February 20, 2025 • 25 mins
How can we redefine joy in our lives, especially during times of uncertainty? Join me, Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright, on a heartfelt journey as we explore the essence of joy and discover its profound impact on our healing and growth.
Drawing inspiration from my poetry, reflections, and personal stories, I'll share how joy can be found in the simplest of moments, even when everything seems overwhelming. Together, we'll redefine joy not as fleeting bursts of happiness but as a vital, ever-present force in our daily lives.
This episode emphasizes the vital role of joy in our lives and how it can be accessed even during difficult times. Key talking points include:
• Highlighting the significance of joy during challenging life moments
• Exploring poetic expressions of joy in daily life
• Discussing joy as an antidote to negative emotions
• Sharing personal experiences with joy amidst grief
• Proposing practical steps to cultivate joy
• Encouraging community connection through shared joy
• Advocating for a proactive approach to embracing joy
Throughout this episode, I'll challenge the traditional perception of joy, encouraging you to see it as an accessible part of everyday life. I'll offer practical ways to cultivate abundant joy, even amidst life's challenges. Instead of waiting for happiness to come naturally, I'll advocate for creating joy intentionally through daily practices and reflection.
Join us next week for an all-new episode of Your Heart Magic and more psychology, spirituality, storytelling, and heart wisdom.
--
Your Heart Magic is a space where heart wisdom, spirituality, and psychology meet. Enjoy episodes centered on mental health, spirituality, personal growth, healing, and well-being. Featured as one of the best Heart Energy and Akashic Records Podcasts in 2024 by PlayerFM and Globally Ranked in the top 5% in Listen Notes.
Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright is a Licensed Psychologist, Spiritual Educator, and Akashic Records Reader. She is the author of Small Pearls Big Wisdom, the Award-Winning Lamentations of the Sea, its sequels, and several books of poetry. A psychologist with a mystic mind, she weaves perspectives from both worlds to offer holistic wisdom.
FIND DR. BETHANNE ONLINE:
BOOKS- www.bethannekw.com/books
FACEBOOK - www.facebook.com/drbethannekw
INSTAGRAM - www.instagram.com/dr.bethannekw
WEBSITE - www.bethannekw.com
CONTACT FORM - www.bethannekw.com/contact
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Intro/Outro Music (00:13):
Aloha and welcome to your Heart Magic, an
illuminating space wherepsychology, spirituality and
heart wisdom meet.
Here's your host, dr BethannKapansky-Wright.
Author, psychologist andspiritual educator.
Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wri (00:33):
Aloha everybody, welcome to your
Heart Magic.
This is Dr BethannKapansky-Wright, and today we
are focusing on the theme of joyin this podcast, and I'm going
a little old school today anddoing a bit of a talk story
episode.
For those of you who followedyour heart magic for a while, I
(00:54):
used to do episodes called TalkStory Time and in them I would
choose some passages centeredaround one theme from different
books and different writingsthat I've done and just share
the words I wrote and somereflections from my perspective
as a writer.
So I thought it would be funtoday to invoke that for this
(01:17):
episode and celebrate a littlebit of the earlier days of the
podcast and focus on joy, whichI believe is something really
relevant to our souls.
I think sometimes joy can feellike a bit of a privilege or a
luxury, particularly if we arein a place of challenge or
(01:38):
hardship in our life, if we aredealing with some sort of grief
or chronic pain, and so I wantto make the caveat that there
might be times where we arereally struggling with some dark
stuff, hard stuff and some ofthe difficult things in being
human, and so we might notalways feel that we can access
(01:59):
joy.
But for myself personally on myjourney, I'm a big believer in
insisting on joy when I can andknowing that when life goes
through those dark spaces, thatthere is new light and new life
on the other side.
And I love to believe thatthere is joy there as well.
(02:19):
And some of the most beautifuljoyful periods of my life have
been after some sort of a seasonof challenges and riding out
the storm and getting to theother side and it's like the sky
opens up again and the worldopens back up.
And we always have growth whenwe've gone through those seasons
(02:42):
and this appreciation of beingable to connect with beauty
again, connect with happiness,connect with bliss, connect with
feeling more peaceful and atease.
So I love the concept of joyand I love the idea, too, that
joy is something that really isan antidote to being in a place
(03:05):
of fear or apathy or hatred orsome of the tendencies that
sometimes drag us down when westart to go backwards on our
journey and get into a negativedefault space.
When we can tap into thefrequency of joy, we are able to
come back into our center andreach for the light again, reach
(03:26):
for love, reach for peace,reach for harmony, reach for
beauty, reach for the thingsthat fill our souls up.
So I love joy, I love talkingabout it, and I'm going to share
a few passages today thatreflect some aspects and ideas
on the concept of joy.
