From Shadows to Light: The Transformative Journey of Joy
How a Life Filled with Pain Cultivated Unconditional Kindness and Resilience
"Don't you dare ever be like your sister Joy." That's what Joy's mom was yelling to her siblings. It was an early childhood memory Joy was recalling. I could tell it was still deeply painful to bring to mind. Joy's mom did not like her very much. It was a disdain she felt her entire life. Her mother has long since passed, but the hurt in Joy's heart remains.
As a child, Joy did not understand why her mom hated her; she just knew that she did. It was a source of deep confusion and immense hurt. She knew the feeling well. It was a sense of her throat tightening from the inside out. It felt like a heavy lead ball was stuck in her chest. Below that, her body felt hollow. She remembered her brain scrambling to understand at the time. "What did I do? What happened? Why is mom so mad at me? I am sorry. Please don't be mad. I don't know what I did. I didn't mean it.”
One day Joy knocked a glass on the ground, and it shattered. Her mom told her to clean it up. Joy did, sweeping and scooping the glass with her bare hands. Suddenly her palms were in pain. The glass ripped into her skin. At first, she did not understand why she had "red paint" all over her. She was too young to comprehend that glass cuts. It was blood she was seeing, not paint.
This only made her mother angrier. Rather than rushing to mend the wound, Joy's mom berated her with how stupid she was. Her siblings laughed at her.
The sorrow of rejection would cripple any adult. Joy was just five years old. Today Joy is in her seventies, and the same lead-chest feeling of pain still revisits at unexpected moments all these years later.
Joy had six siblings and was a target in the family. She was the one punished. The one screamed at. She was locked in closets. Spanked. Told she was stupid. Children learn by example, so her siblings often got in on the action too. They would blame her for the things they did. She was an easy scapegoat, and they knew it.
Her oldest sister took on the role of dictator-mom whenever the opportunity presented. Her sister locked her on the roof, verbally attacked her, berated her, undermined her and manipulated her sense of worth.
Joy was not old enough to give words to it, but she knew that her sister was her mother's favorite, and she was the one no one liked. She learned to be quiet. To stay out of the way and to observe.
She became an expert at reading the energy in a room and the mood of the people around. It was a self-preservation tactic. In her child mind, she figured, "If I am quiet and good, maybe I can stay out of trouble? If I am nice & sweet, maybe my mom and siblings will be nice and sweet too?”
This was an imperfect strategy. In Joy's world, it failed most of the time. It did, however, produce better results than what she had been doing. It became her way. People pleasing. Downplaying her strengths and giving credit to others. Remaining small, staying in the background and letting others shine.
The rest of her siblings had challenges too. No one comes up in an environment like that and goes away unscathed. Joy was the second born. She had an older sister and younger brother just in front and behind her in birth order. After that, there was another girl, twin boys, and the youngest girl.
They all had different coping mechanisms. Joy's older sister played the favorite. The closest brother had the power to lie, manipulate, and charm. Her other siblings had various dysfunctions that became clearer to Joy with age. Lying and emotional manipulation was the tool most used in the family. It was an ingrained pattern of lies, shit-talking, and backstabbing.
Not all was bad. Joy had a father who adored her. Her father seemed to cherish all the Children. But he was not home much. Her dad was an essential military officer, so his job kept him away. Even at home, he was more engaged in his work than to his family. While his presence calmed the entire house, providing reprieve from the chaos, it was always short-lived.
One day Joy was told they were sending her away. Her mom did not want her there anymore. Given the pattern, Joy figured that is the only thing that made sense. All the other children were staying at home with mom and dad. She was going away to live with her Grandparents. What else could explain it she thought?
As an adult, Joy has mixed emotions about this. It was wounding, but it also gave her a more stable environment. She had a place to escape the meanness. Maybe it was meant as a punishment, but she now views it as a gift.
With her Grandparents she could settle a bit and observe the world. She would sit under a tree, watch the birds, chase squirrels and be free from the teasing, yelling, and punishment. She realized a different existence. It was a kinder slower more welcoming place. She liked it there. Joy's reprieve was short-lived. She was sent back to her family when her father was stationed in London. She had just long enough to develop some understanding.
