"Life coaching" and therapy services are both exorbitantly expensive, so I guess I am going to have to coach myself.  What a relief and so convenient that I already know everything.  Just kidding, but I feel like I am getting closer having been coached by romantic misadventure, miscarriage, cancer, the pandemic, years of being a working person, etc. 

Here's one belief I have that keeps reverberating through the years: you need a lot less than you think you need to be happy.  A lot less.  In terms of relationships, in terms of possessions, in terms of physical/mental abilities, in terms of everything.  The additive process as a path to joy is a capitalist lie.  Subtraction is the way.  

Shave off the branches and you strengthen the core.  I am going to write a song about it.  Take away beauty, take away the validation you get from others, take away a bunch of physical junk that only gathers dust and weighs you down, take away all the things you thought you were (daughter, teacher, singer, young, pretty, smart, friendly, generous).  What's left?  Can you be happy with that?  Can you learn how to be?  

More and more I realize, the essence of joy is just consciousness, experience.  It's that simple.  Against all odds in this swirling universe some particles got thrown together and became self aware.  Just enjoy it.  Like Judee Sills sings, "However we are is ok."