Re-Discovering a Deep Sense of Joy

A couple of years ago, I told a friend I was planning to start this newsletter.

"I'm going to call it The Joyful CoParent," I said.

She looked at me for a beat.

"But... you're not joyful."

As harsh as that sounds, she wasn't wrong.  What she was really saying was: I don't see it in you right now.

She was right. I wasn't expressing joy. I was sort of afraid too. 

I was just coming out of one of the hardest stretches of my life, and I'd built an identity around being serious, on top of it, together. 

My joyful, free nature had been buried under miles of adulting.

Trying to be a successful human being. Building a career. Being a good provider. Holding a marriage together. Moving countries and rebuilding a life from scratch. Becoming a father, and wanting to be a great dad.

Somewhere in all of that, life got serious, and I kind of disappeared into it. Managing everything so carefully that I forgot to live.

Hearing your child laugh with their friends. Riding a bike fast down a hill. There's a particular kind of joy in listening to someone tell you their fascinating life story, leaning in, forgetting the time. Looking forward to reading your book before bed. Spontaneous dancing in the kitchen. Goosebumps. Neck chills. The colors of the sky at sunset,

and being grateful, genuinely, to be alive inside a world this strange and beautiful.

But it's only been the last couple of years.

Nothing dramatic changed it. I got fed up listening to myself complain.

So I got intentional, and decided to invest time paying attention to what actually brought me joy, so I could build more of my life around those things instead of around what I thought I was supposed to be doing.

Part of what I was recognizing was that I didn't feel whole, I was a fractured soul.

I'd spent so long believing my role was to provide and fix, plan and hold things together, that I'd lost track of who I actually was underneath all of it.

I'm not chasing anything anymore, and I'm not running from anything either.

That feels new, and honestly refreshing. Pulling me back to the present.

I'm in a different stage of life than I was even two years ago, and the things that light me up keep shifting as I keep going.

I have been building a Joy List, and journaling about my days to build more awareness about how joy shows up in my life, in my relationships, and what are the themes.

I still love to dance. Adventure. Learn. Travel and be silly.
I have learned that I find joy in reading, and that I have forgotten how to play.

Sometimes you need to name the thing you're walking toward before you can see the path to it.

I named this newsletter The Joyful CoParent before I felt any of it. Before the joy came back, before I felt whole again. That was aspirational.

You say it out loud, and then you spend years taking the actions to make it happen.

Joy isn’t something to earn later, once everything else is handled, it is a birthright, yours and mine, that can get lost by the seriousness of life.

It is available right now, waiting for you to notice it again.

If you have lost yourself, this is the work of finding your way back.

I didn't become a joyful co-parent overnight — and if you're in the middle of this, you probably won't either.

I share my journey to connect with others working through the same confusing transformation.

It might be exactly what they need to hear.

Thank you,
Justin | The Joyful CoParent

PS: I aim to respond in 48hrs, I do read everything, but please be patient with me :)