WARNING: vulnerable post ahead!
People ask me how I can talk about joy in this time of darkness. They question my seriousness about collapse when they see that I call my Substack Collapse Into Joy.
But focusing on finding the joy in small moments is what saved me over and over again.
Like when I was 5 and my parents divorced and we moved to the next state to live with my grandparents.
When my grandfather died suddenly while mowing the lawn just a few months later.
When my grandmother, devastated by the loss of her beloved husband, descended into dementia...and tried to kill me. Twice.
When my father tried to kidnap my two brothers and me, and was banned from visitation for five years.
When I listened to my mother sobbing in her bed when she came home from her swing shift job at the manufacturing plant late each night.
When she remarried, joining our family with a divorced father of four, and abuse began immediately. (I had just turned 10.)
It's a lot, I know. There's more:
When, at 15, I was the sole survivor of car accident in which the driver and three other passengers died instantly. (The police and my parents made me promise not to tell anyone I had been in the car, since it happened 25 miles from my home, and it would be "better" for me if no one knew.)
When I struggled with survivor's guilt with zero support, fell into a deep depression, and engaged in multiple acts of self-sabotage. (Example: I showed up at the homecoming dance drunk and high on mushrooms...when I was the homecoming queen.)
As an adult, I lost one brother to AIDS, and two by suicide.
And I have lost all nine of my parents, including my birth, adoptive, and stepparents and in-laws.
There have been hard times in my life. But most people look at me smiling and assume that I haven't suffered.
I have been told that I don't "look" like I have experienced trauma.
Me this morning.
Maybe that's because I sought joy. Desperately, at first. Then, relentlessly. And finally, somewhere along the way, it became a habit.
These days, I am the happiest I have ever been. Married to my amazing best friend for 40 years. Four thriving adult daughters. Six wonderful grandchildren.
Though I was raised in a family of humble means, I have been privileged to attend and graduate from college, travel and work around the world, and live in seven countries.
I feel extraordinarily fortunate.
So, it might seem strange that I would choose to focus on collapse and helping others come to terms with the darkness in the world right now. But I find joy(!) in holding space for them as they discover enlivening ways forward for themselves and their communities.
I may be an accidental grief worker, but it is my calling.
I am deeply grateful to be be deeply joyful.
And it is the honor of my life to help others using the very same methods I created to help myself as I dealt with despair over and over again.
PROMPT:
How have you used what you learned during your hardest times?
PLAY:
I’m heading back to the U.S. (California) in a few days for a three-week visit. In addition to playing with two of my grandchildren, I will be thinking about my presentation for the World Adaptation Forum in Budapest in April. The event theme is Facing Polycrisis. Anyone anywhere can attend online. (Let me know if you’re thinking of attending!)
Thank you for being here, and for being open to falling in love with the caring and collaborative future we can [still] create together.
Maya Frost
Founder, Collapse Forward
Creator, Doom to Bloom™ and Collapse Companioning™
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