(03:46):
This first one is called ToKnow Joy, and it is from a
poetry book, cranberry Dusk AJourney of Becoming, that I
wrote, oh my goodness, years ago, back in 2015, 2016.
To know joy there are joys tobe found even in the most
(04:07):
ordinary of days.
Sometimes we have to look a bitcloser to find them.
They hide in the heartbeat ofthe bluebirds and in the blithe
branches of the trees.
They sit quietly waiting fornotice in our breaths and the
clean slate of possibility thatcomes with dawn of day.
(04:29):
They step out into the openthrough life's ability to carry
on in a world that has the graceto keep spinning, no matter how
much it aches and hurts.
They unveil before eyes thatwill not see unless they have
learned to gaze through thewindow of soul.
You will know them by theirgifts of love.
(04:50):
You'll know them by their love.
It's been years since I wrotethis and reading it right now,
this line about how joy unveilsbefore eyes that will not see
unless they have learned togauge through the window of soul
really spoke to me as I wasreading it and I think part of
(05:13):
what is so beautiful about theword joy to me is there's so
much room for us to redefinethat concept in a way that works
for us.
And when we are looking throughthe eyes of soul, which I think
are the eyes of our heart ourheart is the doorway to the soul
, to our intuition, to ourdeeper self, to our spiritual
(05:35):
connection and when we're reallyseeing through the eyes of the
heart and the eyes of our soul,we see the tiny little miracles
and gifts in the day-to-day.
And part of expanding theconcept of joy is the
recognition that joy isn'talways some big rush or euphoric
moment or something that wefeel just like filled with
(05:59):
liquid sunshine.
When I think about the essenceof joy, if I could put it into a
little bottle and put likeessences of things that might
invoke joy to me, I would put inlike liquid sunshine and the
scent of wild oranges and theessence of watching my dog Rosie
(06:20):
run through a field ofwildflowers and the absolute joy
she has is like butterfliestake off, like if I could take
those word, pictures and thosesensations and put it into like
a little potion bottle orsomething and say here, here you
go.
This is for joy.
That is joy in its purest formto me.
(06:42):
But I think that oftentimes on aday-to-day basis we might not
always have that rush of liketotal bliss and euphoric
experience and I refuse to feelthat joy is only accessible
every now and then or like everyblue moon or something like
that.
I think maybe it is the heartrubble in me that feels a little
(07:05):
stubborn and a littlerecalcitrant and feels like I
insist on joy and I will findjoy, and joy is available if I
look for it.
I don't like thinking it's thisrare thing that we can only
experience when we are in acertain feeling state.
I think we can work on trainingour nervous systems and
(07:26):
training our mind and helpingreset ourselves and teach our
energy how to tune into thefrequency of joy, and we are
able to invoke that spirit andthat essence a little bit more
easily when we develop an eyefor joy.
And so that poem reallyreflects the idea that joy is
happening all around and it'shappening oftentimes in these
(07:49):
really quiet ways and innature's day-to-day miracles and
in all these teeny, tinymoments of hope and life and the
things that help us slow downand connect to our hearts and
connect to interconnection andremember that we're so much more
(08:09):
than some of the self-imposedlimitations and perceived
limitations of this human space.
We are these extraordinarysouls having this experience and
we are in this extraordinarilycreative planet nature and her
endless artistry, and this ideathat, no matter what happens,
(08:32):
our world does keep going andgrace is available to all of us
and it softens the things thathave pointy edges and that are
hard.
And that brings me to the nextpiece that I want to share.
That speaks a little bitfurther to the importance of joy
and this idea that we have toinsist on joy this is from Small
(08:54):
Pearls, big Wisdom and it iscalled Joy is Vital to Our Souls
.
Times of challenge and troublewill always offer us
opportunities to return toourselves.
The nature of uncertainty isdisquietude and unease.
Finding ways to anchor into ourdeeper selves is necessary in
(09:16):
our modern day world.
Anchoring in is how we listento our intuition, heed our inner
voice, return to the wisdom ofour hearts and make choices
aligned with our truth.
We return and anchor in manyways calm, rest, creativity,
appreciation, joy, nature, lovedones, solitude, small comforts,
(09:42):
simple pleasures, through actsof self-expression that circle
us into our truth, through tinycomfort rituals that give us a
sense of continuity, pleasureand peace.
This is how we return to oursoul, find the light within and
move forward, feelingenergetically nourished,
(10:02):
intentional and aligned.
In these spaces we feelbrighter and centered.
We shed the energetic debris weaccumulate from life's stress.
We find a newfound lightness ofheart.
We remember that joy is vitalto our souls.
Joy anchors us into our soul'snatural condition.
(10:23):
It cuts through the uncertaindark and returns us to a pure
space of light.
Joy is the currency of vitality.
Focusing on joy is not trivialor frivolous.
It is sustenance and a naturalantidote to antipathy, fear and
compassion fatigue.
