August 27, 2025 • 31 mins
Empowered Living With Jeff Byrd.
Welcome to Empowered Living. Listen as Jeff tackles critical issues in a way that brings "Insight for business, leadership, and life!
https://www.talknetworkradio.com/hosts/EmpoweredLiving
Welcome to Empowered Living. Listen as Jeff tackles critical issues in a way that brings "Insight for business, leadership, and life!
https://www.talknetworkradio.com/hosts/EmpoweredLiving
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Hello, this is Gabriella on the scene today with Top
Network Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We have a real dread for you.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Just around the corner, and that is Empowered Living with
Jeff Bird. Jeff is the owner of Jeffrey for Coaching,
and he will be coming to you weekly to teach
you more about empowered living. Now, let's join Jeff already
in the studio.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Hello and welcome.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
This is Jeff Bird with Jeffreybird Coaching, and this is
empowered Living.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Now.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
As we are getting ready to enter the month of
December tomorrow and with it the many holidays and Christmas
and this wonderful season for many of us, I was
asked recently to speak to a group on the topic
of joy. We sang joy to the world sometimes, and
we all hope that this season and the time with
(01:27):
family that it brings is a time of joy. And
to be perfectly honest with you, I had never thought
a whole lot about joy. I had passed it by
casually from time to time. But as this opportunity came up,
I started digging deeper into joy and found that more
than just being a surface kind of happy emotion, joy
(01:50):
is a profound emotion, a profound depth that touches our
core and that I am becoming convinced is what we
are made for.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
We are made for joy.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
And c Us Lewis said years ago that joy is
the language of heaven. Everything that happens there, everything is
filled and communicated in joy. And the dictionary gives the
definition of joy as to experience great pleasure or happiness.
And I think that's true on a very profound and
(02:29):
deep level. I came across a verse in Psalm thirty,
verse five that says weeping may last for the night,
but a shout of joy comes in the morning. This
is no passive, just weak or kind of shallow thing.
It's not just a casual passing happiness. It's a shout
of joy. This is something that impacts us so profoundly
(02:51):
that it's best expressed in shouting, because we're so deeply touched,
deeply moved, deeply.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Happy the world.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Our joy in Hebrew is the word rina, and it
means singing, shouting, gladness, triumph, rejoicing. This is a very
very active word, active response to something that has impacted
us on a very profound and heartfelt level. So what
I'd like to do today is to think with you
(03:23):
about the experience of joy and what are some of
the things that produce joy. How does joy work? What
happens inside of us to produce this response, because this
isn't something you can really feign or fake very well,
you know, the fake it till you make it doesn't
really work here. If you're down and you're not in
a joyful place, it's hard to produce this intensity of
(03:44):
emotion outwardly. It's something that really has to be produced
at a deep level and then be expressed outwardly. So
the first thing I'd like to share with you on
experiencing joy is it often happens when we encounter something
far greater than our minds previously conceived. In other words,
(04:06):
the mental view of things that we had was far
less than the amazing reality of what is, and when
we're brought face to face with that reality that far
surpasses the confines of our previous mental construct, joy is produced. Now,
for example, let me give you a couple of illustrations
(04:28):
from the honeymoon that my wife and I had at
in California a couple of years ago. And one of
the things we did was we visited the Redwood trees
up at Henry Cowell State Park. And if you've ever
been to the sequoias or to the redwoods, you know
that is quite an experience because previously, in our mind,
we have an idea of.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
What a tree is.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Tree, tree, oak, tree, fifty feet, sixty feet, maybe eighty
feet tall. When we think tree, we don't think redwood
and sequoia three hundred feet tall, massive trunks, trunks as
wide as some houses are, we don't think of that.
So to drive up into that woods and you're just
looking looking for the for the first tree, and we
(05:10):
didn't see it when we got into the parking lot.
We parked and we started hiking, and I thought it
wasn't going to be very impressive. I thought, oh, these
are just gonna be some little redwoods.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
And then we.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Turned a corner and bam, here are these massive, incredible,
beautiful trees thousands of years old and hundreds of feet tall,
and you're just looking up going, oh my gosh, my definition,
my mental construct of tree just totally changed, and with
(05:38):
it just a joy you just wanted to express, and
we just kept saying it over and over, Oh my gosh,
this is so amazing. This is so beautiful, This is
so wonderful. It's just so far beyond what we had imagined.
That's an encounter of joy. And another one happened on
our honeymoon moon too, and it was the first day.
