My Joy Journal.

One of the craziest parts of healing from trauma is unlearning fear. Pain teaches us fear like no other thing does.
 
Most of this month, Joy showed me deep fear that I internalized from dealing with depression. I didn’t realise how afraid I was or how small events could still fill me with mad panic.
I was clutching on too tightly to the present, I wouldn’t examine the past or even imagine the future. I was living just in the moment.
 
Depression teaches you that the Future is not assured, dealing with suicidal ideation makes tomorrow look like a broken dream, like a hope that will never come.
I didn’t realise how deeply my soul had learned that trauma, how my lack of planning and spontaneity was steeped deep in the fear that the future was not assured.
 
One of the hardest things I did this month was sit with my trauma, that stuff was scary as hell. I had too many panic moments, had times where the only thing I could see was fear. And fear has a noxious presence that fills you till the only thing you can see, taste and smell is fear. And to unlearn fear, we must confront the source of the fear. And often times confronting the source means dealing with old pain.
 
So in sitting with Joy, I learned how Joy doesn’t always feel Joyful.
I’ve learned that we cannot move forward until we’ve healed the past. I’ve learned how that healing means tangling with fear, moving into the thick of fear.
I’m still very afraid, I still Jerk at certain Triggers, there are still doors in my heart marked 'Don’t open’, there are memories I refuse to revisit, memories that unleash an avalanche of fear but I’m more aware now.
And awareness gives you power, it helps you name your monsters and teaches you how to fight them.
You cannot fight a demon you do not know.
 
Learning Joy also means learning the things that obstruct Joy from flowing freely, learning the things that taint your Joy, learning the things that cause your Joy tank to leak out.

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