Joy helps us feel moreenergized to engage in the world
(10:47):
with compassion, warmth andhope.
Sometimes we must stretch alittle higher to touch the good.
Every time we reach up and grabonto peace, truth, beauty,
curiosity and wonder, we tapinto joy's golden veins.
What a healing balm joy becomesin difficult times.
(11:08):
Be a channel for joy today.
Pour that frequency into theworld through your words, energy
and essence.
Like daffodil yellow sunshine,let it seep into the places
where fear and anxiety havecrept, helping warm and soften
them.
We sometimes forget that simpleacts can have a big impact.
(11:29):
We don't have to hustle to keepup and prove our relevance.
We can stand still and embodyfierce change In a wanting world
.
We can allow joy to flow fromour hearts and trust it to do
the work of love.
A few years ago, when I wrotethe original version of that
(11:52):
piece, which I think was anarticle that I published online
at some point, it was during thetime of COVID and it was during
the pandemic, during thelockdown, and I was very
fortunate to be in Kauai whenall of that was happening and
have access to nature, into theabundance and the beautiful
gifts there, and it was such astrange time for so many of us.
(12:15):
I think we probably each havethese memories and experiences
attached to that and things thatwere challenging and things
that helped us grow, and for me,as an empath, I just felt
really overwhelmed.
That's my response a lot as anempath, when things are shifting
in the world and big things arehappening.
(12:35):
I don't always know how I feelright away, and it is just my
experiences and energy sensitivethat, no matter how much I'm
doing my energetic protectionand maintenance and all those
things that are so necessary totaking care of ourselves as a
sensitive and as an empath andmaking sure that I'm feeling my
(12:57):
own feelings and not everybodyelse's.
I just can't help but spendsome of that in when I'm trying
to figure out my position withsomething so big and, as we all
know, at the time the pandemicwas going on, there was big
feelings happening and lots ofreactions and all sorts of
perspectives that people werehaving and different vantage
(13:19):
points, and so something that Ireally try and do when I'm
grappling with finding how Ifeel and trying to separate my
own point of view from thecollective, while still taking
in sources of information andremembering my innate
interconnection to everything.
I mean that's a lot to sortthrough, right.
(13:40):
It's like finding my truth asan individual and then how might
I think about this from theperspective of soul and a
spiritual perspective, andmaking a little bit of space for
how are others experiencingthis, and so like finding my
center in.
That is something that has beena challenge for me and it's
(14:00):
just a growing point.
It's something I continue togrow in and anytime we come up
against something really big andsomething that is I'll just
call it like headline news, thekinds of things going on that
impact all of us to some extent.
I try and take time and I'velearned not to rush my process
of figuring out how I feel aboutsomething and to not come up
(14:22):
with a position when I'm notsure what my position is yet.
And so I remember going forthis walk that day on Moa Lepe
Trail, which was this lovelytrail up where I lived at the
time, and it was just such abeautiful day and you know
butterflies and Kauai's red dirtand trees, and it's a really
(14:42):
peaceful place, especially ifyou are fortunate enough to be
on the trail by yourself andhave it be really quiet.
And so it was really this timeof reconnecting to my heart and
really asking, kind of openingmy heart up to spirit and just
having a dialogue and a prayerand saying like, help me make
sense of this for myself rightnow.
(15:03):
Help me figure out what can Ido right now during a time where
we're all feeling a littlerudderless.
What's my response from a humanviewpoint?
What's my response as aspiritual teacher and a writer?
Help me feel into all of thatand that's what came through is
this idea of joy and therelevancy of joy at times where
(15:27):
we might not feel particularlyjoyful.
And I really had that sense ofconviction in that moment of how
vital joy is for our souls,that it's not something
frivolous, where we work oncultivating joy, practices and
fostering joy, it's notsomething that is wasted time or
(15:49):
wasted efforts.
It's actually something highlymedicinal and something that
helps support us so that we canfind ways to stay centered, stay
in our truth and fill ourselvesup and move our energy and the
world in a way that is alignedand in connection to our purpose
(16:10):
and in service to love.
And so the origins of thatpiece came through at that time,
and something that I love somuch about being a writer and
listening to my intuition andopening up to seeing a higher
perspective is I never quiteknow what twist spirit might
(16:31):
give me to something and whatinspired idea might come from
that soulful place.
And this idea of cultivatingjoy during that time of
confusion and uncertainty was sopowerful to me and reminded me
that joy is a life force for us.
We might not always feel it,but it is always available to us
(16:54):
when we can stay connected toour hearts and stay connected to
our hope and our knowledge thatthe light is always there, even
in times that we can't see it,and we can work with the
ingredients life has handed usand work with what is available
to us and try and curate andcultivate ways to foster joy and
(17:20):
to tap into that qualities andthe ways that resonate with us.
