ESSAY | AFFIRMATIONS | PROMPTLY WRITTEN
Affirming Joy
Daily positive affirmations
I handle my own life with joy and ease.
— LOUISE HAY
I haven’t always lived my life with joy and ease. For the majority of my life, I didn’t even understand what it meant to be joyful. Mental illness will do that. It is a soul-sucking beast that leaves you melancholy, miserable, and too serious about life. I always had this fear that if I became too joyful, it would be stripped away from me and I’d be mere bones. It was better to be boned by my own hands than to have some invisible force ‘out there’ rob me of everything. Shamefully, I’d felt this way for decades, just as I wrote in this creative non-fiction piece, I Am Both Mourning and Night, No Joy Lives Here
It’s not that I don’t want joy; I wouldn’t mind a few morsels tossed my way, but like one who’s starved herself too long, even a small scrap will make me ill. I would need it intravenously, just small drops at a time — carefully attended to ensure happiness doesn’t spill out of me too soon and upset the entire affair. There is nothing worse than being too…