And or if you if you're a surfer, or if
(05:59):
you've been out to Half Moon Bay in California, you
may be familiar with the area called Mavericks. The construct
of the ocean floor causes there to be some huge
waves that come through different seasons, and we wanted to
see this area. So we went out to Mavericks and
we went down low on the beach. The evening that
(06:20):
we got there was getting here dark and we didn't
have much time. But the next morning we decided we
wanted to go up high up on the sea cliffs
and look down. So we got there and when we
got there, it was still dark, and so we walked
out and with flashlights into this heather on these sea cliffs,
just looking down and just waiting, And as the sun
began to rise over to our side, colors started to emerge,
(06:41):
the blues and the pinks of this scene that just
spread out before us, these huge, massive sea cliffs going
as far as we could see off into the distance
on the one side, and curving around this area of
Mavericks and these long breakers rolling in and the colors emerging,
and it was so much much bigger than what I
(07:02):
had conceived it would be in my mind. To actually
be there in the midst of it was to feel
rather small, but at the same time created for this
experience of massiveness and beauty.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
So that's the first thing.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Both the Mavericks experience and the Redwood experience both put
us face to face with something that was far bigger
than what we had pictured on the inside.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
And isn't that what brings joy when.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
We come to something that's far better, far bigger, far
more beautiful than what we were believing for and what
we were thinking could be than what we had constructed
in our small worldview. And something came along and blew
that small thinking, that small living, that small worldview open
and introduced us to a huge and bigger and brighter
(07:51):
and more beautiful reality. That's why I think Lewis said
that joy is the language of Heaven. We're just constantly
being introduced to something that's far more magnificent and amazing
and profound and loving than we could ever have imagined,
and it's so joy is just a constant response to it.
And number two, I believe that joy is produced not
(08:14):
only from seeing something much bigger than what we had imagined,
but also being touched very deeply and called to by
beauty and by that which is larger than we are.
I was looking through some photos the other day. I
was looking for some royalty free photos that I could
(08:35):
use in a PowerPoint that I was putting together, and
looking at some videos with my wife and some travel
videos at the same time. Gets some inspiration, and it
came across a scene of vineyards over in France on
a cloudy day, and I think it was in Bordeaux
area region, and the rain was just falling over the vineyards.
And I've been to some vineyards in France and I
(08:57):
love rainy days, and seeing those two things to get
other just called to something in me. It was bigger
than the rain, it was bigger than the vineyard, but
something in that together just represented something so deep, so
beautiful that I was just in tears watching it because
it called me to something so like it's hard to
(09:18):
even put into words, but a beauty and a loveliness
that's out there that's beyond what we normally experience on
a daily basis. Another way this might happen is listening
to music in a foreign language. Many of you may
remember the scene in Shawshank Redemption where the main character
goes and locks himself in the in the prison director's
(09:41):
office and puts on an opera record and starts playing
this opera record, and it's this beautiful aria that's playing,
and Morgan Freeman is narrating, and he says, I don't
know what that woman was saying. None of us did,
but I'd like to think that it was something so beautiful.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
That it can't be put into words.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
And often, just you know, I think that's part of
the fun of listening to people speaking another language that
we don't understand, is it just seems like maybe they're
talking about something just so wonderful that's beyond the daily
grind of things that we talk about in the language
we do understand. Maybe they're on a different wavelength, maybe
they're coming from a different place and a different beautiful vision.
And sometimes the music, certainly in some of the beautiful
(10:27):
operatic works and others, that seem that way. Now here's
one that touched me very deeply a number of years ago.
I'm not exactly sure why, but I related with it
the minute I saw it. It's probably been nearly pushing
thirty years ago now. And this was from a book
by C. S. Lewis called Surprised by Joy, and he
recounts an instance where he was flipping through some books
(10:50):
and this is what he says, like a voice from
far more distant regions. There came a moment when I
idly turned the pages of the book and found the
unrhymed translation of Tegner's drop up and read. I heard
a voice that cried Balder, The beautiful is dead, is dead.
(11:10):
I knew nothing about Balder, but was instantly uplifted into
huge regions of northern sky. I desired with almost sickeningly intensity,
something never to be described except that it is cold, spacious, severe,
pale and remote. And then, as in other examples, found
myself already falling out of that desire and wishing I
(11:32):
were back in it. Here's a situation where just a
simple phrase that he didn't even understand what it meant.
I heard a voice that cried Balder, The beautiful is dead,
is dead. He read that phrase in a book and
knew nothing about what it meant. But something in it,
something far bigger than his conscious understanding, called to him
and drew him into this beautiful space of this vast
(11:55):
northern sky and the feeling of being there. But then
almost as soon as he was there, he felt himself
slipping out of it and wishing he were back there again.
