Latest / the Unvarnished Edit / Episode 13: Joy is the Matriarch (Joy 1 of 4)

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Episode 13: Joy is the Matriarch (Joy 1 of 4) · the Unvarnished Edit

0:00
Welcome to season two, episode one of The Unvarnished Edit, where two friends talk about what it's actually like to live an adversity-filled life.
0:08
Be prepared to laugh, possibly cry, and swear along with us.
0:13
This is Angie, and today's episode is the first in our joy arc, where we discuss what joy means to us and how we struggle with accessing the feeling of joy.
We hope you enjoy Hello.
Good morning.
How are you? morning.
We're back Yes, welcome to season two.
So crazy What's crazy is that we've seen each other multiple times in between.
We text and email and talk multiple times a day, but this feels like an actual catch up.
I'm actually like, "Oh my Yeah.
I just Yeah.
I know, but it's like a, it, this, this has been curated as a whole separate space.
this is like, Yeah Professional catch up.
Yeah.
know Yeah that's the right way to say it.
But anyway, I'm happy I'm here.
Me too.
Me too.
How was your weekend? oh, it was really great.
You know what? It was so...
I had to be so chill this weekend because, uh, I am good at Scrabble, and nobody will play with me.
mostly it's for two reasons.
First of all, it's because I just can't, I can't keep a score close.
Like it just happens.
I just get so far ahead that nobody can even catch up.
So that Yeah fun for the other people, and I'm kind of a, I will challenge words.
I will, like, "That's not a real word."
I'll get in, you know, I just, I get super isn't that how you play the game? Yeah, but I get super competitive about it.
And then like, and then, you know, sometimes it's like with my kids, and they'll be like, "Mom, Yeah know 7,000 million more words than we do."
And I'm like, "I don't care.
That's the game.
Seriously, then don't play the ga- then don't play the game.
play the That's, seriously, that's how it is with Uno in our family.
My mom is so competitive at Uno, and she taught all of my kids to be absolute cutthroat.
Like, Uno has reduced so many of the children to tears just playing with my mom.
Like, normally you play with Grandma.
No.
no she is, she is cutthroat.
Yeah.
So I've So yeah competitiveness makes it un-fun for other people, so I've tried to, like, chill out a little bit.
Or it could just make them level up It could.
That's a really...
You know what? And that's funny because Michael asked me to play this weekend, and I was like, "Yes, I would love to.
What an interesting question."
So we sit down and we're playing, and like I get to this moment.
is, even though I'm good at Scrabble, it's Yeah rare to find the opportunity and ability to play all seven letters at once.
And Yeah I had the chance, and it was his turn, and all I needed was for him to not go in one spot.
And I'm just like a little kid.
I'm like, "Oh my God.
Oh my God.
Don't go.
Don't go."
And he would like kinda go that way, and I'd be like, "Eek!" And he was like...
So he finally plays a word somewhere else, for a minute I was like, 'cause I was already winning by a lot, and this was Yeah like this word was gonna score like over 100 points.
Yeah And I was like, "Maybe I shouldn't do this.
I mean, this is like not come backable after this."
And then I, in my brain I was like, I'm doing it."
So I played the whole thing.
Uh, whatever.
And so we get to the end of the game, and I was super chill about my win.
And then later we got in bed and he was like, "I'm gonna work on vocabulary.
Like, I want to be able to beat you at Scrabble."
And I was like, "That's great.
So here's some things you should know.
Today I let you play three words that aren't legal, and these are the words, and this is why."
'Cause I just let him get away with it.
And he was like, "Jaelene."
He was like, "Well, I tried to play," and he said something, and I, and he said, "And I looked it up and it's a word."
I said, "Did you use the Scrabble dictionary?" He was like, "What?" I didn't even know Scrabble had a dictionary.
Who knows this? Is it, like, in the rules Yeah.
If you, so if you challenge, you Uh-huh challenge, you have to use the Scrabble dictionary, and, um, then if you lose the challenge, you lose your turn.
So I have to be Wow when I challenge, yeah.
But that's why you need to memorize the dictionary, is for your challenges.
But I also am a dictionary nerd.
Like when I was younger, Oh no, same would look up a word if I didn't know what it meant, obviously, and then I would highlight it so that if I ever went back to look it up again, I could shame myself for not knowing it.
I could be like, "You already looked this up.
You should know this word."
Okay, so I never would highlight them I would write sentences.
