Of Joy and Disappointment

Last weekend I have experienced the most intense emotions of disappointment and joy. I don’t know if my emotions were heightened because it was my last weekend here before the Holiday break, but it is exhausting jumping in between both extremes all weekend. I’ve actually felt disappointment throughout the last couple of weeks, and not just that weekend, but I found time to reflect and process my disappointment during the weekend. The main reflection I found was that living into my disappointment, owning up to my disappointment, is an act of self-love. Humans are going to feel disappointment throughout life; it is an only natural when our life is dictated by our emotional expectation on how things should be and how people should be. However, disappointment is more visible when people struggle with self-love. They are more prone to a mindset of creating expectations; therefor they are more prone to disappointment. There is no shame in having disappointment, it takes bravery and vulnerability to live into and accept that our expectations haven’t been met. I think the shame comes when we let our disappointment and our expectations get in the way of forming meaningful relationships with others. Unfortunately, life in not black and white and there is a lot of gray in deciphering the difference between the two. I even struggle with identifying the gray, but I believe the difference is when we are able to ask ourselves, “Do I still love others, and do I still love myself despite the disappointment I’m feeling?” The emotionally strong people would answer yes to that question, which is what it means to own up to our disappointment.

My disappointment was manifested in jealous, anger and extreme sadness. When I originally wrote about my disappointment it was a page long, thus I decided to cut it out for length purpose (as well as some other reasons.) My disappointment and my intense emotions were making it impossible to see the Joy. I couldn't find joy or meaning in what I was doing and it made me physically and emotionally tired. My disappointment was so intense and my life was so joyless that I even thought about quitting the program (I talked to others and that is a common thought YAVs have.) I want to lay these emotions on the table, not because I expect that to fix them, but because I believe there is emotional strength in owning our story. Being able to own our story is how we can connect to people and create space for joy and peace. I was able to experience joy at the Women’s Christmas Brunch and the Christmas Store Saturday.

During the brunch, I had the honor of listening to my friend Maddie as she gave her testimony. I will not write about the content of her testimony because as her friend I have to give her the space to own her story. If she wishes to tell her story that is her story to tell and not mine. I will write that her testimony focused around the imagery of a coat (a bright yellow coat in her case). Maddie said that she always imagined God like her yellow coat, bright, comfy, and offers her protection. However, there are times when we don’t always wear the coat correctly, we can button it incorrectly or wear the coat inside out. But the thing is, no matter how the coat is worn, the coat is always there. No matter what is going on in our life, God is always with us. Now a coat isn’t the first image that comes to mind when I think about God, but I still enjoyed listening to Maddie’s testimony. The part I enjoyed most about Maddie’s testimony is actually how she expressed herself and how she expressed God during her testimony.  I could see how God was working through Maddie in her life. You could see it in her soul that singed the emotions she was trying to convey Saturday. You could see it in her eyes that expressed a feeling that I have not felt in along time, Joy.

The most awe-inspiring thing about the brunch was that the Joy was not just coming from Maddie, it was coming from all participates at the brunch. Maddie was just the one to create space for Joy by laying her emotions on the table. I felt joy when I heard my friends sing. I felt love when I had brunch with Hannah, Kellyn, David, Brooke, Barnaby, Lindsey, and Will. I felt like they enjoyed my company and they felt a peace from advent that they wanted to share with not only me, but the other ladies as well. Oh and if you are wondering the guys were there because they helped serve brunch but David, Will, and Barnaby were temporally the R&B star Davida, Wilma and Barbie. During my friends’ singing I thought, “You know I was disappointed that our house was not able to go to The Grove to see the Christmas lights, but my Christmas experience for my YAV year is THIS. I might not have experiences similar to the other YAVs that I’m jealous of, but I am the only have who gets to experience THIS! By allowing myself to embrace the Joy, I was able to overcome my feelings of disappointment. The Joy I felt was much more meaningful than my disappointment of not having my expectation met.