So joy, I believe, is often those moments. It's like
the opening of a door into a darkened room, where
a brief ray of light shines in from beyond, from
the heavenly realm, from the greater realms than what we
(12:17):
experience in the physical and the natural here on earth.
And it's those rays of light that touch us, and
almost as soon as they do, they fleet away very often,
but they leave us instantly wanting more to be back
in there. And it just tells me that we're made
for more than what we're often experiencing in this life.
We are made for joy, We are made for those
(12:38):
endless realms. The first what I consider spiritual awakening that
I ever had, I was eighteen or nineteen years old,
and I was at that time I was not doing well.
I was just felt very broken in a lot of ways,
didn't trust many people at all, for be it church,
or family or school, and was just trying to escape
(12:58):
in every way possible. But there was something inside that
longing that just kept calling. And as I was driving
over a bridge for those of you who live in
this area, the Hampton Boulevard Bridge, I was driving over
the Hampton Boulevard Bridge on my way to the local university,
Old Dominion, And as I was driving over that bridge,
it was raining, and on the radio station I was
(13:21):
listening to, they were playing a song by the Who
called Love Rain or Me, and that song says only
love can bring the rain that falls like tears from
on high. And as I was driving across the bridge,
the windshield wipers were going, the rain was falling, my
tears were falling. I was looking out across the river
that the bridge spans and felt as though I could
(13:42):
see every rain drop that was.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Coming down hitting the water and leaving just beautiful, intricate
pattern of concentric circles on the water. And I knew
that they were absolutely right in that song that only
love can bring the rain that falls like tears from
on high, And I knew that was something greater. I
knew that there was something not that I was even
calling for. Really in those days, I was trying to
(14:06):
run more than I was trying to find, but something
that was calling me. There was a love that was greater,
that was like the tears that fall from on high,
something big enough of heaven that it was going to
come and touch me here on earth. And that was
what I considered. That was a wake up.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
That was the very first spiritual wake up that I
had that there was something greater calling me and drawing
me up into it. Next, and this is third. Another
experience of joy is belonging, the sense of belonging, being
chosen for a team being Like the old Cheers theme
song said, well being where everybody knows your name, but
(14:45):
not only just having them know your name, having them
actually know you and accept you for who you are.
So many people feels, as has been said, well yeah,
if you really knew me, you wouldn't love me. But
to really be known and to be loved that brains
an absolute joy, unspeakable, just natural uprising in us. There
(15:08):
were several times when I experienced the opposite of this
growing up, and one time I didn't have any friends
in high school. But the couple I did, I thought
they were very good friends. And I remember one day
they were going up to a nearby city about an
hour and a half away or so. Some of them
were in the band, and they were going up to
perform for the band, and then they were going to
a local theme park. So I went up and met
them and went to the theme park with them, And
(15:29):
I remember that after a little while of going and
doing things in this theme park together, a couple of
them looked at each other, laughed, and just took off,
running and away from me. So I spent a little
time trying to chase after them, lost them, and then
bent walked that entire theme park, which was huge, a
couple of times trying to find them, and just left there.
(15:50):
Never did find them, just left their feeling extremely dejected,
came speeding back home, got two tickets that night on
the interstate, came home, got drunk, just tried to numb that,
because not belonging is the antithesis of joy.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
But belonging to truly be known, to truly be accepted,
to truly be loved for who you are, that brings joy,
and a profound joy at that the next number four,
This is the fourth thing I want to give you
is joy arises and is experienced by being seen.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
As your most beautiful self beyond what we can see
with our eyes, beyond what we can understand, but what
calls to us from those regions beyond. Why do we
all care what we look like? Why do we all
care what people think? Why do we care so much?
