Joy. What is it really? When I was young woman, I saw the smiles on Buddhist monks faces and the Dalai Lama and I said to myself, “I want that.” So, I started studying Buddhism. I was in Northern Minnesota at the time, so I went to the library and checked out 5 or 6 books about it and read them all while my fellow teenagers were out partying it up. I was alone with my books learning about the path to inner peace through the law of cause and effect or karma accrual and the release of attachment. At this point in my life, I was severely anxious and generally unhappy. I fixated on control of my environment and achievement as means of both distraction and power over the chaos of feeling that overwhelmed me every day. I was afraid of everything but really good at hiding it with my mask of the good student, nice person, creative girl who wore all blue & dyed her hair a brilliant copper to compliment the blue. I regulated everything that went into my body-allowing minimal calories just enough to keep me going and started smoking to curb my appetite.
But I didn’t give up hope that joy was attainable. I didn’t know that the majority of what I felt was other people’s stuff and that I was just a highly sensitive empath. I had huge people-pleasing tendencies because I was a child of alcoholic “nurturing” who really didn’t get a lot of nurture; thus, my worthiness and self-love were in the toilet. The best I could hope for I thought was just feeling OK. But someone out there had joy and somewhere deep in my cynical realist heart I believed and had faith it was possible for me too. I just had to find the way. The path. The instructions. The manual. The directions to get there.
From age 18 to 30 I thought I found That Path in Buddhism… And in a way I did. Just like The Buddha who learned in the stages – so was I. I used meditation and chanting Nam–myoho–renge–kyo and introduction of the practice to others and service through supporting others as the means to access happiness, and fleeting joy, but I was still dependent on alcohol and external circumstances like codependent relationships to bring me positive feelings. I wasn’t progressing past myself and growing beyond my limitations. I was repeating patterns and I plateaued. Buddhism helped me achieve and overcome obstacles and it kept me comfortable in a cruel world. It managed my anxiety, but it did not alleviate it. It managed my fears but did not grow me big enough to realize they were all a creation of my own negative ego, and the service and volunteering I did – albeit extremely helpful for me to understand love and compassion for others – NEVER helped me love myself.
But as a young women’s leader I was able to put on a great show. As a scholar I was able to share the concepts eloquently and as a poet I could inspire crowds of 100s and 1000s with my words and the poetry my heart wrote on the page.
And I did not believe there was more. Until a friend introduced the Modern Mystery School. Which I immediately poo-poo’d as a bunch of woo woo poppycock. Especially because it had a price tag.
I trusted nothing that cost money and I sure as hell wasn’t going to invest in myself. I was a stubborn cookie and luckily my friend and then guide and now sister/colleague/fellow light-worker was persistent and didn’t give up on me. She kept inviting. She invited my friends, and they went and finally when I saw actual proof of their change, I was willing to spend the money and two days in a class to give it a shot. What could it hurt?
So, at age 32, I was initiated into the Modern Mystery School and the lineage of King Salomon as an adept. At the time I dismissed most everything I was provided in the Empower Thyself program, but something felt right and good and I started using the tools. And the change in me began immediately.
I started my food blog Cooking with Paprika Angel, and I started traveling the world – alone. I went to India, I went to Cambodia, I went to expensive restaurants – I started spending money on me and doing things that bought me enjoyment. I left my boyfriend of nine years because it wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. I took a chance on many somethings. I stopped listening to “the shoulds” and my anxiety, and my need to please the world started to disappear.
Then I went to Healers Academy and my heart opened up and found a home. Here was a way to actually have a purpose in my life and help others access joy and love in their life. I started to begin to feel worthy at least enough to help another individual find a way to joy too.
I didn’t believe in any of the next level stuff though. I had no ambition to change my career path to be an energy healer or a guide, to do whatever those strange ritual masters were doing behind closed doors. But I kept doing what I had been handed down and my life kept getting more uncomfortable yet more enjoyable at the same time.
Change from our comfort zone is not a comfortable experience. But the pain of remaining stuck and yearning for something better is even worse. And now I didn’t have to look at smiling faces in photos of Buddhist monks, I found the laughter and light and love and smiles in the people beside me in Kabbalah at Professional Integration Day in London and Toronto. I had sisters and brothers all over the world that loved and accepted me without my accolades and achievements as a lawyer. That honored me for showing up and who spoke the language my heart had been seeking since I was a small child. Joy.
Joy in living my purpose, living life alive – manifesting my destiny with abundance, and fun. Things didn’t have to be painful or controlled for them to work. You just follow the path to your daily rituals, serve and keep doing your best in that moment. So simple, yet so hard, but my heart’s desire was to do the will of my highest divine self and become the smiling person in that photo that brings hope to another, that there is more than what we see on the news. The matrix projection. Maybe my magick wasn’t bending any spoons like Neo but it was doing things I once thought were completely impossible. And today, as I keep walking this path of progression, I see so many opportunities and live in joy every day. I am a guide and a senior Ritual Master who with gratitude does the weird things behind those closed doors and loves every minute of it.
And I get to serve individuals, families and businesses, welding tools from magick and legal toolboxes every day. What a joyful thing!
I know you may have found me in the legal sphere and/or maybe spirituality isn’t your jam. But I bet $ you might want just a little more joy, purpose, and peace of mind in your life. Or perhaps some more hope in the world. If you want those things – or maybe just “to feel a little better”, the path of initiation in the lineage of King Salomon is a tested path to get you there. It’s not the only way but it’s the way that worked really well for me, this hardheaded skeptic. And what’s great is it truly is the instruction manual of living a hermetic life. Know and love thyself – study and serve – repeat until you leave the physical then continue on to the next iteration.
If you are at all curious – let’s talk – book a Calm & Clarity call with me. You are worth the investment of time and energy to try something new and find real joy in this existence.
