buckets

Bad things happen. They happen to everyone. 

Some people seem to crumble under the weight of “bad things” in their lives while others manage to let things go quickly and easily and don’t appear to be affected by the very same “bad things”.

If you’re in the 2^nd category, you probably don’t even know why you are this way.

If you’re in the 1^st category, you wish you knew their secret.

As a category 2 person myself, I think I’ve figured it out and I want everyone to learn this secret! I don’t want it to be a secret, I want it to be a freely given gift to everyone I meet!

If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ve probably heard me talk about joy. But did you know that there is something that goes hand in hand with joy? It’s called capacity. 

My techy friends probably picture the hard drive of their computers and think they know what capacity is.

My electrician friends probably see the wiring of a house and think they know what capacity is.

Anyone who’s ever heard my Dad Ed Khouri teach probably sees the mountain climbing graphic he made to describe capacity, joy and trauma.

But I think I’ve got a different picture that might help it really click for everyone.

Capacity is like a bucket. 

Some people have a big bucket, others have a small bucket, and even others might just have a tiny lid.

When your bucket gets full and spills over- things get messy! 

Sometimes this results in you losing your temper, sometimes it looks like a mental breakdown, sometimes it results in a night of sobbing uncontrollably… and most of the time it leads us to crave stuff that will hurt us in the long run. (Alcohol, drugs, junk food, unhealthy relationships, etc).

Picture your bucket… whatever size your bucket is, that is a representation of how many “bad things” you can handle without spilling over. Bad things might be actual traumatic events in your life… things like abuse, abandonment, death of a loved one, divorce, fire, storms, war etc. 

(the world of psychology calls these things Trauma B)

But bad things can also be things like traffic jams, fights with your spouse, deadlines piling up, screaming kids, lack of nutrition, etc. 

(these are called Trauma A- the absence of good and necessary things. Did you realize that normal everyday stressors are the absence of peace that you need to function properly?!!)

But did you know that you that you actually have 2 buckets?

JOY is also like a bucket.

The 2^nd bucket is your JOY bucket and it holds all the good things for you.

Good things like those times when someone was glad to be with you! Good times like walks in the park, watching sunsets, catching fireflies, laying on the beach listening to the waves, petting your dog, laughing together with friends.

The really interesting thing is our buckets always match in size. 

 We actually WANT our joy bucket to overflow!

Why?

Because when the joy bucket gets full, it automatically trades up for a bigger size. This means, your capacity bucket gets bigger too! 

The bad news is, without much joy in our lives, our joy bucket shrinks, and so does our capacity bucket.

Having a bigger joy bucket and a bigger capacity bucket means we can handle all the stuff life throws at us. Our capacity bucket can handle just about anything that comes our way. 

photo borrowed from

Opensocietyfoundations.org

Some of you might be thinking, “But I don’t want a big capacity bucket because that might mean more bad things will happen.”

But that’s not true.

You see, having a big capacity bucket doesn’t mean we will necessarily fill that bucket with bad things. It just means when a bad thing comes along, there’s room for it to rest at the bottom. 

(We don’t really carry them around like the boy in the picture above, so they don’t need to be balanced.)

Remember, it’s the JOY BUCKET that decides how big of a bucket we need. 

So keep filling that joy bucket! Trade up for a bigger set of buckets!  Make filling your joy bucket a priority!

Here’s a few things you can do to get started:

• Smile at someone; ask them how they are doing. Be more like “Elf”! “I’m Buddy the Elf, what’s your name? What’s your favorite color?!”
• Go for a walk at sunset with someone. (a loved one, a neighbor, a sibling anyone!)
• Fly a kite!
• Start an Appreciation Journal (have you heard about the power of gratitude lately?!)
• Make a CD of your favorite songs and give it to someone!
• Put down your cell phone and look into the eyes of the person across from you!
• Sing really loud to a favorite song with someone in the car with the windows down
• Laugh! Out loud! Just start laughing… it becomes contagious! You don’t even need a reason sometimes. 
• Whenever you’re with a loved one, pause and remember that the most important thing is to be glad to be together. Whether you’re working, cleaning, watching TV, playing cards or eating a meal… make being glad to be together the priority!