Why do we spend why do people Some people spend
so much time in the gym or on clothing or
(16:44):
cosmetics or whatever it is that they do that they
think is going to get them one step closer to
becoming that incredibly innately beautiful self that they have a
concept of somewhere in their other than conscious mind. We
all know that there's something there that's more beautiful than
what we experience. And to have somebody come along and
(17:05):
to see that at us, and this works everywhere. Let
me tell you to see people as they're To see
someone as their very best. To believe in them before
they believe in themselves. If they're on your team at work,
if they report to you, if they're in your family,
if they're a neighbor, if they're a friend. To have
anybody come along, especially at a downtime, and say, hey,
you know what, that might not have worked out so good,
you might not be feeling so hot today, But I
(17:27):
see you. I don't see you with my eye. I
see you through my eye through to the heart, through
to that other than conscious mind area that just knows
you are far more than what you're seen and what
I'm even seen. I just know that your most incredibly
overwhelmingly beautiful self is there, and that it's going to
(17:49):
be revealed one day, and that in the meantime we
can keep walking towards it. But to see somebody like
that and to truly believe that that produces joy as well. Now,
another thing I'm going to tell you a joy. As
I was thinking about this, it came to me is
that joy longs to be shared. There's there's a big
difference between watching sunset over the Grand Canyon alone and
(18:11):
watching it with somebody else. Even my wife and I
affer will be sitting on the beach just looking at
the clouds and oh do you see that? Do you
see that? Oh did you see the dolphin jump? Did
you see the turnfly behind you? See what that cloud
looks like? And just it's one thing to just see it,
know that it's there. That's a certain type of joy,
But then there's a very different type of joy that
comes from a shared joy. And another book, I'm kind
(18:32):
of on a C. S. Lewis kick today. It appears
that wasn't delivered. It just kind of happened. But there's
a book that my wife and I have been reading
called A Severe Mercy, and it's by the author is
Sheldon van Alkin, but it has letters that he wrote
back and forth with C. S. Lewis, and it tells
a very beautiful, touching tale of romance and marriage and
(18:53):
and just extreme closeness, the kind that most of us
just long for. But they had it, they really worked
towards it. But early on in the marriage is a
very young woman, the wife Davy, contracted cancer and she
didn't get better. In spite of all of their hopes
and all of their prayers, she got worse. And at
the point where she was near near comatose in the
(19:15):
bed just before she passed, her husband was there, Sheldon
val Aalkin was there with her, and just before she
died she came to fully aware and gazing. There wasn't
anything in the room. But it's like she was gazing
through that curtain of time into the next dimension that
has always been calling, and saw the most beautiful things
(19:37):
she could ever see. And she took his hand and
she said, look, dear heart, and she was gone, moved
over into that other side, to the other dimension. But
even in that parting moment of seeing all that lay
before her, whatever that may be, her desire was to
share it with him and to have him see it too.
(19:57):
So joy is most profoundly realized when shared. Then there's
also this number six. There's a relief of joy. There's
a verse in Some one six one through two that says,
when the Lord brought back the captive ones of Zion,
we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was
(20:17):
filled with laughter, and our tongue with joyful shouting.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Shouting.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Again, there's another translation that I liked. It says when
the Lord returned the fortunes of Zion, they were in
a state where they couldn't care for themselves. They were
captives in a farm land. There's too much backstory to
explain right now, but suffice it to say there's been
many people displaced from their home, displaced from the good
that they would have who have lost businesses, money, fortunes,
(20:44):
and to have those restored, to have restoration come. It
says we were like those who dream. Our mouth was
filled with laughter and our tongue with joyful shouting. Now
often it's it's what we become in those times of
waiting and working towards the goal and trusting and becoming
developed on the inside that make us able to do
what we need to do on the outside when the
(21:04):
fortunes are restored. But boy, to have that come back,
to have something lost that ached to come back, Our
mouths were filled with laughter and our true with joyful shouting.
Now also, fortunes can be restored, hearts can be healed.
Joy can heal. I believe every hurt and restore all laws.
(21:25):
I think that there is in all of our hearts.
There's so many losses, and it hurts so much to
hear about the things that people have lost and the
anguish that they're going through. But I always believe there's
a joy that can come that's greater than those losses.
That's going to come if we'll hang in there a
little bit longer and look for it, there's going to
come a restoration and it can heal hearts. It can
(21:46):
also heal our bodies. There's a huge joy that comes
when there's physical healing. I have a dear friend and
she has had the worst year ever, diagnosed with cancer
and heart issues and kidney issues and colon issues and
just infections, every kind of thing. And we just we've
scratched our heads and just been in bewilderment while you know,
(22:09):
just praying that she be raised up, and just got
the post a couple of days ago that a procedure
had been successful and she has now been declared cancer free.
And the joy that came from that, we were just
my wife and I we were shouting and just in
tremendous gratitude and just overwhelmed by it. Of how how
(22:30):
after all the bad news, how good it was to
hear of this healing. And also not only our bodies,
but our relationships can be healed. When our relationship is healed,
when somebody finally sees the light, and when somebody's heart
is finally softened in forgiveness, and when the hearts that
had been hurt by each other can come back to
each other and restore value to each other, see them
(22:52):
with the value that wasn't seen to start with and
let down the walls and begin to trust again. Maybe
it's little by little, but relations can be healed too,
and then that brings the joy as well. And the
last thing I have for you, number seven, it's on
giving joy. Joy is sometimes often best experienced when we
are giving it to others, seeing others as better than
(23:14):
they see themselves. We already spoke about that, but to
see that image of them, to hold to that true
image and vision of who they're meant to be, regardless
of where they are right at the moment. It's really
good to have a vision beyond the moment, for both
ourselves and other people and creating joyful experiences for them.