I would force myself to write sentences if I re-looked up a word that was highlighted.
Oh, I for real.
I know I would read the dictionary, but I mean, we're kind of aging ourselves in the fact that we even had dictionaries in our house.
I know.
and the encyclopedia because what else did you do? Yeah And it was like, oh, well, you know, this is fun information.
I could look up what I wanted and I could, yeah, do, yeah, what I wanted.
I love that.
I did not highlight them and shame myself though.
Now the kids just have it all on their phone, and I've been called Google mom because the kids will ask me a question and it's like, "I don't know, let's look it up."
Right? Yeah I've always, yeah, I've always had like Let's find loved...
Yeah, I just have had this like love to like, "Oh, well let's find out.
Let's learn something new."
I Yeah just found out that not everybody does that.
I'm like with friends and I'm like, "I don't know, let's just Google it," and I Googled it and they were like, "Oh wow, that's like really interesting."
I'm like, "Don't you do this with everything?" Right, like with everything.
Like you have the ability to like look it all up, how fun.
Which honestly I think it's kind of funny, I saw our episode today, right? On, joy and happiness, which if you listened to season one you know is, um, a topic that we kinda don't look forward to 'cause we're, we're really not the experts in this space.
That is, that is true.
Right.
But we are, but we both are working on bringing that into our life.
But honestly, the amount of joy and happiness it brings me to like look up information and to learn something new, like it's just fun.
Like, "Oh, wow, I didn't know that.
That's like really cool."
And I've always had that.
Like it has always been like it's kind of like a, a window out into something.
I didn't know that about Scrabble dictionary Well, we could play sometime.
No thanks Yeah, I know.
So we cannot push it back any further into it is time.
And it, it is time to talk about joy and happiness.
And,, I think part of, part of the, the hard part is figuring out if you've had a, if you've had a long history of adversity, it can be very difficult to access joy because, and access happiness because those emotions and those feelings feel very unsafe.
They feel very dangerous, right? Because, Mm-hmm.
because the learned experience there of the adversity, is knowing that that joy and happiness can be taken away in such a short time, and that, if you, and, and specifically if you grew up where someone was in your life who anytime you were joyful or anytime you were happiness, happy, especially about like something that you did, and they kind of dismissed it, or they just straight, you know, took that away from you.
As an adult, it can be really kind of difficult to, Yeah to kind of access that space.
And so for me, that's kind of the space that I come from.
Yeah I remember when I did the, special episode with Sesame Street during COVID, and I love Sesame Street.
Like, I just absolutely love Sesame Street to this day.
It doesn't make a difference that I'm 50.
I love Sesame Street.
I could watch it.
I still do with my granddaughter, which is super fun.
And Todd would be like, "Are you like, are you so excited? Like, this is like really cool."
And I'm all, "It hasn't happened yet."
And he's like, "But it's happening."
And I'm like, "But it hasn't happened yet."
And then it got done, and it's like, "Well, now it's done."
And it was, it w- it really was like that experience that I had.
I was like, I really...
How do you not find joy and happiness in that? How did you not feel any excitement? And by the time it was done, it was just done.
And so the, like, that opportunity for that, you know, happiness and joy and excitement and all of those pieces had really passed, and it was super eye-opening Yeah like, wow, like I...
It's really actually difficult for me.
And I didn't, I didn't actually realize that until then.
You know what I mean? Yeah.
Yeah.
That, befo-- I can't get, um...
I, I don't wanna say I can't get.
I very much don't allow, like, pre-excitement to happen.
Like, if I'm going on a Hmm.
trip or have anything fun coming up, and it's kind of like my family just at this point just knows, and they're just Yeah they know that I'm not gonna be excited or happy until it's actually happening, Yeah like, well, yeah, we have this vacation on the books, and it seems like it'll be exciting if we make Mm-hmm.
Yeah bad things that could happen between now and then, right? Yeah we're not gonna enjoy it until it's actually happening, and then I get there and, like, I'm happy for, like, two seconds, and then it's like, know.
It's just I always, I, you know, I'm the kind of person that I always know where the exits are, and I'm, I'm ready to walk Yeah.
at the f- yeah, Mm-hmm of danger.
And it gets frustrating.
Um, when it gets most frustrating for me is when I actually, when it, like, sneaks in and I actually have, like, that feeling of just contented joy.
And then Mm-hmm.
this is great.