So this last piece that I wantto share it's a fun one.
It's from my book.
It's a poetry book calledFreebird Fridays A Love Story,
and a lot of the poetry in thisbook was inspired by a couple of
things.
Some of it I wrote during thetime period right after my
(17:42):
divorce and a time that I wasgoing through.
So many lessons of growing upand learning about what love is,
tapping into the path of theheart, really learning to follow
my heart I have in my laterwork are in this book.
(18:07):
I can see, as a writer that I'mtapping into ideas and themes
that I still feel called towrite about them.
I just have a even widervantage point at this point in
time because I wrote a lot ofthese 12, 13 years ago, so it's
been a while.
And something else that reallyinspired this book is a lot of
the poetry in here is around thetime that I had met my husband
and we were in the dating phasesand falling in love and getting
(18:30):
to have all those beautifulexperiences at the time.
And then this book in general,free Bird Fridays is something
that was inspired and it was thefirst poetry book that I ever
put together and it was actuallyafter the loss of my brother
and I'd been through so muchgrittiness and hardship and life
(18:52):
going through that grief thatas I was coming out of it and
really finding my zest and thismovement in me that said I want
to live braver, and for me I waslike so that means I want to
write a book, and I had all thispoetry scattered in different
places and so this was a reallybeautiful way to bring it
(19:12):
together into a collection and Iwanted this book to feel joyful
.
I wanted the poetry in here tospark love and to spark joy.
I think I just been through somuch pain that my antidote to
that was pouring a little bitmore love into the world and
exploring different expressionsof love.
So this is a very simple poem.
It is called Peach Cobbler.
(19:34):
They had barbecue and peachcobbler and made easy
conversation about blue skies,cloudy days and spring dreams.
She told him about the time shelost her joy and how she'd
searched so hard to find it.
He told her that she was hisjoy, how he'd searched so hard
(19:56):
to find her.
They swung on the swings andlet it all wash over them the
blue, the clouds, the losingsand the findings, the joys.
I used to write these tinylittle vignettes where my
husband is from and I wasvisiting him and this captured
(20:35):
this day that we had.
We did have peach cobbler andbarbecue and we'd gone to some
playground somewhere and swungon the swings.
And we're having these heart toheart conversations and doing
that thing that you do whenyou're falling in love and you
share your life story withsomebody else.
And it was a beautiful littlesnapshot of joy and having
(20:57):
newfound hope and joy in my life.
And there's a line in here shetold him about the time she lost
her joy and how she'd searchedso hard to find it.
I don't think we can actuallylose joy, but what we can lose
is feeling like we can access it.
Joy is always available to us,but there's times on the human
(21:17):
journey when we are goingthrough grief or trauma or
something just really heavy andwe can't feel like we don't feel
the good vibrations right, wedon't feel joy, we don't feel
really connected to things andduring my spiritual awakening
process and the subsequent yearsand on my own journey, I'd had
(21:37):
some like really dark moments inthat time and really beautiful
moments.
I look back on the time periodbetween about 2011 and like 2013
and think, oh, my goodness,they were such rich years of
really learning about the shadowside of life and the light side
of life and just coming aliveto myself and coming alive to my
(21:58):
heart in a new way and comingalive to my spiritual gifts and
everything about that time whenI look back just feels very
heightened and I remember goingthrough some really big
challenges and big betrayals ofthe heart and going into these
periods of feeling depressed orfeeling kind of what's it all
(22:19):
about?
And really struggling on myjourney and then having to fight
my way back to a place ofaccessing the good again and
accessing what was beautiful andaccessing my ownership of my
own life and trying to create alife of beauty and meaning and
joy.
And so I had come through oneof those stages and come through
(22:42):
the loss of something reallydear to me and was sort of
emerging from the other side.
And as all that was happeningis when that poem was written, I
was also falling in love andgetting to know this person in
my life, and so it felt like Iemerged from this dark tunnel
and all this light was openingup to me and there's just a lot
(23:04):
of happy memories attached tothat time.
It's lovely to go back and readthose poems because they are
very much the voice of myyounger self.
But I'm so glad I took a littleword snapshot at the time and
wrote it down.
And if you are looking for atakeaway from today's podcast
and a way to integrate some ofthese ideas that I've been
(23:27):
talking about, you might try, inyour writing practice or in
your journal, writing a littlevignette about your day, writing
a little poem about it.
It doesn't have to be fancy orpoet sounding or anything like
that.
Just take the day that you'vehad, or take a moment that
beauty was somehow happening andsee if you can capture that in
(23:50):
simple sentences.
See if you can see the joy.
Take a moment to notice.
Where do you feel that joy inyour body?
What does it feel like to you.
I think we have to remindourselves joy is happening right
now and keep training our mindand training our eye to tune
into it.
