My brand new publisher!

This week I received a signed contract for my memoir Love is Complicated: A Memoir of Healing from Mango Publishing, the fastest growing independent publisher in the United States. It’s taken years of hard work to get here, so I’m bubbling over with joy and want to share it. It’s been interesting for me to reflect on whom I’ve told immediately and whom I have yet to tell.

You’ve had joyous days like this. We all have. Maybe it was the day you moved into your dream house, or the day you got that job you really wanted, or the day your baby/grandchild was born. Whom did you tell and why?

I could run around my neighborhood knocking on doors and proclaiming my news — sort of a Paul Revere move. My neighbors are good people, so they’d probably give me a high-five and congratulations. But then it might get awkward because my news would likely mean very little to most of them.

That would flatten my enthusiasm.

On the other hand, some of the neighbors I’ve already told have jumped on my news and have suggested ways for me to publicize it further. My joy seems to have brought them joy as well.

Or I could share my good news on FB or other social media. The thing about the web is that there’s a group for just about every interest, so there’s probably a group of memoir authors who’d love to communicate about writing and publishing. There are few barriers to finding the people whom I can call my online “tribe,” so why not share my joy that way?

Unfortunately, the other thing about the web is that it easily enables apparent intimacy in tiny snippets, often without commitment or even real understanding. So I can readily engage with people in what seem like deep connections that are often without commitment or even real understanding.

That seems like it would be a waste of my time.

On the other hand, together, we have been creating exceptions to this in some of the authentic online conversations around real and important topics on my website.

So maybe that is a good place to share my joy.

What I really want is for my joy to expand and envelope both of us, leaving each of us happier and more blessed. A study by Nathaniel Lambert and colleagues at Brigham Young University, reported in Psychology Today, showed that discussing positive experiences with others can lead to more energy, enhanced well being and increased overall satisfaction for all involved.

That’s what I want when I share my joy. I want it spark to delight and pleasure both within me and within the other.

In a July blog, I wrote that “Happiness doesn’t stem from continuously expanding my circle of friends; it may not even be important to maintain all the friendships I’ve had in the past. What is important is for me to focus on those friendships where I am accepted for who I am, and encouraged to grow and become the best possible version of myself.”

And today I add: It’s important for me to focus on those friendships where the best version of myself is celebrated from a place of deep knowing, caring and shared joy.

And yet even with people who know me well, I tend to hold back. Many of us do. I don’t want to show off. And sometimes I feel a little guilty about the abundance of goodness in my life, when there is so much suffering in the world.

I want to push past these barriers because I know that hearing about my friends’ successes tends to leave me feeling happier. So I must believe that true friends will respond to my good fortune with enhanced joy of their own.

The bottom line is that sharing our joy has the potential to increase joy all around. Telling people about our happiness may have far greater benefits than just remembering it by ourselves.

So here’s my take on this:

Those family members and friends who really know me and have accepted me for who I am, warts and all, are the people I really want to communicate with about the joy bubbling from my good news this week.

Because I want “shared joy,” not just “sharing” my joy.