Why can't I do this more often? Yeah is wrong with me?" It always sends me in that loop of like, "What is wrong with me? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?" So I get, I get really, really frustrated and I think, you know, you, it's so much easier to, allow the negative and bad feelings to sit there and, they just feel so much more comfortable.
It just feels so much safer.
Like I, I unders- Absolutely I understand those and I have coping skills around those, and it's like my safety zone.
Yeah.
Y- absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yeah when I, you know, this year specifically, I mean, it's not that I haven't been working on this all the time, but I'm, like, super intentional this year in this, um, like, feeling joy and happiness.
And I've had to, I have had to mentally rework what that even means Yeah because I can look back and say, "Oh, you know what? I had a really...
I had a lot of fun there.
You know, I was, you know, super happy in there."
Um, a lot of it involves my children, right? Just so much fun, my husband and I, when we go on adventures.
But some of the things that I know bring me joy and happiness we're just not able to do right now, right? And so it was like, okay, so, like, what does that even mean, you know, in our, in our day-to-day? And it was, it was literally just kind of taking it, like, okay, what would I actually enjoy? And I'd ask in the moment, like, am I having fun? Do I actually like this? Right? I didn't know because I just do.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
um, so it's been kind of...
It's been actually kind of eye-opening and fun just even identifying, like, what are some of the things that I like.
Yeah.
what, what do you like? Like, what...
You know, I was-- I've been working through the book "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron, which is a 12-week long, like, access your creativity, because I thought maybe getting into that sort of creative would help me open up to some positive, fun, happy, Yeah feeling.
'Cause I think an easy entry point for me might be if I'm having fun, it can't be that far away from feeling joy, right? Mm-hmm.
things that typically for me are the most fun are, like, being in nature or doing something creative or I get...
There's a lot of awe and wonder and curiosity for me in nature and that beauty that comes from there.
But as I'm reading through "The Artist's Way" and, um, doing, like, all the morning pages, it's so much work.
"The Artist's Way" is a- actually a lot of work, and I'm, I'm enjoying it.
I'm in week five and it's talking a lot about, like, you know, you have to go on an artist date once a week when you do "The Artist's Way."
And so this is a time that you're supposed to spend totally by yourself doing something fun, doing maybe something that you wish you could have done when you were a kid, like taking a class or going Mm-hmm.
a Mm-hmm.
or whatever.
I am having the hardest time my artist dates.
The first three weeks, super easy.
There were, like, some easy things to knock off the list.
And then it's just, like, I come up with, I have a million reasons why, "Oh, you can't go do that this week," or, "That doesn't make sense.
That's not feasible."
Like, I can really talk Yeah of doing the things that, like, the inner me knows would actually...
So it's not even that I can't access joy, it's that I know what would make me happy and I talk myself out of doing it.
So I'm Yeah what little things you have found that make you happy at least.
And honestly, that's part of the whole entire safety piece, right? Like, that is, that is what we do to keep ourself safe.
Joy and happiness is...
And I think that, I think I might have said this before, but, you know, we don't heal from trauma to handle trauma.
That we got.
We have tons of processes of Yeah do that, right? We heal from trauma to be able to handle joy and happiness and those pieces, because those are really difficult spaces.
And, giving ourselves permission to do that is honestly, like, one of the biggest things.
Like, I'm...
I give myself permission to experience whatever it is, right? And I, and I won't talk myself out of it.
You know, this is what we're doing, and, and these are the things.
For me, it was just trying to find, even in the things that we, like, have to do, right? Like, you know, I love going up to our property and feeding the animals and, you know, doing, you know, all the watering and things like that.
It's something I have to do, but I was intentionally like, "Okay, so what are some of the things that I actually enjoy, that actually make me happy when I'm up here?" Right? And intentionally mindset shifting it Yeah.
in from a have to, to this is fun.
One that I didn't have to do anything for, but reminds me, you know, every day is my granddaughter.
And you can't help it, right? 'Cause she's just, she's a baby.
Yeah they just...
Like, they find so much enjoyment in, like, learning a new skill and, like, doing something that you legitimately cannot help but be, like, happy and joyful with them, right? Well, I guess you could if...
You know, but I'm intent- I'm intentionally being there with them.
So, like, all of it is literally an intentional practice, is the only way that has actually worked for me.
Yeah if I don't intentionally go into it that way- It, we can m- we can make it, we will make it through whatever, wherever, Yeah.
we want to.