And going back to what I said atthe beginning of this, I'm a
(24:13):
believer that we have to insiston joy because it can feel
elusive if we don't insist on it.
If we wait for circumstances toline up so we have a natural
feeling of happiness or euphoria, we're going to probably have
fewer and further in betweenexperiences of joy, and I want a
(24:35):
bigger concept.
I want joy to work for me.
I want it to be abundant in mylife.
I want to be able to access itevery day, even if it's a hard
day or a sticky day or somethingthat feels a little bit gray.
I want to know that it's thereand that, if I can work my joy
practices and remind myselfthese were the good things today
(24:56):
.
These are the things where joywas showing you its face and tap
into that.
I am there for it.
I insist on that.
So I hope something in thistoday has inspired and sparked
some joy for you and your weekahead.
I will be back next week with anew episode on spirituality,
(25:17):
creativity, storytelling andheart wisdom.
In the meantime, have abeautiful week, have joy and, as
always, be well, be love, beyou and be magic.
Intro/Outro Music (25:33):
You've been listening to your Heart Magic
with Dr Bethann Kopansky-Wright.
Tune in next week for a newepisode to support and empower
your light.
Aloha and welcome to your Heart Magic, an
illuminating space wherepsychology, spirituality and
heart wisdom meet.
Here's your host, dr BethannKapansky-Wright.
Author, psychologist andspiritual educator.
Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wri (00:33):
Aloha everybody, welcome to your
Heart Magic.
This is Dr BethannKapansky-Wright, and today we
are focusing on the theme of joyin this podcast, and I'm going
a little old school today anddoing a bit of a talk story
episode.
For those of you who followedyour heart magic for a while, I
(00:54):
used to do episodes called TalkStory Time and in them I would
choose some passages centeredaround one theme from different
books and different writingsthat I've done and just share
the words I wrote and somereflections from my perspective
as a writer.
So I thought it would be funtoday to invoke that for this
(01:17):
episode and celebrate a littlebit of the earlier days of the
podcast and focus on joy, whichI believe is something really
relevant to our souls.
I think sometimes joy can feellike a bit of a privilege or a
luxury, particularly if we arein a place of challenge or
(01:38):
hardship in our life, if we aredealing with some sort of grief
or chronic pain, and so I wantto make the caveat that there
might be times where we arereally struggling with some dark
stuff, hard stuff and some ofthe difficult things in being
human, and so we might notalways feel that we can access
(01:59):
joy.
But for myself personally on myjourney, I'm a big believer in
insisting on joy when I can andknowing that when life goes
through those dark spaces, thatthere is new light and new life
on the other side.
And I love to believe thatthere is joy there as well.
(02:19):
And some of the most beautifuljoyful periods of my life have
been after some sort of a seasonof challenges and riding out
the storm and getting to theother side and it's like the sky
opens up again and the worldopens back up.
And we always have growth whenwe've gone through those seasons
(02:42):
and this appreciation of beingable to connect with beauty
again, connect with happiness,connect with bliss, connect with
feeling more peaceful and atease.
So I love the concept of joyand I love the idea, too, that
joy is something that really isan antidote to being in a place
(03:05):
of fear or apathy or hatred orsome of the tendencies that
sometimes drag us down when westart to go backwards on our
journey and get into a negativedefault space.
When we can tap into thefrequency of joy, we are able to
come back into our center andreach for the light again, reach
(03:26):
for love, reach for peace,reach for harmony, reach for
beauty, reach for the thingsthat fill our souls up.
So I love joy, I love talkingabout it, and I'm going to share
a few passages today thatreflect some aspects and ideas
on the concept of joy.
(03:46):
This first one is called ToKnow Joy, and it is from a
poetry book, cranberry Dusk AJourney of Becoming, that I
wrote, oh my goodness, years ago, back in 2015, 2016.
To know joy there are joys tobe found even in the most
(04:07):
ordinary of days.
Sometimes we have to look a bitcloser to find them.
They hide in the heartbeat ofthe bluebirds and in the blithe
branches of the trees.
They sit quietly waiting fornotice in our breaths and the
clean slate of possibility thatcomes with dawn of day.
(04:29):
They step out into the openthrough life's ability to carry
on in a world that has the graceto keep spinning, no matter how
much it aches and hurts.
They unveil before eyes thatwill not see unless they have
learned to gaze through thewindow of soul.
You will know them by theirgifts of love.
(04:50):
You'll know them by their love.
It's been years since I wrotethis and reading it right now,
this line about how joy unveilsbefore eyes that will not see
unless they have learned togauge through the window of soul
really spoke to me as I wasreading it and I think part of
(05:13):
what is so beautiful about theword joy to me is there's so
much room for us to redefinethat concept in a way that works
for us.
