel "okay" and harshly beating ourselves up for all of our failures and mistakes. You may have noticed that this exerts a huge amount of emotional energy without ever seeming to get you very far. (And thanks to Brené Brown and others, we now have significant research on the lasting damage that shame inflicts.) If you are ready to try a new way of looking, the good news is that paths for growth and healing open up along with the insight.
The third thing may apply especially to liberals. You are willing to relinquish the belief that your protective layer of pessimism and cynicism is a good thing. You don't have to let it go yet; you just have to be willing to! You will discover that correlating awareness with anxiety and dedication with discouragement is a major tool of the domination system.
If you are standing in a place where you hold the possibility of those three concepts in your heart––even if they are as of now only concepts, even if you think they would be nice but sound impossible--maybe we should talk.
It's not easy to hold onto those ideas or many of the other things we'll talk about. Everything in our culture says some other story is true. These ideas are almost like a rainbow, shimmering and faint, hard to capture on film and share with others, easy to dismiss as a trick of the light alone. I struggle to hold them in my sights every day. Because I am in recovery. But as hard as the work is, it is the most grounded, fulfilled, and joyful that I have ever been in my life.
You can listen to the culture, and decide these ideas are ephemeral, not real . . . that the smart move is to dismiss them. Or you can listen to a different wisdom and decide to dive deep into a journey that will change your life. That's been my choice. Let me know if you would like to join me.
Second, you are willing to look at yourself with compassionate curiosity--to go under the surface of who you are and probably acknowledge some difficult realities about yourself, but to do so with kindness and love toward yourself.
I don't know which half of that process is more difficult. Many of us spend our lives bouncing between defensively pushing away hard truths about ourselves in our deep need to feel "okay" and harshly beating ourselves up for all of our failures and mistakes. You may have noticed that this exerts a huge amount of emotional energy without ever seeming to get you very far. (And thanks to Brené Brown and others, we now have significant research on the lasting damage that shame inflicts.) If you are ready to try a new way of looking, the good news is that paths for growth and healing open up along with the insight.
The third thing may apply especially to liberals. You are willing to relinquish the belief that your protective layer of pessimism and cynicism is a good thing. You don't have to let it go yet; you just have to be willing to! You will discover that correlating awareness with anxiety and dedication with discouragement is a major tool of the domination system.
If you are standing in a place where you hold the possibility of those three concepts in your heart––even if they are as of now only concepts, even if you think they would be nice but sound impossible--maybe we should talk.
It's not easy to hold onto those ideas or many of the other things we'll talk about. Everything in our culture says some other story is true. These ideas are almost like a rainbow, shimmering and faint, hard to capture on film and share with others, easy to dismiss as a trick of the light alone. I struggle to hold them in my sights every day. Because I am in recovery. But as hard as the work is, it is the most grounded, fulfilled, and joyful that I have ever been in my life.
You can listen to the culture, and decide these ideas are ephemeral, not real . . . that the smart move is to dismiss them. Or you can listen to a different wisdom and decide to dive deep into a journey that will change your life. That's been my choice. Let me know if you would like to join me.