Why every road still leads back to joy.
I’ve sometimes wondered that if inspiration, hope, wonder, and joy are such an integral part of how I live and the theme I want to convey on this blog, why have so many of my posts touched on heavy topics?
I realized that I've spent most of my life masking, pretending that it’s mostly rainbows and unicorns. I'm done masking and pretending. Life on Earth is beautiful and amazing, but it's also punctuated with heartache, pain, and loss. There's an old teaching, paraphrased many ways across different traditions, that goes something like this: a man born blind from birth cannot know the meaning of darkness if he has never seen the light.
In other words, the challenges and difficulties we face are opportunities to learn, grow, and refine what we really want to experience in life. In every challenge, there's a gift. Sometimes the gift is as simple as, "I know I'm never doing that again." Other times, it takes years, and a great deal of emotional or even physical pain, to see it at all.
In my case, a lifetime of challenges, many created by my own misinformed choices and others by circumstances beyond my control, gave me two incredible gifts. I learned just how strong and resilient I am, and I learned that one's relationship with Source, the Divine, Spirit, the Universe, or whatever term feels right to you, is unique to each of us.
Each of us resonates at a unique frequency. How else could we be individuated expressions of All That Is? It follows, then, that our relationship with All That Is is as unique as we are. The path to self-discovery, inner peace, and joy is whatever feels best for you, not someone else.
Fear would have us believe there's only one path to follow, and yet there are thousands of religions, philosophies, and spiritual movements, each claiming theirs is the only right one. To me, that's evidence of just how unique each person's path really is. Of course, that's how I see it. Someone else may see it differently, and their view is equally valid.
Billions of paths, all valid, might twist your mind a little and make you want to reject the idea outright. But if you sit with it, even for a few minutes, you'll start to see what a remarkable, beautiful idea it really is.
Which brings me back to my original question: why have so many of my posts touched on heavy topics? It's my way of saying, through personal experience, that while life can be challenging and at times downright horrible, there's always hope. There's always a light at the end of the dark tunnel. Even in the darkest moments, we can find a little bit of joy to sustain us, even if we feel hopeless in that moment.
What I just said might seem to contradict The Silence That Saves No One, but the truth is, I found small pockets of joy even then, because I refused to believe there was no hope. Call it Pollyanna optimism if you want. I clung to that thought with everything I had left in me, and that’s why I’m writing this now.
So while I may sometimes take you down surprising or unexpected paths, my intention is always the same: that we end up in a place of inspiration, hope, wonder, and joy. Always.
Be well, my friends. Be joyous. Be grateful. Always.
With love,
Appio 🌿