That Joy only continued through the Christmas Store that afternoon. The Christmas Store is like a fundraiser; half of the proceeds go to DOOR. The whole idea is that instead of promoting toxic charity, we allow families in the neighborhood to come to the store and buy items at a discounted price. We (the church) will also provide transportation for families who do not have cars and do not like taking public transportation. I was stationed at gift-wrapping; I’d rather do that than add up gift prices. I’ve done a lot of gift-wrapping before, A LOT, from previous internships so wrapping gifts was nothing outside my comfort zone. However, I was terrified of my gift-wrapping speed, what if I was going too slowly and there was a line starting to form. Luckily not that many people opted to have their gifts wrapped so I was only overwhelmed by the amount of gifts that needed to be wrapped at the end of the day. Luckily, I also had help as well. Being placed at gift-wrapping was not only good because it was outside away from the chaos; it also gave me a chance to talk to the families (mainly kids) when people approached our station. I felt a sense of humility and joy in the work I was doing. I told my friend it was so ironic because three hours wrapping gifts was more joyful than three months of working at PATH.

While I may be disappointed in certain aspects of my YAV year, I am not going to silver line it with the amount of Joy I felt this weekend. At the same time, I am not going to belittle my Joy by romanticizing the disappointment I’ve been feeling. Instead, I am just going to accept my emotions for what they are and lay them on the table. By laying them on the table, I don't expect to have my emotions fixed, but I expect that God will say, “Ok, those are valid feelings.” I think God wants me to learn something from those emotions but the Lord knows I am not emotionally ready to listen. Yahweh created me, Adonai loves me, and God know me and knows that the best thing to say to me in this timing is “Ok, those are valid feelings.” Figuring out emotions such as Joy and disappointment can be sticky and messy, but God gives us the freedom to lay them down on the table without having to solve our emotions. 

The Spirituality of Staying Busy

Hello fellow readers! If you come from the Jewish or Christian faith background, you are probably familiar with the Sabbath (there maybe other faith traditions that practice something similar to the Sabbath but I am not sure). When I think of Sabbath, I think of silence, being still and relaxed. There is something spiritual in slowing down and not having to do anything. I, on the other hand, am going to play devil’s advocate and say that there is something spiritual about staying busy. I’m not disowning the Sabbath, or saying there is something wrong with being silent (silence is a spiritual practice that I sometimes return to) but I am saying that there is something spiritual in the chaos of being busy that often gets overlooked merely because people don’t like chaos.

To understand what I mean when I say there is something spiritual about busyness, I first have to explain my personality. Before orientation in New York, we had to take two online personality tests: Myers Briggs and the enneagram. I’m not a big fan of Myers Briggs simply because my answer changes every time I take it, I will go from a INFP to a ENFP back to a INFP to a INFJ. The Intuitive and the Feeling are the only ones that stay the same! As far as enneagram, it was my first time taking it so I can’t really articulate my opinion on how accurate it is, however it was accurate in my result, which was type 4, the Individualistic. I am a Romantic; I feel my emotions very strongly and have the superpower of being empathetic. However this is the double edge sword because it also means that I am the drama queen that can go from one emotional extreme to the next in 5 seconds. Now one of my YAV friends is shouting in my head, “Don’t put a label on yourself Julia!” I will take his advice and not be defined by these personality tests, but these personality tests do come in handy when trying to explain my personality to the house.

I’m sure everybody in the house will attest to the fact that I am a type 4 on the enneagram. I am the only type 4 in the house, as well as being a type 4 I am also an ambivert (someone with both extravert and introvert qualities), while my other housemates are introverts. I do not define them as introverts because they are more then just a label. It would be more accurate to say that they are people who tend to be more introverted. There is nothing wrong with this, but it has been internally difficult at times because I process energy and emotions very differently from the rest of them. Because I tend to be a Romantic, I will have extreme emotional spikes, which is very exhausting. So how do I process this? Well, for the most part I journal, draw and pray but I can only do that so much. What I mean by this is that I am one of those people who over thinks everything if I am left alone with my own thoughts. This is not a bad thing, but if I am not careful I can easily over think myself into a downward spiral of negativity, and it scares me. So as much as I love journaling, drawing, and time to myself, I have to be careful that I am not prone to begin those negative thoughts while I partake in those self-reflective activities.

