How I’ve come to understand joy as ease

At the beginning of this year, I set myself an intention to cultivate more joy, precisely because I found the concept of doing this so hard.

My idea of joy had always been the exuberant, tail-wagging, disco-dancing kind. That kind of exuberance can be wonderful, but trying to cultivate it often felt like denying the reality of personal and collective suffering in our world.

Working with meditation teacher, poet and activist River Walton, I was encouraged to retranslate joy into something that felt more accessible. Through guided meditation practice, I began to tune into a quieter kind of joy, something I now understand as a felt sense of ease.

While teaching my two retreats in Pembrokeshire in April, I was surprised by how often I could access that same ease. It has always felt like a gift that this became my work, but building my own retreat business has also been challenging.

Yet eighteen months and twelve retreats in, I’m beginning to feel the benefit of all the careful steps it took to get here: inhabiting the role of retreat leader with more trust, steadiness and ease. My hope is that those who come on my retreats might leave inspired to cultivate a little more heart-led ease in their own lives.

Not because existing and resisting under capitalism is easy, but because moving through the world with more ease can be a gift, both to ourselves and to the friends, comrades, families and communities we are woven into.

If this resonates, I’d love to welcome you to one of my upcoming retreats.