*watching the jays on my feeder
*cranes flying over the house
*starting an Elizabeth George mystery

Maria and Pam mentioned that as they do the steps, they feel less "sparkly". In step 6, there's something we call "the flat", where you have lost your spiky sugar highs, and life feels dull. Then, over time, you get used to not having all those highs and lows, and come to appreciate life being calmer, your normal emotional state improves, and you also begin to feel joy again. But it's a different kind of joy.

I didn't have a lot of joy before the program. In order for me to feel joy, it had to be some huge exciting thing. If you drew a line to represent a neutral state, my emotional ups and downs were mostly below that line, with an occasional huge spike that went above the line. It was really hard for me to give up the things that gave me those big spikes, because the rest of my emotional life was not very pleasant. One of the ways that played out for me was bad relationships. The last one I had was so very painful, but I couldn't seem to let it go because every once in a while it would go right and I'd have a huge joy spike. The rest of the time I was so unhappy about it that I really needed that joy spike, or at least I felt as though I did, so even though I knew the relationship wasn't good for me, I couldn't let go of it.

After I started doing the food, my emotional ups and downs gradually became less intense, and my baseline gradually moved above the neutral line, instead of being below it. I would say that my lows now are probably what would have been my emotional midline before, and they don't last long. As my emotional life got calmer and happier, I was able to let go of that bad relationship and many of the ways I used to create drama began to fade out of my life naturally. I began to experience moments of joy, but they were totally different from what I used to experience. They weren't big, spiky highs. They were experiences where I was totally in the moment, just enjoying what I was seeing or doing. It's more of a warm glow instead of a bolt of lightning.

Before the program, there was a huge mental component to my emotions, because everything that I experienced was accompanied by mental chatter. Now it's a lot quieter in my head, and when I feel joy, it feels like it's radiating from my heart, not being amplified in my head. I've also found that my ability to feel joy is less dependent on other people or big life events. I don't look to others to supply joy in my life, and I notice things more, so even when there are things in my life that are troubling me, I can look around me and find things that give me joy, or do activities that bring me joy. I know what sorts of things bring me joy, so I plan some of those things into my day, like making sure to check out the fields and power poles for wildlife on the way to work, looking at the clouds and the mountains when I'm driving, and planting flowers in planters outside the front door at work so that I see something cheerful when I arrive at work.

This is not to say that my life is perfect or I go around in some state of constant bliss. But my life is so much better than it used to be. I would never want to go back to the way it was. And I will take this new kind of joy over the spiky kind any day.

Allison