That is why I love hanging out with people so much (this is the more extraverted part of me coming out), because if I am around people I am less prone to begin those negative thoughts. That is why I love staying busy; if I am busy I do not have time to let my mind wonder into some scary stuff. This has been very hard to express to people involved in the DOOR program, except a few, which is why I am currently reaching out to other YAVs (but that’s another story all together.) I respect that everybody in our house has different personalities but I feel like the other dwellers can’t empathize with me about the need for busyness, which has been very difficult for me alone. Overall, as much as I enjoy silence and as much as I think it is a beautiful spiritual practice, being busy is also a form of self-care for me because of my type of personality. I think there is something spiritual in staying busy if it is for the sake of my self-care.

That is part of the reason why I’ve felt the traditional YAV slump, because I have not been busy enough. Thanksgiving break was literally the worst thing because I was not busy. For the actual Thanksgiving, Sam and I went over to Mary and Josh’s house. Mary is my prayer partner so she invited us over to her house where their annual tradition consists of eating turkey chili, junk food and watching TV. It was so nice not having to stress and just chill (plus I fell in love with gooey pumpkin bars). Sam tried to teach me how to play chess and I lost with great elegance, I knew Sam was going to win from the start (he is too humble to admit he is the chess champion). I also got to Face Time with my family before they were about to have Thanksgiving lunch, that was especially important to me because Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and it was the first Thanksgiving that I didn't spend it with family (but having three Thanksgivings this year was pretty cool.) Other than that my weekend was pretty boring. It was relaxing because I had nothing to do, but because I had nothing to do that allowed space for me to feel bored and depressed (ambivert remember?)

Tuesday my slump was so bad that I ended up having to call Mary to see if I can come over. The one thing that I really enjoy about DOOR LA is that all the dwellers are required to have a prayer partner. Not only are prayer partners good to have for spiritual development; they are also good for social purposes. They can tell you what places to check out and would be happy to do so with you, especially Mary who is very resourceful and knows a lot of people. Tuesday, I was telling Mary about how if I am not busy, I tend to over think which can be a bad thing sometimes. This was something she said she could relate to and was able to give me some good advice. One thing that came out of that conversation was that we agreed to go on a Saturday outing. We went to Universal City/ Studio City and had lunch at In N Out and stocked up at Michaels for the Christmas store (plus the little artist in me loves Michaels). I was pretty tired by the time that I got home but it was so nice to rejuvenate by being busy for that day. A lot of the rejuvenation had to do with me going to Universal City, I was away from Hollywood and I was away from downtown LA, I was in a new environment. I always find something refreshing in going to a new place just to escape my familiar environment.

I also made plans next weekend as well so hopefully the feeling of being bored won’t take over me. I will be going home for the holidays, so hopefully by the time I return I can continue to stay even busier.  I honestly think part of the slump will be defeated once I go home and rejuvenate with my family and my fury baby. That has been what a bunch of the YAVAs have told me. Being able to connect to the YAVAs (even if it’s only online or phone) has helped because they KNOW about the slump. They can empathize and not sympathize. If anything good came out of the slump, it has been able to reach out to the YAVAs and form connections with them. I can be completely vulnerable online about my slump that I am currently in because I have hope that something good will come out of it. I don’t know when or how that will be but I am human. I am allowed to feel the good and the bad, I’m allowed to cry, I’m allowed to brave, strong and vulnerable. When I signed up to be a YAV, I knew I was signing up for the struggles that come with it as well.

Angel on the Train and YAV Roadblocks

I’ve noticed a blogging style I have; I will mainly blog about how I feel and about my emotional reactions to events that happened in my YAV year vs. the actual event itself. I do not think there is anything inherently wrong with doing that, it is how I process emotions, but I do wonder why I have that tendency when looking at the blogs of my fabulous YAV brethren, whom tend to blog about the actual events more than their emotional reaction. The main reason why I have not blogged about the events that took place during November is because November has been an extremely stressful month. I don’t think stress is the right word; I’ve been in a slump, for lack of a better word. It’s not quite apathy and it’s not quite depression or anxiety, it’s just sort of a roadblock. Some days are worse than others and to be honest I don’t know how to describe it other than the fact I need a break. I didn’t want to blog because I didn't want to blog about my feelings and address the negative feeling of the slump (I wasn't ready for that.) While I am not fully recovered from the nosedive, it has gotten better. It is no longer the pit of despair. Talking to my YAV/DOOR friends, especially past YAVs who have experienced the nosedive as well helps a lot.

