When the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu gave terrible advice about finding joy
Why I disagree with them and what actually brings me joy.
The kids are in bed upstairs, the dishes are washed, and I’m curled up on the couch, under my snuggliest blanket, ready to watch a movie about Finding Joy with the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu.
Learning about their lives is fascinating, and it’s incredible to imagine the magnitude of their impact on Earth! About halfway through, I’m struck with the thought, “This movie should be called Two old guys who love each other,” as I’m learning more about their relationship than about cultivating joy.
Then comes a moment when they are asked by the interviewer:
How do we cultivate joy?
Desmond Tutu answers first and says we find joy when we can truly put another person’s needs before our own.
The Dalai Lama agrees and says that true joy is giving to others.
My interpretation of the film's message is that we find joy when we put others before ourselves.
Putting my needs first
For a moment, I get an uncomfortable feeling in my body. I have to pause the video.
When I tune into myself, I can sense a big noooooooo echoing inside. I turn off the movie and sit and ponder what’s happening in me.
I know with every fiber of my being that the spiritual practices that promote meditation as the only path to enlightenment, vilifying emotions other than peace, and putting others first will never be enough for me.
I am a woman.
I’m a bleeding, feeling, grieving, birthing, wild, and wonderful WOMAN.
My path is that of feeling all my feelings and letting them inform me.
I’ve played nice, been good, and put other needs before my own – and it did not bring me joy.
It brought me oceans of pain.
Maybe for a privileged man, the advice to put other people’s needs first is revolutionary.
(It reminds me of an excellent article called “Enough leaning in. Tell men to lean out.”)
But for many women I know, including myself, we are “parentified daughters” who have been asked to disappear to be able to serve our parents, which has led to attachment and relationship patterns that have kept us small and ashamed – asking us to cultivate joy by putting others needs first is unhelpful at best and perpetuates existing trauma at worst.
Welcome fleshy wisdom
So I turned off the film and turned curled into the words of one of my clients – trauma-informed, Certified Somatic Sex Educator Christiane Pelmas – that I had been reading while working on an email:
“So many of us are feeling the extreme tension between an urgent desire to participate in the Great Turning and our feelings of powerlessness. Our capacity to trust ourselves, our bodies, and each other is at the heart of our courageous activism. More accurately, our capacity to remember that we––our bodies, our longing, our rage, our grief, our sexuality, all of it––are expressions of Earth, just as numinous and powerful, just as essential and on-purpose as the Sun at dawn or the rainbow trout gliding over smooth river stones.”
THIS!!! This is the kind of earthy, fleshy wisdom that is what is helping me experience my fullness as a human woman and the unabashed joy that comes with that.
It’s turning toward that vilified self and my body – as the vessel for my vast soul to journey on here on earth – that I am finding my simple joy. When I witness all of my exiled parts and welcome them home, and am courageous enough to be vulnerable and share them with trusted human life partners in my chosen family, JOY arrives at my door.
Most often, this looks like calling or texting my closest friends and asking to be witnessed (or withnessed as my friend Jules calls it.) Or letting what’s arising move through me however it needs to: screaming, crying, laughing, shaking, writing, drawing, vibrating, vocalizing, dancing, or simply staying with it all. Extending my presence, compassion, and love to all my inner parts and feelings to the best of my ability.
Let’s flip the script!
Then, when I am fully held by my friends, my God/dess, my community, and my inner parents, when I feel part of the natural world around me, I melt into co-existence.
I’m home with love, goodness, and well-being. And when I share from that place! This is when I feel like my external creations and experiences are healthy, strong, and built on a solid foundation.
So no, I will not pursue joy by putting others before myself. That has only created suffering for me (and others) and unstable creations in the outer world.
My true joy is by being a servant of love, turning toward myself first, and then sharing all the joy and love with every living thing around me. Not the other way around.
Tell me in the comments, what brings *you* joy?
Big Love 💜,
Karna
P.S. My friend Kai and collaborative partner just started a Substack called The New Story. She writes with abandon, grit, and soul. Her words penetrate my heart every single time I read her poetry and stories. If you love it here, you will adore The New Story.
When the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu gave terrible advice about finding joy
Our children laughing brings me joy. As does working and being in our yard and forest.
I'm SO GLAD you caught this! YES!!! And so impressed that you tracked what was happening in your body so diligently and believed your own knowing wisdom over the authority of these deeply wise (but also shortsighted) men. Women have been scripted the role of being of service, at their own expense, and that is a no-joy situation. It's sad to see such wise souls fall into the trap of turning their personal experience into a prescription for everyone. So much damage gets done this way. Patriarchy has been doing it forever and social media takes to a new level. Thank you for flipping the script, sister. In all of the ways that you do.