This same thing happened again in England. She was put in a boarding school and that is how she spent most of her formative years. It was a Catholic convent. There she experienced more harshness from the nuns, only this time it was equally doled out.
Here she discovered calligraphy (the art of handwriting), which became a source of meditation and centering for her. Joy did not realize at the time that she would become a teacher of this artform.
Joy was now a young woman and began forming some decisions about the world. There was one foot in her old world of lies, inter-sibling rivalry, and parental abuse, but enough of an anchor in another world to see she was not as bad, stupid, or incapable as her family may have believed.
Joy still had deep insecurities and, at times, could be overwhelmed by the pain of her childhood. And at the same time, she was also finding times of confidence and clarity. A different perspective.
She met a man. She got pregnant. Even her sibling relationships seemed more stable. Always dysfunctional, but somehow more balanced, and less volatile.
It's hard to state Joy's mindset in her early twenties. She had the emotional scars from her childhood. She was insecure in many ways but was now an adult with kids of her own. She had some stability and was finding herself a capable, if at-times unstable, mother. Her children relied on her. She was finding strength in being there for them in all the ways her mother was not for her.
Just as she was coming up for air and finding rhythm in life, her father died. The only sense of warmth, honesty, and good in her family vanished in an instant. The family buried her father before she could get to the funeral. She does not know if her mother excluded her on purpose.
From there things fell apart again with Joy’s immediate family. With the father gone the family slowly degraded over the years. It became a ravel of shit-talking, back-stabbing and conniving. Unfortunately, there would be no moment of healing or resolution for Joy or any of her siblings. Only mean again and again. Just cruelty repeated from most of her siblings and but especially her mother.
Yet, fast forward through Joy's life and there is no pain or lies and angst elsewhere. Instead there is art, children and fun. You’ll see a strong lasting marriage to an adoring husband. Joy’s immense kindness and the way she makes everyone feel special and seen. A devoted mother, teacher and caretaker to whoever needed help.
That’s the part of Joy’s story that is most interesting to me. Why? How is that possible. Isn’t it supposed to be the opposite? Shouldn’t she be bitter? Shouldn’t she be more like her mother rather than less?
Apparently, the cruelty was the source of something else for Joy, and this is where her very ordinary story turns extraordinary.
Think about what we all hear about the abused and downtrodden. The stories where individuals become dysfunctional and impoverished because of neglect, abuse, and poor upbringing? They are usually tales of sadness, addiction, dysfunction, and violence. The pain becomes intergenerational. Patterns, not just repeating through one person's life, but perturbing the next generation. Environmental ripples of pain passed down the genetic chain.
Joy's siblings suffered that fate. Her older sister died of cancer, leaving schisms of dysfunction among her children. Her brother, who had moments of kindness and success, ultimately chose manipulation and lies as his means of survival. Another brother was rendered dysfunctional through drugs. The youngest of the siblings became the first to die, a casualty of the opioid epidemic. Only Joy and one of the twins found stability and saved their children from the dysfunction. Maybe?
Joy became something else. Her name says what she became. She became the embodiment of happiness for others, despite struggling to feel joy herself. She made a right turn towards an elevated life when the rest of her family went left degrading theirs.
It wasn’t easy. That's because easy is earned. Joy remembers being overwhelmed as a young mother and slipping into the base-level cruelty of her mother. These episodes would scare her straight for a time. Then they would repeat. She found books to help. She attended self-development courses. Immersed herself in her creative pursuits, which gave her a place to center and channel her suffering.
Joy began the climb out of the damp of her base-level family behaviors by elevating and evolving herself. She even began to give up some of the need for culture-level accolades and status. Where others suffered from the look-at-me-syndrome, Joy's ego developed humility and an almost guru-like kindness and generosity.
Imagine being raised by a mother who had no semblance of balance, no warmth to share, and only cruelty to offer. Then choosing to be the opposite of that mother, only to find that the patterns of dysfunction were sometimes too strong to overcome. Until finding the strength to break the habits and learn a different way. That’s Joy’s journey.
