Have you REALLY explored what gives you joy?

So my friend Candace Mau hosts a weekly radio show on Mondays called Everyday Joy. It’s a show dedicated to ‘choosing to live a deliberately joyful life!’ She was out of the country this past week with a few members of her extended family and asked me to guest host the show. I just had to open and close the show, and facilitate a Q&A with a guest. She convinced me, I can do this!

Well, I found out a few minutes before the show was going on the air that the guest I was supposed to interview was not going to make it. So I was going solo on the air (it is streamed live) for ~45 minutes or so to talk about joy.

This was a learning experience in so many ways. First, I learned from the producer that I couldn’t have dead air, so I had to just keep talking (kind of like Dory in Finding Nemo… just keep swimming, just keep swimming). I also learned that it is kind of fun to be unscripted. I think that I struggled the most when I was trying to follow something I had jotted down, rather than just speaking from the heart and letting the words flow.

During the first break, the producer helped me figure out the name of the show, Finding Joy Through Connection. I think that was the real gem that came out of this experience. I don’t know if I could have articulated that before we started. However, by talking out loud what joy is to me, how I get it, how I share it, it all just sort of took shape.

I’ve spent hours talking to Candace about similar topics, but I hadn’t ever sat back and organized my thoughts on what truly gives me joy.

Below are some of the key insights that surfaced for me during the show:

• Living a joyful life is a choice worth exploring
• Asking yourself questions and letting the answers surface is a beautiful process
• There is joy in a simple life
• Joy doesn’t have boundaries (Socioeconomic, geography, etc.)
• Gratitude and connection can get us through anxious moments
• Daily dog walks (or just any outdoor walk) allows us time to recharge, connect, and stay grounded
• White space is important for me and my family
• Self-depreciation is my fasted path to connection
• Of course, my family and girls are great sources of joy, I explored this a few months ago in a blog about the day after Maggie was born.

However, the biggest insight for me that won’t surprise many of you reading this blog, is that mixing pods is a great source of joy for me and this blog is a creative outlet. Mixing together my various personas covers most of the items listed above.

How many of you have taken that amount of time to talk through and discover something like what joy means to you? Maybe it’s time for a long car ride, a long walk, or an hour-long radio show. In fact, I think this could be my new approach to discovering more things for myself in the future. Pick a topic and just riff about it, who knows what will surface.

If you would like to listen to the show, you can catch it here. You can also explore Candace’s show, Everyday Joy here.

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