And when we are looking throughthe eyes of soul, which I think
are the eyes of our heart ourheart is the doorway to the soul
, to our intuition, to ourdeeper self, to our spiritual
(05:35):
connection and when we're reallyseeing through the eyes of the
heart and the eyes of our soul,we see the tiny little miracles
and gifts in the day-to-day.
And part of expanding theconcept of joy is the
recognition that joy isn'talways some big rush or euphoric
moment or something that wefeel just like filled with
(05:59):
liquid sunshine.
When I think about the essenceof joy, if I could put it into a
little bottle and put likeessences of things that might
invoke joy to me, I would put inlike liquid sunshine and the
scent of wild oranges and theessence of watching my dog Rosie
(06:20):
run through a field ofwildflowers and the absolute joy
she has is like butterfliestake off, like if I could take
those word, pictures and thosesensations and put it into like
a little potion bottle orsomething and say here, here you
go.
This is for joy.
That is joy in its purest formto me.
(06:42):
But I think that oftentimes on aday-to-day basis we might not
always have that rush of liketotal bliss and euphoric
experience and I refuse to feelthat joy is only accessible
every now and then or like everyblue moon or something like
that.
I think maybe it is the heartrubble in me that feels a little
(07:05):
stubborn and a littlerecalcitrant and feels like I
insist on joy and I will findjoy, and joy is available if I
look for it.
I don't like thinking it's thisrare thing that we can only
experience when we are in acertain feeling state.
I think we can work on trainingour nervous systems and
(07:26):
training our mind and helpingreset ourselves and teach our
energy how to tune into thefrequency of joy, and we are
able to invoke that spirit andthat essence a little bit more
easily when we develop an eyefor joy.
And so that poem reallyreflects the idea that joy is
happening all around and it'shappening oftentimes in these
(07:49):
really quiet ways and innature's day-to-day miracles and
in all these teeny, tinymoments of hope and life and the
things that help us slow downand connect to our hearts and
connect to interconnection andremember that we're so much more
(08:09):
than some of the self-imposedlimitations and perceived
limitations of this human space.
We are these extraordinarysouls having this experience and
we are in this extraordinarilycreative planet nature and her
endless artistry, and this ideathat, no matter what happens,
(08:32):
our world does keep going andgrace is available to all of us
and it softens the things thathave pointy edges and that are
hard.
And that brings me to the nextpiece that I want to share.
That speaks a little bitfurther to the importance of joy
and this idea that we have toinsist on joy this is from Small
(08:54):
Pearls, big Wisdom and it iscalled Joy is Vital to Our Souls
.
Times of challenge and troublewill always offer us
opportunities to return toourselves.
The nature of uncertainty isdisquietude and unease.
Finding ways to anchor into ourdeeper selves is necessary in
(09:16):
our modern day world.
Anchoring in is how we listento our intuition, heed our inner
voice, return to the wisdom ofour hearts and make choices
aligned with our truth.
We return and anchor in manyways calm, rest, creativity,
appreciation, joy, nature, lovedones, solitude, small comforts,
(09:42):
simple pleasures, through actsof self-expression that circle
us into our truth, through tinycomfort rituals that give us a
sense of continuity, pleasureand peace.
This is how we return to oursoul, find the light within and
move forward, feelingenergetically nourished,
(10:02):
intentional and aligned.
In these spaces we feelbrighter and centered.
We shed the energetic debris weaccumulate from life's stress.
We find a newfound lightness ofheart.
We remember that joy is vitalto our souls.
Joy anchors us into our soul'snatural condition.
(10:23):
It cuts through the uncertaindark and returns us to a pure
space of light.
Joy is the currency of vitality.
Focusing on joy is not trivialor frivolous.
It is sustenance and a naturalantidote to antipathy, fear and
compassion fatigue.
Joy helps us feel moreenergized to engage in the world
(10:47):
with compassion, warmth andhope.
Sometimes we must stretch alittle higher to touch the good.
Every time we reach up and grabonto peace, truth, beauty,
curiosity and wonder, we tapinto joy's golden veins.
What a healing balm joy becomesin difficult times.
(11:08):
Be a channel for joy today.
Pour that frequency into theworld through your words, energy
and essence.
Like daffodil yellow sunshine,let it seep into the places
where fear and anxiety havecrept, helping warm and soften
them.
We sometimes forget that simpleacts can have a big impact.
(11:29):
We don't have to hustle to keepup and prove our relevance.
We can stand still and embodyfierce change In a wanting world
.
We can allow joy to flow fromour hearts and trust it to do
the work of love.
A few years ago, when I wrotethe original version of that
(11:52):
piece, which I think was anarticle that I published online
at some point, it was during thetime of COVID and it was during
the pandemic, during thelockdown, and I was very
fortunate to be in Kauai whenall of that was happening and
have access to nature, into theabundance and the beautiful
gifts there, and it was such astrange time for so many of us.