Yeah.
So it's either gonna be, like, absolutely horrible, like I can't believe I have to do this, this is exhausting, kind of piece to it.
Mm-hmm.
like, oh, that was a lot of fun, you know, doing that, or that was a lot of nice.
This past weekend, Todd and I didn't have any kids, and we actually didn't do anything, and honestly, it was so nice.
Yes kind of reframing that, the, that happiness and, and that kind of piece to it can happen without doing anything And trying to experience it like a little bit by little bit, 'cause we know our systems, our nervous systems, right? The...
We have to practice that new feeling.
And so getting used to what that feels like in my body and being able to hold that space for a little bit longer each time has helped me to put it into practice in other places.
Yeah, it's almost like exposure therapy, honestly.
It's Yeah what it sounds like.
I'm trying, I have...
As we were talking, I remembered a quote that I had written down from The Artist's Way, if something seems too good to be true, you will devise a price tag that feels unpayable Oh, can you read that again? I often find quotes that literally hurt my feelings.
Yeah, like super hurt my feelings.
Rude.
know.
Thank you, and also, yeah Yeah.
So this is from The Artist's Way, and this is actually, uh, a quote by the author Julia Cameron.
something seems too good to be true, you will devise a price tag that feels unpayable."
Yep And so as I'm sitting here talking to you about, like, I actually do know the things that would make me feel really happy, I just convince myself that I cannot do them.
Yeah and it reminds me of this, I don't think I've told this story before here, but I was with my youngest in Seattle a couple years ago, and, she's just so, like, herself, right? She's very confident.
She's very, she doesn't care what other people think.
She does, but Mm-hmm.
doesn't, kind of.
And anyway, so we're walking around Seattle, and we stop at a stoplight, and we're waiting for the crosswalk, and there's, like, music playing somewhere, and she just started dancing.
I was like, "Oh my God, what are you doing?" Like, 'cause I'm so, like, Her.
tight her.
tight.
Yeah And she was like, "I'm having fun."
And then she just, like, kept Yeah and she was like, "You should try it sometime, Mom."
And I was like, I bet? "Ugh."
Well, okay then.
you're right.
rude, but yes I do, and I, I f- like seriously felt that like very deeply of like, yeah, she's probably right, but I, I just can't ever seem to like let go of that, layer of, no, I'm not allowed to do that.
I'm not allowed to Yeah.
Yeah, that, that brings me back to that giving yourself permission.
There is truly a space in here where we have to give ourselves permission.
Like, it is okay.
And in that space is reminding ourselves we are in a different space.
Mm-hmm.
This is a th- today, right now, in this moment, is an entirely different space than you've ever been in, Yeah right? So everything, everything that we have learned has brought us to this space.
We have brand-new experiences and, and we can create and change things from that space, right? And tomorrow is a whole entire different space.
This afternoon, a whole entire different space.
Because we are gonna have things in life that comes up, and it, you know, things are said, a different experience, whatever that is, but we have th- these places of learning all over, and it's just reminding ourselves that it is not where it was before.
It kind of like brings me back to when we had that conversation of, of how my daughter, um, Samantha, and I will have the conversation of like, "Is this a made-up rule, or is this a real rule?" love that you guys are doing that, that you're intentionally Intentionally this rule that I'm following is actually made up and I don't Yeah.
it Completely and totally made up.
And honestly, it brings me a little joy because it's like a little bit of rebellion.
Yeah will...
And it's gonna sound silly, but it will be as silly as my dishwasher is not full and I will run it.
And you know why I'll run it? Because I want clean dishes, and I want to put that in and have that empty space.
But, and I pay the water bill, I pay the electric bill.
I can run the dishwasher if I want to.
I can waste a dish pod.
This is something that I, that is a made-up rule.
Nobody said the dishwasher has to be full before we start it it's so funny you're saying this because Michael runs the dishwasher whenever he wants to, and I'm constantly like, "Shouldn't we wait and do this overnight?" All the time.
I'm like, "We're running it in the middle of the Yeah And it brings, like, a panic into me of like, "You're Yeah the dishwasher in the middle of the day."
And he's like, "Yes, I am."
And he hits the start button.
And I'm like, "Oh my God, it's gonna be so much more expensive.
We should wait until tonight."
He Like 20 cents? me like, Like you find, you find two dimes on the floor.
I know.
It is Yeah rule that you have to run your dishwasher overnight Total made up rule.
know.