Here's to filling our joy buckets!!!

joy island

I am currently in the process of getting certified as a Life and Recovery Coach through the NET Institute's Rise Recovery Coach program. One of my recent homework assignments was to come up with a creative "story" that will explain how addictions use the way our brain was designed against us. The trick to this assignment was that I was NOT allowed to use brain talk or scientific wording at all! 

Here is the story I came up with..... I hope it paints a picture for you that peaks your interest in this subject! This story can serve as a "base line" of understanding the brain.... which I'll explain more about in future posts! 

For now.. Welcome to the islands......

Once upon a time there was a mystical land of islands. The main island was called Joy Island. Everyone that lived on the island of joy was free to come and go as they pleased. Joy Island was a great place to live. People here supported one another and were always glad to be with each other. They did things together and had lots of fun. Even their work and chores felt like fun because of the way they were glad to be together. 

Joy Island had everything they needed, but sometimes things would happen that required them to travel to the other nearby islands. Those islands were Sadness, Anger, Fear, Disgust, Shame and Hopeless Despair.

 

 

Each family would build their own bridges to get to those islands when they needed to. The more frequently they went as a family, the bigger and stronger their bridge became. Walking together over to Anger island or Fear island on a regular basis, and then returning back to home on Joy Island was the way to build strong bridges. Strong bridges meant that it was perfectly acceptable to go back and forth. It was totally safe to explore all the islands from their well built bridges.

However, if they avoided a certain island, their bridge might be nothing more than a flimsy wooden swinging bridge! Only going a few times to an island, or pretending they didn't ever need to visit a certain island was a sure way to end up with a rickety bridge!

There was really only one rule about traveling to those islands. Don’t go alone! It was really hard to get back to Joy Island from the other islands if you went alone, and no one wanted anyone to get stuck in those places!

Overtime though, some families stopped going to some of those islands all together. This left really weak bridges in place that couldn’t hold up to any stormy weather.

One day, little Evie took a trip by herself to the island of sadness. She used one of those small, weak bridges to get there and as soon as she arrived, a storm raged and washed away her bridge. She was stuck! Being stuck on Sad Island was not fun! Sad was a miserable place to live.  

It was only meant to be a temporary place to visit after all.

It didn’t have any of the things she needed. And it was lonely. There weren’t any fruits in the trees here, and hardly any shade to shelter her from the sun. She was forced to go inland to look for shelter as more and more storms kept raging by. The problem is, the further inland she went, the sadder she felt.

 

 She started looking around Sad Island to find something to make her feel better. Much to her surprise she discovered a drink that made her smile easier. She started drinking it every day! It felt so good to smile again! It was getting easier to live on Sad Island now that she had this drink! Even though she still felt sad in between drinks… she was starting to believe that her drinks were better than life back on Joy Island.

One day, she discovered some other people who had come to Sad Island on a boat from their home on Anger Island. (They had gotten stuck there a long time ago and found a way between these 2 islands). One of these people was a man… he told her how pretty she was and introduced her to sex. Now she was starting to feel really good on Sad Island! With her drinks and her sex, she could barely remember Joy Island anymore. 

Except for those annoying times when she was quiet and alone and the sad feelings started creeping back in.

Pretty soon, her drinks and her Anger Island boyfriend stopped feeling so good. So she needed to get more. She traded her boyfriend for a new one, and added some pills to her drinks in order to feel good again- for a little while. This continued until she eventually lost her little shelter on Sad Island. 

She decided to move since she couldn’t afford to live with all her drinks and pills and boyfriends anymore. She stole the boat from Anger Island and tried to find a new place to live. Unfortunately, she ended up on Hopeless Island! 

Hopeless Island was really isolated and far from the other islands. Here Evie missed her drinks and pills and boyfriends, but discovered a sugar tree to help ease her pain. She built a new home right next to the sugar tree… the sugar tree feelings didn’t last long, so she had to keep eating from it all day and all night long. Whenever she stopped eating from the sugar tree, the noises from Shame Island (her closest neighbor) drove her crazy!!

Evie is so far from home now that she is just ready to give up on life. She knows that making homes on these islands was not what she wanted in the 1^st place, but she has no idea how to get back to Joy Island- or if it even exists anymore.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Can you relate to this story? Stay tuned for my explanation for how this story can be translated into real life, and real science, and real "God's design" for our life.

*None of these pictures are mine. They were all found using google image search.