I think of the kids on Christmas morning, you know.
I can remember as a child getting up very very
(23:37):
early on Christmas morning to plug in the tree.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
We had those old big glass bulbs.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
And the specific type of light that that would cast
in the living room, and I would just lay there
for hours, just kind of between wake and sleep and
dream land and wondering what was in the packages, but
just that sense, and I didn't think through it at
the time, but just knowing that, hey, somebody was thinking
about me. Somebody cared about me, somebody loves me, somebody's
done something for me. I wonder what it is is
you and just waiting anxiously like the song says.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
You got to get up, you gotta get up, you
got to get up.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
It's Christmas morning, and waiting for my parents to get
up so we could finally see what was in the gifts.
And then also introducing people to new beauty, to new opportunities,
to new ways that they can be fulfilled. I'll never
forget a friend of mine chat Percival that he was
the physics high school teacher that offered a bird watching
elective in eighth grade, and I took that elective and
(24:27):
it helped me so much to give me a focal
point and something that I loved in high school because
I wasn't very social at the time and not doing
that well, and introduced me to travel and to other
countries and to so much, and also years later would
become the basis for starting a photography business.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
It's the way that I.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Met my wife by posting a photo of a bird
that I took in a Facebook group and she got
in touch and as permission to paint it in a
couple of years later we were married. But you never
know when you introduced somebody to something beautiful or some
new opportunity, what fulfillment, what joy might come out of it.
So thank you so much for tuning, and we're going
to be back in just a minute after a short
(25:04):
break to look at two applications of applying joy to
our lives.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Jeff will be back shortly to wrap up today's message.
This is Gabriela still on the scene today with Top
Network Radio. If you're just tuning in, you're listening to
Empowered Living with Jeff Bird. If you've missed any part
of today's message, you can hear it again online as
well as the entire archive of Empowered Living at www
(25:34):
dot Topnetwork Radio dot com or search keyword cashtag empowered Living.
We would like to acknowledge our music partners Sound Ideas
for Corporate to the Max and Kevin McLeod for Airport Launch.
Any scriptures read during this broadcast are from the New
(25:54):
American Standard version of the Holy Bible. If you would
like to learn more about Jeffreybird Coaching, visit www dot
Jeffbirdcoaching dot com. That is j e f f B
y r D Coaching dot com. Do a Facebook search
for at coaching rocks or drop Jeff Aline at Jeff
(26:19):
at Jeffbirdcoaching dot com. Again j e F f B
y r D Coaching dot com. Let Jeff's coaching rocks
be the building blocks of your empowered success. Now let's
go back to Jeff for the rest of today's message.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
And thank you so much for staying tuned in with us.
This is Jeff Bird with Jeffreybird Coaching, and this is
empowered living. Uh. We've been talking about joy today and
I've given you seven steps in the experience of joy.
But what I'd like to leave you with is two
applications today. First appletion on joy is that joy is
(27:02):
all around us in this world, and it's in the colors,
it's in the beauty, it's in the music, it's in
the people around us, but we have to look for it.
But there's also the joy that we can perceive with
the senses. But there's also, like we talked about, a
joy that's beyond those senses, that is calling us, calling us,
(27:23):
calling us to wholeness, to our best selves, to a
view of life and self and others that we and
God that we have yet to get much of a
grasp on. And this is my advice on this to
myself and all of us, is to seek it and
to ask for it, and to never ever rest until
(27:43):
we find it any like C. S.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Lewis also said.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
He said that if we, in our quest for wholeness,
for completeness, for reality, if everything that doesn't work we
resolutely abandon and keep seeking, it will lead us to God.
It will lead us to wholeness, it will lead us
to completeness. That's why we're told to asking. It will
(28:07):
be given to us seek and we will find knocking.
The door will be open when we seek it and
ask it and abandon the things that don't work, that
don't provide this deep seated joy and wholeness and completeness.
And if we'll leave those things alone and keep looking,
we are going to find them, it is promised. And
when we do, we're going to have what our next
(28:28):
session is going to be about, contentment. And contentment helps
a lot, So please come back and tune in for
that next week. But for right now, that's number one
is joy is all around us. To seek it and
to keep seeking it and to never stop until we
find it, or maybe until it finds us. And number
two is create joy for others. Introduce them to wonder,
(28:54):
create a sense of belonging for them. Let them know, hey,
I see you beyond what you see, and you matter,
and you belove, You have a place. You may not
have discovered it yet, but I know it's there for you.