And being able to like...
Yeah, no, absolut- And I have, I followed all of the made up rules, right? And it has taken me a really long time to be like, wait.
But that is actually part of...
It's like having this, you know, trying to figure out like why it's so hard to experience the emotion of joy, why it's so hard to experience happiness and stay in that space, honestly, is because of the vast amount of major- vast amount of made up rules that I have in my life.
Because I have to do this in order for this to happen.
I have to get all of my work done before we can do anything fun.
I have to...
And they're all made up rules.
A lot of them were not made up by me, right? They were made up, that is just how I was, a lot of it was how I was raised, with this was the messages that we kind of get throughout all of these.
And, um, part of it is like looking at my adult kids and realizing how many of the things that they do because that's what I did, and it took me decades to realize, no, like you're running yourself legitimately ragged, and now seeing it in my kids.
And being like, could, could you learn this lesson before me? You know? Hmm? and yeah, it's these, it's these rules around it.
You, you're not giving yourself permission.
Why? Because you can think of 100 different things that should come before your happiness and you feeling joy That's 100% what it is.
It's like I have a checklist of like once all of these things are done.
And it's like, you know, we talked about this once last season where it was like I'm always waiting for when will, when can I have that part of life or when will I be living my life? But I'm alive right now.
Like, life is happening right now, and spending all of this time waiting for all of these things to be done so that I can then have fun, when you zoom out, it's like that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
Right.
dumb.
And, Yeah it's so interest- We're having this conversation and, um, it's just, I'm thinking of a lot, a lot of different things.
And first is that I'm very happy.
Like I'm...
And I used to think that that was like the same thing, and it's not at all.
No I had read, uh, something somewhere that like happiness is a reaction to life, whereas joy is an approach to life.
It's like an Mm-hmm.
know, happiness is very external.
These Yeah and went well, so I'm happy, whereas Yeah like an internal feeling, approach, way of being, right? Yeah Um, and so I think that's a really important distinction.
And I also am thinking about, my mom.
So, and as, as you obviously know, at the very end of last season, my mom passed away.
And so as we were traveling and going to her services and of these things, I had to speak at...
All of us said a little something at the service.
And mom, who was a very complex person, as we all are, as every human is, and really had a lot of unresolved trauma in her life, also was one of the most joyful people I knew sometimes.
And as I was...
And I wro- I spoke about that.
That's kind of what I spoke about, is the, the g- dichotomy of a person who, could, as soon as joy was accessible, would access it and dive right into it and be so joyful, also as soon as sadness or something like that was accessible, would dive right into that, right? I was writing that and I was thinking about the quote that you and I shared that was kind of the premise of what we were going to think about in this episode, which I, I think you have it written down, I'm gonna say it from memory, but it was, Joy is the matriarch of emotions.
If you don't let her children in, she's not going to come."
I think those two things are really closely related when I think about, like how I think about how my mom handled joy and sadness.
And if you don't feel All of your feelings and let all of them come through you and all of them be processed, you don't...
It's like you can't level up to the, joy, right? Because you have a blockage, think, of Mm-hmm.
some resentment you haven't worked through, or maybe you have, maybe you don't allow yourself to feel angry.
And until you can accept that anger is a safe, okay emotion and how to handle it, you're never gonna get to joy.
I don't know how that lands for you, but that's how I'm kind of thinking about this is Yeah I have a backlog.
Absolutely.
And, um It can feel like a lot.
And so then it's like, well, f- at that, you know? Like that's what, that seems to be a lot of work to what? Experience joy? Why? And when we've never had that experience or we can't access what that feels like, Yeah like, it's very easy to put it on the back burner, right? Which is like where that kind of, you know, when I was talking about that intentional space of like holding that feeling for a little bit longer or doing that, those are all things that I've had to almost talk myself into, that it was acceptable, that it was okay.
Like not even just give myself permission, but to continue to, continually to access it.
And thinking about joy as the matriarch of emotions makes sense of why it is.
Because there are so...
Of why it is so difficult.
Do you know what I mean? Because there's so many other feelings that of course we're going to Block out or we're going to have not want to feel because, yeah, they just feel so icky in the moment.
You know, all the times when I talk about, um, emotions and I talk about feelings, I actually talk- I, I liken them to a toddler.
So, you know, when, a toddler wants something, say, you're in the middle of cooking dinner, and they want a glass of water or whatever it is, and they're, like, asking, you know, "Can I have a glass of water? Can I have a glass of..."