It is hard to tell these kinds of stories in writing. I don't want you to get the idea that Joy did not have her own set of dysfunctions, the same as any other human. What makes her story heroic is that she made a choice somewhere along the way to be different, to do better.
Joy chose kindness and generosity. Not just for her children, but everyone. Today people often refer to her as the kindest person they ever met. Humble, self-deprecating, and known to have dedicated decade-long periods of unconditional love and emotional support to friends in need of her unique brand of medicine.
And, as is sometimes the case, those friends would often forget her contributions, take her for granted, betray her trust, and even sometimes, end up rejecting her in the same way that her family did all those years ago. Life can be funny that way. It’s as if life was challenging her, begging her to take care of herself the same way she did for others. It was trying to show her that some people are best left alone to make their own way, lest they take you down with them.
And this is where this story of Joy rises to the level of complexity only real stories do. Her story is not a manufactured Hollywood happy ending; it is a journey in progress. It's messy as much as it is beautiful.
That is what it means to be a human. It is also the first message of this book; we humans are broken. Not broken in the way religion would have you believe.
I am not talking about original sin or any of that nonsense. Humans evolve and learn from other humans. And they from us. It’s a process of push and pull between those less mature and cruel and others wiser and more virtuous. Each of us must make a choice. Do we choose a next level path or the base level way?
That decision is not an easy one. The choice, like all choices, can lead to more hardships and painful lessons that can appear no better than current circumstances. That is why many fall back into old destructive ways. The next level path starts with a choice, but it requires much more. That is what this book teaches.
Joy can't remember when she decided to not be like her mother. She thinks It may have been a moment in a grocery store where her mother chewed out a cashier for being too slow and too stupid. It was a rare moment of childhood clarity. Joy realized her mother did not just hate her; her mother was cruel in general. Try admitting that to yourself, right? Realizing that your mom just was not a very good human? That can’t be easy.
Joy is quick to point out that her mother had beautiful qualities and occasional flashes of kindness and generosity. Joy’s guess was that her mother's pain, whatever traumas she suffered, were too much for her. Maybe the meanness was in a gift to Joy? A way to help her avoid the same fate?
Joy's mother saw some people as worthy and some people as not. She was a person who believed she was better than and entitled. She was one of the pretty ones, the smart ones, and the wealthy ones. Other people were not equal. Perhaps Joy's mother suffered inequality when she was a kid. Maybe she faced betrayal? Her mom might have handled the pain and rejection she felt by inflicting pain and rejection on others too. We humans learn by example, and then we choose which model to follow.
Recognizing her mother might have dealt with her pain by inflicting the same pain on others was a significant insight for Joy. She decided somewhere in that child's mind that being mean and cruel would not be her way. A seed was planted somewhere between watching the kindness and humility of her father, receiving the love of her grandparents, and witnessing the destructive pain of her mother that compassion would be her way.
She chose the way of her dad, not the way of her mother. She decided a next level path, not a base level one.
Joy may have been seen as a weak child by her mother and siblings, but somewhere deep inside, she was a little warrior. Courage and defiance started to manifest in her. She gathered enough strength to be different.
Her struggle continued throughout her life. It's the same for most humans. None of us get through life without suffering. Despite that, Joy fashioned an anchor and, without being fully aware, dropped it somewhere deep in the ocean of pain. It was an anchor of kindness, and honor code of giving and love. That is what would guide her.
As a result, Joy became someone who brought light to other people's darkness. Because of her pain, she recognized that same pain in others. Her ability to read emotions, a skill she used to protect herself when she was younger, was now used to sense the pain in others. She came to other people's aid when no one else even knew they were in trouble.
A young man named Johnny needed help when Joy was in her 50s. She still had her battles to fight, pushing back her old family habits while raising her children. She took him in and defended him in ways no one else ever did.