Then what can I write about? I can write about my experiences at PATH, the agency I’ve been assigned to, but for several personal reasons I will not do that. I am happy to grab some chai and discuss my experience at PATH in person or over the phone, but over the Internet would be too inappropriate. What my soul really needs is to blog about a topic that is not that serious so I don’t overanalyze anything and send myself into a downward spiral. For me the biggest part of my YAV year that I do everyday is take the Metro. I am proud to say that I am one step above an amateur when it comes to navigating the Metro. That is because if I’m not walking, I depend on public transit to go EVERYWHERE. Here is just a snippet of how often I use the Metro…

I wake up at 5am every morning in order to get to the bus stop by 7am. From there I will ride the 210 to the “train station.” For someone who did not grow up with public transportation (the first time I rode a train was when I was 20 years old in Japan) I do not consider the Metro a train. If I have to go underground and ride underground, then it is the subway, but everybody in LA calls it the train so I just go with the flow. I ride the train for 20 or so minutes to get to work. Riding the train to and from work has been one of my highlights of the day. Yes, I do realize that it is a weird highlight of my day, for most public transit is just public transit. However, it is a good time to be in solitude for reflection and I’ve started to recognize the regulars on the train and at what stop they get off. There’s the guy trying to beg for money again, he always says the same thing. There’s the guy who’s trying to selling incense or the guy who always plays the guitar. Watching people on the train has been an interesting pastime for me.

On the train I can be anyone and I can be sitting or standing next to anyone. I’m not an outsider, but I’m not an insider, I don’t have to talk to anyone, nobody knows my story and I don’t know their story. I am a passenger; I am part of the crowd along with other passengers who are also part of the crowd. We are all passengers, we are all sitting or standing together as we are waiting to go to wherever our destination maybe. In a way, we are almost sitting in solidarity because we have that in common. I kind of now understand that annoying 80s song of soul train (at least I think it’s the 80s.) With all the passengers, I’ve happened to notice this one passenger in particular. I have no idea who she is but I notice that within 2 weeks, I’ve seen her 3 times on the train and a couple other random times here and there while going to work. What is the coincidence of that in a city as big as LA? Out of all the carts on the train and out of all the trains, we end up on the same cart, on the same train, on the same time, for 3 times within two weeks. The funny thing is that she gets off at the same station that I get off at. I believe this is purely coincidence but sometimes I like to pretend she is my guardian angel.

I am completely open to the idea that angels walk among us and that God is invisibly active to the naked eye within the busy streets that we walk down every day. I don’t believe this woman in particular is my guardian angel but I like to pretend she is because it makes going to work easier. If I pretend that she is an angel, it is a visual reminder that God is looking out for me. I know that God wants to be active in my daily life, but with the chaos of life it is easy to push the Lord to the side. With this visual reminder of this woman, it is easy to see God within my life for that day. As silly as this may seem, this is very comforting. It’s the little things that I have to focus on in order to overcome this slump. So here are some little things that have made the slump a little bit easier…

•       Finding leftover tea mix from last DOOR year. When that tea runs out, I will just start stealing tea from La Casa again
•       Buying pupusas at the farmer’s market every Wednesday
•         Playing Pokémon Go when I walk home from work. My pokedex is starting to fill up with all new Pokémon!!! 
•        The slump has given me the opportunity to connect to other past YAVs via Facebook (My favorite thus far)

I don’t really consider these things acts of self-care, but little things that I can focus on when I am feeling down. In no way am I saying that I should not be in this slump, I am human and therefor entitled to feel like crap sometimes. But if I keep complaining about the negativity, what good is that going to do? If I keep a list of some of the little things that make the day a good one, then at least I am not prone to send myself down a pit of despair.