You're like, "Just a second.
Just a second.
Just a second."
And all they do is escalate, right? And then they're...
And you're like, "Fine! Here's the glass of water."
You give them the glass of water, and what do they do? They legitimately go away because all they wanted was the glass of water that we wouldn't give them in the moment.
And they're selfish little pricks, as toddlers, which they should be, right? And that's how our feelings are, and so if we don't feel them, they just consistently, right, like nag at us until they get, until they get bigger and bigger and show up as large kind of behaviors, you know, in those kinds of pieces to them.
And so if you would just feel it in the moment, right, and, and be able to practice holding that feeling of like, "Okay, it's just a feeling," and those kinds of pieces, I do think it all plays into being able to access that joy, right? Like I've, I have been on this journey for 20 years, legitimately 20 years.
It'll be 21 this year, and I'm just now getting to the point where this is a space that I can start to inhabit because I have held all of those others, but I didn't even realize it was a problem.
Does that make sense? I'm not saying it takes 20 years.
I'm just saying that, like...
you 20 years.
Yeah, it's taken me 20 years.
One, I didn't realize that I couldn't access it, couldn't feel it.
But because I've been able to do...
You know, hold some of those other harder emotions, I think it has given me the ability to access it a little bit.
Yeah, that makes sense.
I feel like the way in which we're talking about joy makes me think of it in terms of, like, reaching enlightenment, right? It's like Mm-hmm.
sort of like this pinnacle of through all of these other stages, almost like a pyramid, right, where, like, joy is at the very top, and you've got to...
Your body has to feel safe holding anger and sadness and happiness and awe and wonder and curiosity and, like, building up to the point of feeling joy.
But also at the same time, there's little pockets of it throughout, right? Like, and like I said, Yeah me, it's always in nature.
Like, when I see a beautiful sunset or sunrise or, you know, we went to my friend's cabin a couple weekends ago, and there was just massive elk just running around everywhere and just, you know, pop out of the woods, and there's just this beautiful animal there enjoying its own habitat.
And to me, that's like the most awe-inspiring thing, and I know that I'm feeling joy and happiness.
And, like, it feels like content and peace.
Like, all is well right now.
Like, nothing is better than what I have right now, Mm-hmm.
how I experience joy, is Mm-hmm.
"This is the best, and nothing can damage this," or something like that.
I'm not Yeah the right vocabulary.
But I Yeah the way we're talking about it is like this pinnacle enlightenment moment.
But I- but that's not really the case.
It's everywhere and can be anywhere, and Yes it's not like this special level that you have to toil to get to.
And I'm so glad you said that, 'cause I was literally thinking, I was actually gonna ask, you know, what are some of the things that you, that bring you joy that are like tiny? Because, like mine is getting my favorite Starbucks tea or getting a Dutch Brothers drink and my favorite flavor of the day at Culver's, right? And those things legitimately like make me excited almost, like, and I'll, I'm always like, "Thank you," when I get them.
I'm all excited.
They bring my...
They make my heart happy, and that's how I refer to it, right? Like, that makes my heart happy, and in that moment is just like that first sip especially is like I love this, right? And this is like, this is so good.
So like, what are...
M- uh, old song will come on that I absolutely like, right? Like, those are, like, little moments that are, um, that oh my gosh, that is just like, this is so fun, right? This is so cool.
So what are some of those things for you, you think? I mean, more, more often than not, it's like the first sip of coffee in the morning when it, i- in the right circumstances.
Like, if I manage to get up before everyone else I manage the pets, and then I get my coffee and I sit down and, like, that first moment of, like, I don't know, it's, can be anything and I have this peaceful moment.
It's like a peaceful moment.
I also love a good dad joke.
Like, if I catch a good joke, like a dumb joke Yeah.
Yeah that, like, takes me by surprise, you know? Yeah.
Yeah before.
Like, those are delightful to me.
I hate saying that word, delightful, but it's really like a moment of, like, delight.
Like, "Oh my gosh, that was Yeah.
Like, I, I Yeah like jokes and humor and I listen to comedy podcasts, and when I hear something super funny that Yeah that twists something in a new way or something like that, like that moment of humor is really f- I really enjoy that a lot It really is the little things.
it Like my, my...
Yeah, Todd'll say to me, he's like, "It's really the little things with you," and I'm like, "Absolutely it's the little things."