See them with perfect eyes, See with perfect eyes what
cannot be seen, not seen with our eyes, seeing through
our eye from heart to heart, and see what they're becoming,
(29:16):
See what they're meant for. See beyond with spiritual eyes,
with eyes from the heart, see beyond into what they
can be, and believe wholeheartedly in that and support them
wholeheartedly in that. Then see their value, the value and
their gifts, the value and their abilities, and to the
best of your ability, create opportunities for them to express
that and to keep moving forward one step at a time,
(29:39):
and then show them restoration. We talked about restoration in
a number of categories, financial, heart restoration, relational restoration, and
in those in those ways, so many of those things,
where so many of us are in the midst of
those right now. Just keep showing people the restoration that
is possible, that can come through God odds of goodness,
(30:00):
through our perseverance, through our not giving up, and through
our faith to continue to move forward. Show them examples
of that restoration that can come that's going to produce joy,
and keep that vision of joy out before them so
that it'll give them the courage to keep going, because
I tell you, anything worth doing is uphill, and it
can get really discouraging at times along the way. We
(30:21):
need each other to help remind us and help us
keep taking that next step. Sometimes we got to kind
of put an arm around their shoulder and help them
take that next step because it's just they're just out
of gas. But to keep them moving towards that direction,
the right direction, and that vision of joy and fulfillment
and completion that's actually there. So thank you so much
for tuning in. I do wish you a joyful and
(30:43):
joy filled holiday season.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
This is jeff Bird with
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Jeffrey Bird Coaching, and this is Empowered Living
Hello, this is Gabriella on the scene today with Top
Network Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We have a real dread for you.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Just around the corner, and that is Empowered Living with
Jeff Bird. Jeff is the owner of Jeffrey for Coaching,
and he will be coming to you weekly to teach
you more about empowered living. Now, let's join Jeff already
in the studio.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Hello and welcome.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
This is Jeff Bird with Jeffreybird Coaching, and this is
empowered Living.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Now.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
As we are getting ready to enter the month of
December tomorrow and with it the many holidays and Christmas
and this wonderful season for many of us, I was
asked recently to speak to a group on the topic
of joy. We sang joy to the world sometimes, and
we all hope that this season and the time with
(01:27):
family that it brings is a time of joy. And
to be perfectly honest with you, I had never thought
a whole lot about joy. I had passed it by
casually from time to time. But as this opportunity came up,
I started digging deeper into joy and found that more
than just being a surface kind of happy emotion, joy
(01:50):
is a profound emotion, a profound depth that touches our
core and that I am becoming convinced is what we
are made for.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
We are made for joy.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
And c Us Lewis said years ago that joy is
the language of heaven. Everything that happens there, everything is
filled and communicated in joy. And the dictionary gives the
definition of joy as to experience great pleasure or happiness.
And I think that's true on a very profound and
(02:29):
deep level. I came across a verse in Psalm thirty,
verse five that says weeping may last for the night,
but a shout of joy comes in the morning. This
is no passive, just weak or kind of shallow thing.
It's not just a casual passing happiness. It's a shout
of joy. This is something that impacts us so profoundly
(02:51):
that it's best expressed in shouting, because we're so deeply touched,
deeply moved, deeply.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Happy the world.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Our joy in Hebrew is the word rina, and it
means singing, shouting, gladness, triumph, rejoicing. This is a very
very active word, active response to something that has impacted
us on a very profound and heartfelt level. So what
I'd like to do today is to think with you
(03:23):
about the experience of joy and what are some of
the things that produce joy. How does joy work? What
happens inside of us to produce this response, because this
isn't something you can really feign or fake very well,
you know, the fake it till you make it doesn't
really work here. If you're down and you're not in
a joyful place, it's hard to produce this intensity of
(03:44):
emotion outwardly. It's something that really has to be produced
at a deep level and then be expressed outwardly. So
the first thing I'd like to share with you on
experiencing joy is it often happens when we encounter something
far greater than our minds previously conceived. In other words,
(04:06):
the mental view of things that we had was far
less than the amazing reality of what is, and when
we're brought face to face with that reality that far
surpasses the confines of our previous mental construct, joy is produced. Now,
for example, let me give you a couple of illustrations
(04:28):
from the honeymoon that my wife and I had at
in California a couple of years ago. And one of
the things we did was we visited the Redwood trees
up at Henry Cowell State Park. And if you've ever
been to the sequoias or to the redwoods, you know
that is quite an experience because previously, in our mind,
we have an idea of.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
What a tree is.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Tree, tree, oak, tree, fifty feet, sixty feet, maybe eighty
feet tall. When we think tree, we don't think redwood
and sequoia three hundred feet tall, massive trunks, trunks as
wide as some houses are, we don't think of that.