(12:15):
I think we probably each havethese memories and experiences
attached to that and things thatwere challenging and things
that helped us grow, and for me,as an empath, I just felt
really overwhelmed.
That's my response a lot as anempath, when things are shifting
in the world and big things arehappening.
(12:35):
I don't always know how I feelright away, and it is just my
experiences and energy sensitivethat, no matter how much I'm
doing my energetic protectionand maintenance and all those
things that are so necessary totaking care of ourselves as a
sensitive and as an empath andmaking sure that I'm feeling my
(12:57):
own feelings and not everybodyelse's.
I just can't help but spendsome of that in when I'm trying
to figure out my position withsomething so big and, as we all
know, at the time the pandemicwas going on, there was big
feelings happening and lots ofreactions and all sorts of
perspectives that people werehaving and different vantage
(13:19):
points, and so something that Ireally try and do when I'm
grappling with finding how Ifeel and trying to separate my
own point of view from thecollective, while still taking
in sources of information andremembering my innate
interconnection to everything.
I mean that's a lot to sortthrough, right.
(13:40):
It's like finding my truth asan individual and then how might
I think about this from theperspective of soul and a
spiritual perspective, andmaking a little bit of space for
how are others experiencingthis, and so like finding my
center in.
That is something that has beena challenge for me and it's
(14:00):
just a growing point.
It's something I continue togrow in and anytime we come up
against something really big andsomething that is I'll just
call it like headline news, thekinds of things going on that
impact all of us to some extent.
I try and take time and I'velearned not to rush my process
of figuring out how I feel aboutsomething and to not come up
(14:22):
with a position when I'm notsure what my position is yet.
And so I remember going forthis walk that day on Moa Lepe
Trail, which was this lovelytrail up where I lived at the
time, and it was just such abeautiful day and you know
butterflies and Kauai's red dirtand trees, and it's a really
(14:42):
peaceful place, especially ifyou are fortunate enough to be
on the trail by yourself andhave it be really quiet.
And so it was really this timeof reconnecting to my heart and
really asking, kind of openingmy heart up to spirit and just
having a dialogue and a prayerand saying like, help me make
sense of this for myself rightnow.
(15:03):
Help me figure out what can Ido right now during a time where
we're all feeling a littlerudderless.
What's my response from a humanviewpoint?
What's my response as aspiritual teacher and a writer?
Help me feel into all of thatand that's what came through is
this idea of joy and therelevancy of joy at times where
(15:27):
we might not feel particularlyjoyful.
And I really had that sense ofconviction in that moment of how
vital joy is for our souls,that it's not something
frivolous, where we work oncultivating joy, practices and
fostering joy, it's notsomething that is wasted time or
(15:49):
wasted efforts.
It's actually something highlymedicinal and something that
helps support us so that we canfind ways to stay centered, stay
in our truth and fill ourselvesup and move our energy and the
world in a way that is alignedand in connection to our purpose
(16:10):
and in service to love.
And so the origins of thatpiece came through at that time,
and something that I love somuch about being a writer and
listening to my intuition andopening up to seeing a higher
perspective is I never quiteknow what twist spirit might
(16:31):
give me to something and whatinspired idea might come from
that soulful place.
And this idea of cultivatingjoy during that time of
confusion and uncertainty was sopowerful to me and reminded me
that joy is a life force for us.
We might not always feel it,but it is always available to us
(16:54):
when we can stay connected toour hearts and stay connected to
our hope and our knowledge thatthe light is always there, even
in times that we can't see it,and we can work with the
ingredients life has handed usand work with what is available
to us and try and curate andcultivate ways to foster joy and
(17:20):
to tap into that qualities andthe ways that resonate with us.
So this last piece that I wantto share it's a fun one.
It's from my book.
It's a poetry book calledFreebird Fridays A Love Story,
and a lot of the poetry in thisbook was inspired by a couple of
things.
Some of it I wrote during thetime period right after my
(17:42):
divorce and a time that I wasgoing through.
So many lessons of growing upand learning about what love is,
tapping into the path of theheart, really learning to follow
my heart I have in my laterwork are in this book.
(18:07):
I can see, as a writer that I'mtapping into ideas and themes
that I still feel called towrite about them.
I just have a even widervantage point at this point in
time because I wrote a lot ofthese 12, 13 years ago, so it's
been a while.
And something else that reallyinspired this book is a lot of
the poetry in here is around thetime that I had met my husband
and we were in the dating phasesand falling in love and getting
(18:30):
to have all those beautifulexperiences at the time.
And then this book in general,free Bird Fridays is something
that was inspired and it was thefirst poetry book that I ever
put together and it was actuallyafter the loss of my brother
and I'd been through so muchgrittiness and hardship and life
(18:52):
going through that grief thatas I was coming out of it and
really finding my zest and thismovement in me that said I want
to live braver, and for me I waslike so that means I want to
write a book, and I had all thispoetry scattered in different
places and so this was a reallybeautiful way to bring it
(19:12):
together into a collection and Iwanted this book to feel joyful
.