And honestly, that's from years of...
The big things are real big, right? And they're real, and a lot of times they've been real heavy, and it is those little things that keep it going.
They also call me the treat queen because I love treats.
If I buy a treat for myself, I have to buy it for everyone, and Todd's like, "You don't have to do that," and I'm like, "Mm, yeah, but I do," because it makes me happy.
I like, not only do I like having treats for myself, I like giving treats.
And so like if I'm...
Yeah, I like...
And it, it has always been those little things because they remind us, that's right, there's so much more.
Yeah.
There legitimately- So much more That's true.
That's true.
I think maybe, maybe the answer is, and you know, we're going to have a couple more episodes on this topic, and we will be talking Yeah that actually know what they're talking about because they are joyful people.
Um, but it sou- it does sound like our...
the move here is to access tiny little things.
Like, you know, Yeah "How can I make this thing that I have to do 10% more fun," Can I just Yes 10% in this chore, in this task, in this errand? Um, Yeah maybe slowly start allowing it to, like, creep inside.
But I also...
So I think those are the tiny moves, right? Like increasing the tiny moments, but I also think the big move is if there are other emotions that I'm actively avoiding, right? Trying to figure that piece out so that the, the good and the joy is allowed to enter the building, right? Yeah two-part thing Yeah, and I think in addition to that, not even just the emotions you're actively avoiding, what emotions are you holding onto because they feel safer than accessing joy? Well, I Sorry.
So been great talking to you.
I've loved I love it with you, and, uh, I'll see you never I saw the change in your face and I was like, "Oof."
I felt that But yes, because it all comes down to our safety template, right? I mean, it just, it really honestly does.
In, in life, there's reasons for all of it.
It's all to keep us safe and keep us alive, and there are some things that have honestly worn out their welcome.
Yeah and if joy is the matriarch of emotions, right, then of course then it's like, okay, so what...
why? What is keeping me from accessing, Yeah right? And, what I do love, though, what are the, what are the little things because I- it helps us to practice Yeah in space, right? So I don't know if we talked about it at the end of last season, but this season we're doing things a little bit differently and so we have three...
And I, I do think we talked about it, did, just kind of reminding everyone, right, that we have three main arcs.
We have joy and happiness, spirituality, and parenting, and then each one of those arcs has four episodes, and we're gonna stagger them out.
So for example, we're starting with joy and happiness, but our second episode is going to be the first episode in the spirituality arc.
And so I'm excited for our remaining joy and happiness episodes, which are, um, capturing childlike joy, which I think is a, is a real difficult one.
We'll have a guest guest for that one.
And then I need to read.
If you can cultivate joy, how the F do you do it? And then, um, ending that arc on a joyful guest, right? Someone who really does kind of just embody joy in their, in their day to day, and what does that look like.
And so I'm still a little nervous about this, about this arc, but I'm feeling a little bit better.
I think it is actually a way for us to practice it and to hold the space for it, and so I'm excited to see what that kind of looks like at the end of this.
Yeah, I feel like I'm a little nervous, especially after the last five minutes of you pointing out something very emotionally activating to me And, curious, I'm very curious about, you know, how can I grow and how can I expand sort of in this space? And it's funny because I had no intention of discussing the, Artist's Way so much today, but my journal prompt for this week is to, conversate with myself about what I am gaining from not changing I love it.
I know.
It's a ver- it's Yep, I mean, very opening, Yep.
to think Yeah I have to acknowledge that when I don't change something that I know I should probably work on, there's a benefit there.
I'm gaining something from avoiding it.
And so exploring that, right, might be the way to move past avoiding it.
Yeah.
I love it.
I love it.
Well, I'll tell you one thing that brings me joy is this space with you, because it is fun.
It's the reason we started it.
It, we had, you know, when we talked about it, it was like, "Ooh, that sounds like fun."
And honestly, it has been hard and exhausting Mm-hmm.
fun.
And fun those all can be true at the exact same time Yeah.
Yeah, and I love it.
I love it too, and I'm so happy we're back, and no tears today.
So far So far.
We still have time.
Yeah.
Oh, I look forward to talking to you again.
I love you I love you too Thank you so much for being here today.
I hope you've enjoyed it.
I know that we have, and we're so grateful that you're here with us.
Join us next week for the first episode of our spirituality arc, where we'll be talking about what spirituality means to us and what part does it play in our life.
We'll see you then