So to drive up into that woods and you're just
looking looking for the for the first tree, and we
(05:10):
didn't see it when we got into the parking lot.
We parked and we started hiking, and I thought it
wasn't going to be very impressive. I thought, oh, these
are just gonna be some little redwoods.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
And then we.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Turned a corner and bam, here are these massive, incredible,
beautiful trees thousands of years old and hundreds of feet tall,
and you're just looking up going, oh my gosh, my definition,
my mental construct of tree just totally changed, and with
(05:38):
it just a joy you just wanted to express, and
we just kept saying it over and over, Oh my gosh,
this is so amazing. This is so beautiful, This is
so wonderful. It's just so far beyond what we had imagined.
That's an encounter of joy. And another one happened on
our honeymoon moon too, and it was the first day.
And or if you if you're a surfer, or if
(05:59):
you've been out to Half Moon Bay in California, you
may be familiar with the area called Mavericks. The construct
of the ocean floor causes there to be some huge
waves that come through different seasons, and we wanted to
see this area. So we went out to Mavericks and
we went down low on the beach. The evening that
(06:20):
we got there was getting here dark and we didn't
have much time. But the next morning we decided we
wanted to go up high up on the sea cliffs
and look down. So we got there and when we
got there, it was still dark, and so we walked
out and with flashlights into this heather on these sea cliffs,
just looking down and just waiting, And as the sun
began to rise over to our side, colors started to emerge,
(06:41):
the blues and the pinks of this scene that just
spread out before us, these huge, massive sea cliffs going
as far as we could see off into the distance
on the one side, and curving around this area of
Mavericks and these long breakers rolling in and the colors emerging,
and it was so much much bigger than what I
(07:02):
had conceived it would be in my mind. To actually
be there in the midst of it was to feel
rather small, but at the same time created for this
experience of massiveness and beauty.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
So that's the first thing.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Both the Mavericks experience and the Redwood experience both put
us face to face with something that was far bigger
than what we had pictured on the inside.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
And isn't that what brings joy when.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
We come to something that's far better, far bigger, far
more beautiful than what we were believing for and what
we were thinking could be than what we had constructed
in our small worldview. And something came along and blew
that small thinking, that small living, that small worldview open
and introduced us to a huge and bigger and brighter
(07:51):
and more beautiful reality. That's why I think Lewis said
that joy is the language of Heaven. We're just constantly
being introduced to something that's far more magnificent and amazing
and profound and loving than we could ever have imagined,
and it's so joy is just a constant response to it.
And number two, I believe that joy is produced not
(08:14):
only from seeing something much bigger than what we had imagined,
but also being touched very deeply and called to by
beauty and by that which is larger than we are.
I was looking through some photos the other day. I
was looking for some royalty free photos that I could
(08:35):
use in a PowerPoint that I was putting together, and
looking at some videos with my wife and some travel
videos at the same time. Gets some inspiration, and it
came across a scene of vineyards over in France on
a cloudy day, and I think it was in Bordeaux
area region, and the rain was just falling over the vineyards.
And I've been to some vineyards in France and I
(08:57):
love rainy days, and seeing those two things to get
other just called to something in me. It was bigger
than the rain, it was bigger than the vineyard, but
something in that together just represented something so deep, so
beautiful that I was just in tears watching it because
it called me to something so like it's hard to
(09:18):
even put into words, but a beauty and a loveliness
that's out there that's beyond what we normally experience on
a daily basis. Another way this might happen is listening
to music in a foreign language. Many of you may
remember the scene in Shawshank Redemption where the main character
goes and locks himself in the in the prison director's
(09:41):
office and puts on an opera record and starts playing
this opera record, and it's this beautiful aria that's playing,
and Morgan Freeman is narrating, and he says, I don't
know what that woman was saying. None of us did,
but I'd like to think that it was something so beautiful.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
That it can't be put into words.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
And often, just you know, I think that's part of
the fun of listening to people speaking another language that
we don't understand, is it just seems like maybe they're
talking about something just so wonderful that's beyond the daily
grind of things that we talk about in the language
we do understand. Maybe they're on a different wavelength, maybe
they're coming from a different place and a different beautiful vision.
And sometimes the music, certainly in some of the beautiful
(10:27):
operatic works and others, that seem that way. Now here's
one that touched me very deeply a number of years ago.
