Prioritizing joy required new boundaries

and brought more connection into my life

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At the beginning of 2023, I took an incredible class with Dr. shawndeez called Trans Joy. The very first day of class, I left the Zoom with a feeling of dread. I knew in my gut that if I chose to prioritize joy, I was going to have to find and set new boundaries, ones that would likely lead to the end of certain relationships, and one in particular.

It’s not hyperbolic to say that that class changed my life. It set me down a path of opening up, of connecting with people who were very different from me, and it changed how I saw my future.

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Alongside joy as a value I was prioritizing that year, I named connection and awe. With these three pillars as guideposts, a near immediate shift took place in the form of a reduction of stress. I felt myself drift like a moth to a flame as opportunities for joy, connection, and awe presented themselves in my life, and I found myself deterred from choices that didn’t lift those priorities up. That’s not to say that all moments of life need to or even should contain joy, connection, and awe—after all, there’s all kinds of things we do everyday that don’t (I dunno, say, shitting. Though I have definitely had some poops that left me awestruck. Okay, so taking out the trash or scooping the cat litter. Those don’t contain much joy, connection, nor awe). But when faced with a choice, I’d check in with these values and ask myself which option/s fit best with my goals.

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Joy

When prioritizing joy, I learned that I would have to seek it out and let myself discover it in unexpected places. I also learned I had to sometimes actively keep out experiences or people who reduced or, dare I say, leeched my joy. I tried to find a balance between that hard line of ‘no, stay away’ and working on my own boundaries so that I was less porous, less susceptible to their absorption. This is where connection came in.

Connection

When prioritizing connection, it was quickly clear that this meant I would have to increase my patience with people I disagree with, and expand my tolerance for activation. I was going to have to choose when not to advocate for myself by determining if I felt the energy I would need to expend wouldn’t yield a return on investment, and whether or not I’d be heard or understood. I’d have to do more thinking like, “That’s just [name of friend or colleague]” and work towards accepting the things I didn’t jive with. This led to more relationships with people I wouldn’t have otherwise forged one with, which ultimately opens up my internal and external world. It helped soothe and repair my relationship with my parents. It also led to some grief about the time I’d spent so angry with them, or taking space from them.

But perhaps most significantly, prioritizing connection reduced my stress. I let things go more easily. I had to stop acting like a cancel kid, policing other people’s language and behavior. I had to trust that everyone else is in process and on their own timeline, that some people are never going to see things how I see them, or never believe what I believe. And I could ask myself if I wanted to be connected to them anyway. I realized that I was more invested in building bridges between far apart worlds than surrounding myself with ‘the choir,’ so to speak. And to extend that metaphor, I had to stop preaching. I had to relieve myself of the burden of educating everyone so that they conformed to the way I had learned was ‘right’ in my insular so-called activist circles.

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