Johnny got caught with drugs as a young man, a small amount of marijuana. As his guardian, she was called into school where the staff assembled with police to decide how to handle the “troublemaker. “
When she walked into the principal’s office, Johnny stood defiant, trying to hide his fear and be the tough guy. Everyone else saw an arrogant boy that needed punishment. Joy saw a scared kid in pain. She saw his sadness and his struggle over being rejected by his father. She defended Johnny with such ferociousness that the school relented, letting him off without charges. No one had ever come to his defense in that way. It changed him to his core. She was his lion because she knew his pain, understood the cruelty he felt, and would not allow him to be treated in the way she was as a kid.
There are countless such stories now of her taking in people and giving them love and then confidence. Ironically, many of these people were the broken children of her siblings. But just as many were strangers to her.
Joy became an instructor of art. She taught in inner cities, in affluent suburbs, and locations around the country and overseas. Joy was a fantastic educator, but what she evolved into was a healer of emotional wounds. She created a safe place for everyone.
Imagine a person who looks at you and tells you how beautiful you are with such sincerity that for a brief second, you forget how unworthy you feel and believe her. Someone who gives you credit. Who tells you that you can do anything. Who declares that you are smart, capable and loved.
A person who does all that despite still carrying a deep sadness of her own, with feelings of inadequacy, uncertainty, and emotional scars. Think of someone who does this for adults and children. A woman who sees you as no different than her and deserving of love. Someone who serves team human, not just her own immediate family.
Joy is not perfect. She is a human and so is not without dysfunction. She has her responsibility for what happened. She put up with it for one thing. Not as a child of course, but in adulthood. She was not good at defending herself. She never learned boundaries and backbone. She played the victim card plenty. Afterall, it was her families way and a learned response. She had to learn to take responsibility, who else was there?
Because of her kindness she made herself an easy target. She never learned the lesson that kindness without boundaries is foolishness. Because of her inability to stand up for herself and establish personal standards, she often felt used and out of control in life. She had no problem defending others but struggled to defend herself.
Sometimes the storms of despair felt like they would sink her. But these were hers to resolve. She could become resentful—for the pain she endured, for not being acknowledged or when people she helped turned on her— or she could get better and learn. It’s human to desire empathy, to seek acknowledgment and to want our kindness reciprocated. But when we don’t get those things, what are we to do? Stomp our feet like angry dysfunctional children? Joy had been hurt. She had deep wounds. She carried them her entire life. The main lesson is that wounds can be gifts if we choose to see them that way. But they can only deliver their value if we tend to them ourselves rather than expect others to do it for us.
This is why Joy is so "next level." She does not deny her dysfunctions. She admits her shortcomings. She is Next Level because she knows her pain is hers to resolve and that the growth earned from hardship may be the very point of living.
She is humble enough to know her pain is nothing special, but secure enough to see her contributions are great. She has enough self-esteem to see her gifts, but enough modesty to know no human is above the cruel randomness of life. Suffering equalizes us all. Joy knows she can grow and change the same way she has taught others. And she tackles that journey the same way she has encouraged others.
How do I know all of this about Joy?
Joy is my mother. Besides being my mom (and a pretty adorable mommy too if I might add), she is also my teacher, my hero and one of my best friends.
I have integrated many of her lessons. You will find some of that wisdom in this book. She's my mother, so I "inherited" some of her pain and dysfunction too.
She also has been able to use me and my unique lessons as a reflection and growth point for herself. This is one of the more strange and beautiful aspects of growing up. At some point we become parents to ourselves and teachers to our parents. The fact my mother has allowed me to counsel her with my own expertise and wisdom is a testament to her spirit of growth.
We humans are an interesting mix of family hand-me-down dysfunctions with our own brand of psychological crazy. Growth and evolution arise from overcoming both.
One thing my mother’s and my mutual dysfunctions illustrated for me is how wrong we humans are to focus on happiness as a life goal. This is something we must discuss as a precursor to the rest of the Next Level Human education.
Happiness, The big human blunder
The story of my mother illustrates the biggest mistake we humans make. We think life is about happiness. We seek that above all else. We make declarations about “good vibes only,” and “live your best life,” “keep your chin up” and “never let them get you down.”