I wanted the poetry in here tospark love and to spark joy.
I think I just been through somuch pain that my antidote to
that was pouring a little bitmore love into the world and
exploring different expressionsof love.
So this is a very simple poem.
It is called Peach Cobbler.
(19:34):
They had barbecue and peachcobbler and made easy
conversation about blue skies,cloudy days and spring dreams.
She told him about the time shelost her joy and how she'd
searched so hard to find it.
He told her that she was hisjoy, how he'd searched so hard
(19:56):
to find her.
They swung on the swings andlet it all wash over them the
blue, the clouds, the losingsand the findings, the joys.
I used to write these tinylittle vignettes where my
husband is from and I wasvisiting him and this captured
(20:35):
this day that we had.
We did have peach cobbler andbarbecue and we'd gone to some
playground somewhere and swungon the swings.
And we're having these heart toheart conversations and doing
that thing that you do whenyou're falling in love and you
share your life story withsomebody else.
And it was a beautiful littlesnapshot of joy and having
(20:57):
newfound hope and joy in my life.
And there's a line in here shetold him about the time she lost
her joy and how she'd searchedso hard to find it.
I don't think we can actuallylose joy, but what we can lose
is feeling like we can access it.
Joy is always available to us,but there's times on the human
(21:17):
journey when we are goingthrough grief or trauma or
something just really heavy andwe can't feel like we don't feel
the good vibrations right, wedon't feel joy, we don't feel
really connected to things andduring my spiritual awakening
process and the subsequent yearsand on my own journey, I'd had
(21:37):
some like really dark moments inthat time and really beautiful
moments.
I look back on the time periodbetween about 2011 and like 2013
and think, oh, my goodness,they were such rich years of
really learning about the shadowside of life and the light side
of life and just coming aliveto myself and coming alive to my
(21:58):
heart in a new way and comingalive to my spiritual gifts and
everything about that time whenI look back just feels very
heightened and I remember goingthrough some really big
challenges and big betrayals ofthe heart and going into these
periods of feeling depressed orfeeling kind of what's it all
(22:19):
about?
And really struggling on myjourney and then having to fight
my way back to a place ofaccessing the good again and
accessing what was beautiful andaccessing my ownership of my
own life and trying to create alife of beauty and meaning and
joy.
And so I had come through oneof those stages and come through
(22:42):
the loss of something reallydear to me and was sort of
emerging from the other side.
And as all that was happeningis when that poem was written, I
was also falling in love andgetting to know this person in
my life, and so it felt like Iemerged from this dark tunnel
and all this light was openingup to me and there's just a lot
(23:04):
of happy memories attached tothat time.
It's lovely to go back and readthose poems because they are
very much the voice of myyounger self.
But I'm so glad I took a littleword snapshot at the time and
wrote it down.
And if you are looking for atakeaway from today's podcast
and a way to integrate some ofthese ideas that I've been
(23:27):
talking about, you might try, inyour writing practice or in
your journal, writing a littlevignette about your day, writing
a little poem about it.
It doesn't have to be fancy orpoet sounding or anything like
that.
Just take the day that you'vehad, or take a moment that
beauty was somehow happening andsee if you can capture that in
(23:50):
simple sentences.
See if you can see the joy.
Take a moment to notice.
Where do you feel that joy inyour body?
What does it feel like to you.
I think we have to remindourselves joy is happening right
now and keep training our mindand training our eye to tune
into it.
And going back to what I said atthe beginning of this, I'm a
(24:13):
believer that we have to insiston joy because it can feel
elusive if we don't insist on it.
If we wait for circumstances toline up so we have a natural
feeling of happiness or euphoria, we're going to probably have
fewer and further in betweenexperiences of joy, and I want a
(24:35):
bigger concept.
I want joy to work for me.
I want it to be abundant in mylife.
I want to be able to access itevery day, even if it's a hard
day or a sticky day or somethingthat feels a little bit gray.
I want to know that it's thereand that, if I can work my joy
practices and remind myselfthese were the good things today
(24:56):
.
These are the things where joywas showing you its face and tap
into that.
I am there for it.
I insist on that.
So I hope something in thistoday has inspired and sparked
some joy for you and your weekahead.
I will be back next week with anew episode on spirituality,
(25:17):
creativity, storytelling andheart wisdom.
In the meantime, have abeautiful week, have joy and, as
always, be well, be love, beyou and be magic.
Intro/Outro Music (25:33):
You've been listening to your Heart Magic
with Dr Bethann Kopansky-Wright.
Tune in next week for a newepisode to support and empower
your light.
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