Let's Be Real About the Hard Emotions

As an emotionally dynamic woman, and as an avid Disney fan, it is not hard to imagine “Inside Out,” being one of my favorite Disney movies. I am able to connect to Riley and her emotions on an intimate level. The main reason why I love this movie, and why I think so many others are able to connect to this movie, is because it brings awareness to the emotions that we would rather live without. In the movie’s case sadness is the emotion that is seen as troublesome. In the beginning of the movie sadness is seen as a burden, an emotion that nobody wants to live with. I won’t give away any spoilers away (except one!) but at the end of the movie the other emotions, especially Joy, see the importance of sadness and how she plays an important role in Riley’s life.

I think Joy’s realization of sadness at the end is beautiful because society as a whole does not want to recognize the importance of negative emotions. We are afraid of discomfort and negative emotions are known for leading us to places of discomfort.Instead, we would rather focus on the happy emotions, such as Joy, and act like the negative emotions, such as sadness, doesn't exist. Our society is very much similar to the inside of Riley’s brain at the beginning of the movie. It makes sense right, focus on aspects of our life that makes us feel good and not the aspects that make us feel bad. However, how long can we keep up that façade? If God gave us these beautiful emotions then shouldn’t we value all of them, even the ones that don't make us feel good. Sadness, anger, guilt, fear, etc. they are all gifts that we should as instruments of wisdom. Shouldn't we dwell on why we are feeling sadness instead of hiding it? It is ok to sit in our sadness, just as long as we don’t let it consume us. I believe it takes a wise and self-aware person to find the balance between this. I have no right judging others who struggle with this because I struggle with this as well.

However, if we don’t give ourselves the space to dwell in our negative emotions then we are not being authentic with our true selves and others around us. By wearing a mask that is always smiling, we are not emotionally available to be empathetic with others, I find this concept illustrated in one particular scene in “Inside Out.” It is when Joy is trying to cheer Bing Bong up after he lost his spaceship wagon. Joy, the fun emotion, the happy emotion, the emotion that everybody loves, is failing. This is because she cannot connect to Bing Bong on an empathetic level. Joy has never experienced sadness, so how can she expect to BE with Bing Bong in a time of grief. What Bing Bong needs most during his time of grief is someone who can sit with him without judgment, something Joy cannot provide. In fact, if I were Bing Bong I would be really mad at Joy for trying to make me happy again and not giving me the space to grieve. Her intentions were genuine but not giving him space to cry is not.

 Sadness, on the other hand, did give Bing Bong space to cry and was able to connect to Bing Bong on an empathetic level. Sadness, obviously knows what sadness is, and was able to allow Bing Bong the opportunity to feel sad. Sadness was a peace warrior in this scene because she did not fix Bing Bong’s problem but sat with him through it. And she was able to do this because she knows what Bing Bong is feeling and was able to help him tap into that. In the case of Bing Bong’s grief, it was ok for him to feel that negative emotion because it was that negative emotion that got him through his struggle. Ok first off, sadness played an awesome counselor in that scene. Second off, I’ve been feeling a lot of negativity the last couple of weeks.

The reason I bring up “Inside Out,” is because it is a reminder that it is ok to feel the negativity I’ve recently been experiencing. Ideally, I do not want to feel negativity but if I do, it does not make me any less of a person. Is Riley less of a person when she feels sad? No!!! In fact, she is even more of a person when she feels sad. I may feel these negative emotions sometimes, but you know what, I am still a whole person. I am enough. I am enough if I feel happy; I am enough if I feel sad. I might have extreme emotions, but that does not make me any more or any less of a person than someone else. All it means is that we process emotions different, and we need to respectful of how that happens.

Now I know some people back home will be like, “Oh my gosh! Julia’s upset! What’s wrong,” “Is she stressed? Depressed? Is they’re anything I can do,” “Does she need a care package?” As grateful as I am that I have such a strong support network, having people say those types of things will just suffocate me. I am not in an emotional or spiritual state where you should be worried about me, the phase that I am in is very normal for Dwellers and YAVs around this time. If you are still worried about me and want to show emotional support all you have to do is read my blog and pray for me. But the point of this blog post is not to have people pray for me, the point of this blog post is to write about giving ourselves the space to be vulnerable with the emotions it maybe hard to be vulnerable with. I don’t think there is a single answer to how to do that, all we can really do as people is to be aware of that and show compassion where compassion is needed.