We put on smiles and act as if we are all good all the time. Any bit of discomfort is to be avoided. We avoid difficult conversations, ignore cruelty, and want to be told we are, and everything else is, wonderful all of the time.
We distract and delude ourselves with materials things, pursuits of physical perfection and entertainment. We think life should be about rainbows and orgasms. We believe an easy comfortable life is the goal.
My mother IS one of the most extraordinary humans I have ever met. She is kind, loyal and one of the most generous human hearts. And yet all her loveliness grew out of great pain and sorrow. Did we ever stop to consider how people like my mother become such amazing humans despite not being “happy?” Is it possible that her pain was the very thing that birthed her beauty? I would say that what most humans seek to avoid is the very thing that makes my mother and people like her so special.
We seek to be content. We want happiness. As a result we get mixed up, thrown onto the wrong trail and we never realize we missed the turn somewhere a long way back.
Before sitting down to write this story it dawned on me that my mother’s name is Joy. She was never called Joy by the family. She has always been called Joyce, never the shorthand Joy. Yet that is what she brings to the world, what she embodies, and I believe what she has achieved for herself.
Now you might think that happiness and joy are the same thing. And I know that some people will argue they are. My opinion is that they are different. I don’t think happiness equals joy. They are approximate but distinct. Understanding that distinction is what becoming a Next Level Human is all about.
It is the difference between having something and being something. If you have a thing, it’s like owning a backpack, it might be on you and you can wear it around, but it’s not in you. It does not flow from you. You might possess it for a time, but you can easily lose it.
Think about trying to grasp water. You can feel your fingers saturated. You can see the water in your cupped hand. But you will also have to watch the water drain away or evaporate eventually leaving you empty handed once more. That’s happiness. It comes and goes. It feels refreshing and beautiful when you have it, but then it dissipates & disappears. You have to go and grab it again.
If you are being something, it is flowing through and out of you. There is no need to grasp or hold it because it is in you and a part of you. It’s not like having to reach down to pick up water, it’s more like having water flowing through your veins.
Happiness is an experience. It’s a feeling. It’s like a hamster wheel. When the hamster gets on the wheel and runs happiness is generated. When you are with other people you can feel happy and content. If you see a beautiful sunset, happy may be there. Times when you have money, health and social status make you feel good and happy. Times where these things are not there happiness cannot remain.
Joy and fulfillment are different. Joy is a point you can anchor in. It’s a place that arises from you, not outside of you. It’s a place you earn. You can be content in the moment, but when you are fulfilled, it lasts beyond the moment.
Here are definitions for happiness and joy
Happiness: A state of well-being generated from pleasurable experiences.
Joy: A source of delight from possessing what one desires.
It’s subtle but happiness is a STATE and Joy is a SOURCE. Happiness comes to you and joy comes from you.
Being content means you are pleased with your situation, status or possessions. It is about what has happened to you.
Fulfilled is a feeling of self-pride. It’s an understanding that you have exercised your talents and abilities to achieve something that matters. It fills you up fully, just as the word says— “full-filled.”
If you think critically, you see that to possess a thing means you will have had to search, discover and work to integrate it. Both joy and fulfillment have an element of struggle in them. In my way of seeing it, you can’t achieve these enlighten states without some kind of obstacle to overcome.
Joy and fulfillment are what my mom has achieved. She took her pain and suffering and turned them into lessons. Those lessons were combined with her unique life experiences as well as her gifts and talents. From there she was able to marry those attributes, render something more powerful, and give them back to the world in a way that went far beyond her own personal feelings of peace and happiness. She created something with them, something unique to her; something that fills her up from the inside. Something that flows from her to the outside. Something that grew her and then evolved the world.
Some say life is about happiness or contentment. To the Next Level Human life is about Joy. It’s about fulfillment. It’s about personal growth and a singular unique contribution to the evolution of others as well.
That’s my mother’s lesson for herself. That’s my mother’s monument to her children and all the people she has touched. She is Joy to this world, a Next Level Human. Perhaps you and I could be too.