In an effort to kick start my joy practice posts after a few months of hiatus, I rekindled one of last year's joy practices -- going through my photos to see what they needed to tell me. It has been both joy-filled and more laborious than I had hoped. Joy-filled because I loved getting quiet enough to hear what I needed to hear. Laborious because, well, everything is feeling a bit more laborious than I might like these days. This paradoxical experience of my own practice gave me a lot of food for thought about my current state of mind.

When our practices become strained, it is not a sign that we should cease the practice, but rather that we must find new inroads into them as well as clear some clutter in their way.