Many thanks to the Bold Journey team for developing this interview and asking about my purpose.  Although I believe purpose is an ever evolving aspect of life, it is nice -  in this moment - to be doing exactly what I love to do. Read the article here: ​https://boldjourney.com/news/meet-ali-sweeney/

What is your experience of joy?  Are you waiting for something great to happen? When you smile do you let it soak into you with joy, or is it just on the surface?   Do you expect to live a life of wild and intense joy?  Do you hope to be over-joyed?  Is joy a feeling that is reserved for a wedding or a birth or just some other momentous occasion? Are you intentionally joyful?  Is joy just something that sometimes happens to you?

What I have discovered in this life is that JOY makes it better.  Whatever ails you, JOY changes it.  

Think about children playing - the laughter, the giggles.  If we had to meet a certain amount of value or have a certain amount of pain - BEFORE - we could experience joy, what little kid would have met those thresholds?  Instead, kids just are joy.  They catch it and take hold and then they let it ring.  Joy in the simplest of things.  They do not wait for someone else to be different before they hold joy, they do not keep joy on the surface - they let it all the way down to their full belly giggles.  Kids don’t temper their joy, rather they give themselves permission to be overjoyed, even bouncing off the walls.  

Adults can be a different story.  Many of us seem to have forgotten that we are joy.  There could be lots of reasons: maybe we hold so many joy inhibitors that the joy can only stay on the surface, we decided somewhere along the way that we would wait for joy, or that someone else’s joy is more important than our own.  There is more than enough joy to go around and for joy to go deep.  Because here’s the thing - you were once that kid.  You are joy. 

I am not suggesting we be joyful all the time.   Sometimes it feels like life itself limits our joy.  Challenges persist.  There is pain, sadness, and so much more.  This isn’t about being someone pretending to be joyful about the things that are hard.  These things ARE hard and to pretend they are not - keeps that hardness around.   But what about the joy inhibitors that are more of a habit or a belief you could change?  

I’ve found that for me, worry is one of my biggest inhibitors to joy.  I heard on the radio the other day that everyone worries.  Every human on earth.  In the stone age, worrying kept us alive.  A valuable instinct, yet we are not in the stone age anymore.  I actually have no control over most of the things I worry about.  If I did, I would just do something about it.  But instead, I worry.  I create scenarios, not joy-filled scenarios, but worst case scenarios.  It can be hard to feel joy through all of that worry, it can be hard to get it past the surface smile to feel it down deep. I think it is possible that worry makes room for other things too - doubt, uncertainty, weakness.  So a great question to ask yourself is - are you glad you are worrying?  Is it serving you?  If not, you could take a break from the worry.

Worry is one of the ways we cover over our joy.  Other ways could be beliefs that we can only have joy when a certain set of circumstances is met, or that someone else’s joy is more important than our own (sacrifice).  Get curious about what is limiting your experience of joy in any way.  What could you let go of to experience a broader spectrum of joy?  If you don’t need that pattern or belief; you can change it.  I believe in you. There is no waiting for joy required.  No threshold of pain experiences that have to be met before YOU can experience joy. 

Bring me your light.  I will bask in it, and I will share mine.

​Image by IceEye  from Pixabay.

This is a challenging season of life for many of us.  When I would talk to my mom and was screaming at the world, at my life, at anything and everything… when I cried the biggest, hardest tears… my mom’s response was always, ‘Better out than in, Al.’   

What happens when you let these feelings out instead of keeping them inside of you?  I am uncomfortable being angry, crying my heart out, fuming. These moments of release are uncomfortable, especially as those feelings escape. That pain isn’t easy when it hurts deep in your heart, when your throat closes down, when the emotion is all you experience.  And yet - all that anger or sadness or whatever it is your feeling - is better out than in.  (Ideally, you are letting it out without harming others or yourself).  Maybe all that hurt has been stuck there for years (or lifetimes) and through whatever challenging experience you're having, it is healing and releasing.  And then through that release you don’t have to hold it any longer. I always feel lighter, more like Myself, better, after one of these releases.  

Often we compound the emotion we are feeling by telling ourselves we shouldn’t be feeling it, we are overreacting, it isn’t that bad, or we berate ourselves for feeling big emotions.  I don’t like feeling these emotions, but I am coming to understand that there isn't anything 'wrong' with them (or me).   Now I trust that these releases are essential for the next best version of me.  I know that I can have these big emotions, be uncomfortable, find my breath, and not make me wrong.  How would your life change if you felt uncomfortable emotions and that’s all that happened in your thoughts?  You don’t have to change anything or feel even worse about yourself.  It could be that there is nothing ‘wrong’, but rather a release of emotions that you no longer have to hold.  It could be that there isn’t anything to fix, and be responsible for, other than just sitting in it.  Acknowledging and accepting that this is how you feel right now.  Remembering that you won’t feel this way forever, it is temporary.  Your life will have peace and joy and love again.

