What NYC taught me about joy

I walked down the crowded sidewalk. The air was hot and humid, allowing smells to hang in the air longer than normal. The summer sun baked the miles upon miles of concrete that stretched in all directions. So many different smells emanated from shops, from the subway grates, from the doorways lining the buildings, from the trash piled at the street awaiting pickup.

My sense of smell is hyper-sensitive. This can be handy but typically not pleasant. Earlier in the year when I had Covid, I blessedly lost my sense of smell for half a day. It remained less sensitive for a couple of weeks before returning to normal and honestly, it was a kind of a nice reprieve! (I’m not minimizing the difficulty of prolonged sense of taste/smell loss, that is a whole different beast.)

This week I had the opportunity to take a quick two-day family trip to New York City and see the sights with my kids.

I caught myself a bit overloaded by unpleasant smells, as did other members of my family. One kid was able to talk about what he was experiencing. Suddenly I realized just how easy it is to focus on discomfort vs. anything else!

We are blessed to live in the beautiful Shenandoah valley with clean dirt, clean air, clean water. Our nearest neighbor is barely in sight. We are in a bit of a nature refuge. Juxtapose this with a massive city like NYC, well, it’s quite different to say the least.

When you’re going about your day and suddenly presented with something uncomfortable (whether it’s emotional, mental or physical), how can you move through it? How can you acknowledge, respect what is, while not getting caught in a negative thought loop? And be with the present moment?

The present moment is like an anchor, if we can just grasp onto it. And yes, sometimes that anchor stinks or hurts or makes us squirm. If we can just honor what is (“Wow, this smells kinda gross”), we can then move our focus onto something else in the present moment. “Wow, look at that amazing skyscraper!”

It is a complete fallacy to believe every moment will be pleasant ‘once we fix ourselves.” This will never be true. Life will always dish up moments of difficulty, pain, or discomfort. Rather, it is how we move through these moments that defines how great our suffering will be.

And this is determined to large degree by how we view the world, something we absorbed from our families, much in the first ten years of life. We can use energy healing to effectively release the traumas and thought patterns that keep us focused on the negative, unable to embrace joy, stuck in the old patterns of our families of origin.

And if you’re reading these words, those patterns are likely no longer serving you.

I was able to let my discomfort of smell not dominate my experience. I looked in wonder at the amazing buildings all around me, listened with curiosity at the many different languages I heard on each block, felt amazement at the density of people in such a small space, each living their own unique lives. And enjoyed all the culture and culinary delights this city offers.

Recognize the discomfort - there is no need to deny it - but pull yourself back to the present moment. Focus on what is right before you, the beauty of the present, to minimize suffering of all kinds. This is the path of more ease and freedom. As you transition from focusing on pain to focusing on blessing, joy will begin to dominate your experience.

And if you try and just cannot break through the negativity influencing you, hit reply and let’s chat. Energy healing can free subconscious blocks locking you into these old patterns with ease and precision. It’s time to let the past go and fully embrace ease, joy and peace.