Joy will save your life

Show up to your joy. Show up to pleasure. Show up to the moments where you laugh so hard you feel like you might split in two.

Joy, bliss, contentment, gratification, and thrills, are not a matter of deserving, or sin, or indulgence. They are life and death. You have permission to show up to your joy and live it all the way through, to enjoy your life and your body and your partner and your friends and your children and your job and the earth and your days.

Joy is not a luxury.
Pleasure is not the icing on the cake.
Contentment is not a prize for good behaviour.

These things are necessities, and you must show up to them with all your presence as if your life depends on it. Because it does.

Perhaps you feel as though you don't deserve your joy, or that your joy is offensive to those who are in pain, or that your joy is an affront to your own pain - how can you experience joy and pain at the same time? Maybe you feel as though pleasure will lead you to sin and gluttony and some kind of depravity driven life. To which I must tell you, dear friend, this is a lie. Pleasure is not sinful! Bliss does not lead you astray. It's the complete opposite. They lead to connection, openness, community, depth of wonder and grace and beauty.

Joy will save your life, in the end. When it comes in all of its varying and beautiful ways, show up to it and for it and with it. Be there. Be here. Be present.

Because at any moment, even in the painful ones, joy exists. It's holding you up. It's keeping you alive.

This is what it means to quote that clichéd scripture:

"The Joy of the Lord is your strength."*

De Chardin said:

"Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God."

It's not that there's holy joy and un-holy joy. Joy is of one piece. And when you experience it, you are experiencing The Divine whether you claim to know God or not.

Joy is your birthright. Joy is yours. Joy is not a matter of winning and earning or deserving or being worthy. Joy will save your life, if you let it.

So go on, let it.

(This post is an excerpt from The Practice Co App series called "Show Up To Your Life", available to download for iOS and Android! It includes daily devotionals, FREE Mindful Prompt notifications (no subscription needed), phone wallpapers and more. Start with a free trial or subscribe to get access to each new series as they come out.)

Mindful Prompt: When it comes down to it, joy will save your life. Open your heart and mind and let its beauty take full bloom within you. There's nothing to prove or earn or strive for. There is only the joy of living and the living of it full and deep and true.

Written by Liz Milani.
Instagram: @thepracticeco