Fear of Joy
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People are afraid of joy. They are afraid they'll get out of hand and lose control.
These people haven't experienced real joy -- the joy that comes from doing something G-dly and beautiful with all your heart. The fact is, there is nothing that will lift you higher. Where there is that joy, the Divine Presence can enter. Where there is that joy, there are no pits to fall into, and all
obstacles evaporate into thin air.
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Latest Comments:
You wrote of elevating mundane events. For many world-wide, it might be extraordinary to simply experience more normality & mundane events verses elevating them. Either from one’s own experiences or being privy to those of others, certain things appear to be normal/mundane, that should NOT: infant/child abuse/neglect, child rape/pornography, friends/neighbors violently murdered, drug overdoses, AIDS, lack of equality/opportunity, and much more. Yes, “Fear of joy is also fear of change”, but it may not just be the “lazy part” of one’s brain that blocks joy and causes alienation, it can also be the protective self-preservation part that struggles to allow joy to enter vs experiencing one’s self created joy. One can feel close to G-d, find true joy by doing from the heart, but the internal transformation encompasses more than knowing the self is good, it’s knowing that others can be truly be good, trying tohelp, and that joy can be experience from/with others. Yea, to your last sentence.
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Fear of joy is also fear of change. The lazy part of your brain doesn't want to learn more about yourself. Joy coes not by the external events but by an internal transformation--a recognition of harmony, a sense of destiny that radiates like a ripple affecting the mundane events of your life and others into the extraordinary.
Things may seem normal but it is enriched with so much meaning and connectedness. Joy is not laughing it is sometimes crying and feeling pain, but knowing that all that is good too.
Joy is when you cease to feel alienated from G-d, from others and from the events of your life.
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Perhaps you meant your fear of joy, is because it could cease. What I was referring to, is that for some, things like real joy/ real love seem alien & too good to be true at times, and thus scary, so one is not afraid of loosing it, but simply letting it in. Maybe such was lacking early on, or one lost sight of it due to a tragedy, and then later on, when such presented itself, it was shunned, for the thought of experiencing it brought emotions of sadness and hurt. So, as one continues on, one can experience, as the author wrote ~ “joy that comes from doing something G-dly and beautiful with all your heart” … “Where there is that joy, the Divine Presence can enter “ ~ One can do from the heart experiencing a joy that extends outward, but one must also be receptive, not blind to, the joy that can enter resulting from others doing from the heart by letting the brick wall down. “Joy out-Joy In”. Opening up, one can see that amongst what appears to be many tragedies, there is much Joy!
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Didn't really relate to that. I find myself regularly afraid of joy, or at least resisting it. But it seems to be more connected to thoughts that I will get shot down, that the joy will be punctured, that I'll be forced back.
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Perhaps some are afraid of joy, not for fear of losing control as you mentioned, but out of fear of gaining more control, and mostly because that a true G-dly joy might be painful. Sure, there is the joy one gets from a walk in the park on a beautiful sunny day, eating a fine meal, reading a good book, watching children play, or watching fluffy clouds float by, but for some, the thought of experiencing a deep imbedded non-superficial joy, a G-dly joy, that could leave a permanent imprint on the soul, and worse, that another joy as great could actually be experience again, can bring about great fear, just as when a neglected abused infant stiffens as if in pain when gathered by loving arms, or maybe one once new G-dly joy but it has been over shadowed by tragedy, be it war, lose of a loved on, an assault on the body or mind, or by simply looking up and outward and viewing so much tragedy in the lives of others that we fail to see the good rendering the concept of a true G-dly joy remote
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i know what you mean. There is joy when you realize there is only One G-d and to know it deeply.
When somebody is being rude, I say there is only One G-d. When somebody is being kind I say the same thing.
It is such a profound truth it transcends race, religion and the illusion that what happens to you is good or bad. There is only one G-d.
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