I encourage you to sit with the release of emotion that happens, as uncomfortable as it is and remind yourself that whatever you are feeling, is better out than in.

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​Written by: Mike Way

At almost 68 years old, I enjoy finding out that I am still capable of learning some new tricks.   But admittedly, at this stage, acquiring new skills that are truly “life changing” is fairly unusual.  For me, meditation has become a remarkable addition to my life, even if it has come in the “autumn” of my years.   Better late than never, as they say.

I’d been mildly curious about meditation for many years.  In a box somewhere, I’m pretty sure I can find some books on, and an old cassette tape of, meditations.  But, the tape has never been played; the books unread.  Somehow, I just never actually tried it.  Why?

Well, I’m aware that I had been put-off just slightly about meditation, mostly based on clichés and false assumptions (e.g. shave my head, wear orange robes and burn incense?)  I worried that I’d be required to pretzel myself into the lotus position – (which by the way, as I got older, was simply out of the question!)  Silly, huh?

Recently, a few things happened that finally hooked my attention…including semi-retirement and sheltering-at-home because of Covid-19.   Most importantly, a dear colleague and good friend invited me to Deepak Chopra’s 21 Days of Abundance meditation challenge.  Although I tried to think up several excuses, I was unable to overcome one simple truth….that I completely and absolutely trusted her judgment and her genuineness.

That person, of course was/is Ali.  I had worked with her closely about 20 years ago, and was always deeply impressed with her very high level of intelligence, but charmingly mixed with a down-to-earth demeanor, and common-sense thoughtfulness.  During the ensuing years, our career and life-paths diverged, but we never lost touch.  When I learned that she had answered a calling in spirituality, I was somewhat surprised, if not slightly shocked.  But, it was clear she was the same old Ali I knew, having simply turned her incredible intellect and thoughtfulness onto a different focus.  I fell back on my trust and belief in her, so I accepted her invitation.  Thus began my personal journey with meditation…..

For some of you reading this, you may have already discovered the power(s) of meditation for yourself.  For some of you, it might encourage or support you on your own journey.  For a few of you, perhaps it may provide just enough of a nudge to finally put aside any reluctance, for whatever your reason(s) and “get on with it” -- taking that first step.

The stories I can offer are simply a way to share my joy of discovery.  They may or may not be similar to any of your own experiences.  I don’t represent them as anything you should particularly look for; nor as correct or incorrect milestones in the meditation process.  I have no idea if they are “typical” in any way, shape or form.  Perhaps their best value might be in stimulating or prompting some of you to share your own stories on this blog, or elsewhere.  I feel I’ve had some “profound” insights, but no doubt profound only to me because, after all, meditation is a profoundly personal experience.

In a few cases, I’ll share some ideas of my own about the process and practice of meditation itself – often borne of my own muddled awareness and misconceptions.  I don’t offer these as universal truths or previously un-earthed truths – but rather as considerations for anyone who may be having difficulties (as I once did) exploring or embracing meditation.  

My first “aha!” moment came roughly two-thirds into the 21 Day Challenge and was about the “process” more than a personal insight.  I had come to rather enjoy the “just music” parts of the meditations as much or more than the “guided” narrative parts.  Somewhere along the way, I began to be troubled that the “just music” parts were becoming shorter and shorter in duration.  The ending “bell” would sound long before I was “ready” to stop, and often when I thought I was just getting started into great stuff.  It occurred to me this was probably intentional in design, and probably revealed later.  Curious, I went back to the first couple of days – and discovered that, while I thought the “just music” time had been decreased down to only three minutes or so – it turned out that it was actually quite consistent at 9-10 minutes  from the very beginning.  In fact, it was I who had changed….rather than spending/wasting the first five or seven minutes worrying about whether “I was doing it right” or having my brain take me off course with distractions such as sounds or itchy eyes or needing to sneeze – I was instead learning to ignore that stuff and redirect my focus back to the mantra.  Thus my actual time in useful meditation simply had time-warped on me, making the ten minutes fly by.  It made me want more….much more. 

The first, most dramatic, personal moment for me happened a few days later.  For most of my adult life, I’d struggled with some frustrating aspects of my relationship with my mother.  Since she passed a few years ago (at age 92), I had felt an uncomfortable, unfinished lack of closure with her.  Then, during a meditation, with no context or reason, she suddenly appeared to me.  There was no exchange of words or anything like that, but I was suddenly flushed with a wonderful sense of warmth, forgiveness, and reconnection.  I became aware in that moment, that a slight smile had crossed my face, and felt it vibrate throughout my entire body – down to my toes.  I realized it was the first time in 40 years that I had looked her in the eye and smiled TRULY and SINCERELY at her, and with her.  The love I felt in that moment was astonishing. 
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Since then, I have been meditating every day (often more than once) without fail.