I'm not exactly sure why, but I related with it
the minute I saw it. It's probably been nearly pushing
thirty years ago now. And this was from a book
by C. S. Lewis called Surprised by Joy, and he
recounts an instance where he was flipping through some books
(10:50):
and this is what he says, like a voice from
far more distant regions. There came a moment when I
idly turned the pages of the book and found the
unrhymed translation of Tegner's drop up and read. I heard
a voice that cried Balder, The beautiful is dead, is dead.
(11:10):
I knew nothing about Balder, but was instantly uplifted into
huge regions of northern sky. I desired with almost sickeningly intensity,
something never to be described except that it is cold, spacious, severe,
pale and remote. And then, as in other examples, found
myself already falling out of that desire and wishing I
(11:32):
were back in it. Here's a situation where just a
simple phrase that he didn't even understand what it meant.
I heard a voice that cried Balder, The beautiful is dead,
is dead. He read that phrase in a book and
knew nothing about what it meant. But something in it,
something far bigger than his conscious understanding, called to him
and drew him into this beautiful space of this vast
(11:55):
northern sky and the feeling of being there. But then
almost as soon as he was there, he felt himself
slipping out of it and wishing he were back there again.
So joy, I believe, is often those moments. It's like
the opening of a door into a darkened room, where
a brief ray of light shines in from beyond, from
the heavenly realm, from the greater realms than what we
(12:17):
experience in the physical and the natural here on earth.
And it's those rays of light that touch us, and
almost as soon as they do, they fleet away very often,
but they leave us instantly wanting more to be back
in there. And it just tells me that we're made
for more than what we're often experiencing in this life.
We are made for joy, We are made for those
(12:38):
endless realms. The first what I consider spiritual awakening that
I ever had, I was eighteen or nineteen years old,
and I was at that time I was not doing well.
I was just felt very broken in a lot of ways,
didn't trust many people at all, for be it church,
or family or school, and was just trying to escape
(12:58):
in every way possible. But there was something inside that
longing that just kept calling. And as I was driving
over a bridge for those of you who live in
this area, the Hampton Boulevard Bridge, I was driving over
the Hampton Boulevard Bridge on my way to the local university,
Old Dominion, And as I was driving over that bridge,
it was raining, and on the radio station I was
(13:21):
listening to, they were playing a song by the Who
called Love Rain or Me, and that song says only
love can bring the rain that falls like tears from
on high. And as I was driving across the bridge,
the windshield wipers were going, the rain was falling, my
tears were falling. I was looking out across the river
that the bridge spans and felt as though I could
(13:42):
see every rain drop that was.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Coming down hitting the water and leaving just beautiful, intricate
pattern of concentric circles on the water. And I knew
that they were absolutely right in that song that only
love can bring the rain that falls like tears from
on high, And I knew that was something greater. I
knew that there was something not that I was even
calling for. Really in those days, I was trying to
(14:06):
run more than I was trying to find, but something
that was calling me. There was a love that was greater,
that was like the tears that fall from on high,
something big enough of heaven that it was going to
come and touch me here on earth. And that was
what I considered. That was a wake up.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
That was the very first spiritual wake up that I
had that there was something greater calling me and drawing
me up into it. Next, and this is third. Another
experience of joy is belonging, the sense of belonging, being
chosen for a team being Like the old Cheers theme
song said, well being where everybody knows your name, but
(14:45):
not only just having them know your name, having them
actually know you and accept you for who you are.
So many people feels, as has been said, well yeah,
if you really knew me, you wouldn't love me. But
to really be known and to be loved that brains
an absolute joy, unspeakable, just natural uprising in us. There
(15:08):
were several times when I experienced the opposite of this
growing up, and one time I didn't have any friends
in high school. But the couple I did, I thought
they were very good friends. And I remember one day
they were going up to a nearby city about an
hour and a half away or so. Some of them
were in the band, and they were going up to
perform for the band, and then they were going to
a local theme park. So I went up and met
them and went to the theme park with them, And
(15:29):
I remember that after a little while of going and
doing things in this theme park together, a couple of
them looked at each other, laughed, and just took off,
running and away from me. So I spent a little
time trying to chase after them, lost them, and then
bent walked that entire theme park, which was huge, a
couple of times trying to find them, and just left there.
(15:50):
Never did find them, just left their feeling extremely dejected,
came speeding back home, got two tickets that night on
the interstate, came home, got drunk, just tried to numb that,
because not belonging is the antithesis of joy.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
But belonging to truly be known, to truly be accepted,
to truly be loved for who you are, that brings joy,
and a profound joy at that the next number four,
This is the fourth thing I want to give you
is joy arises and is experienced by being seen.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
As your most beautiful self beyond what we can see
with our eyes, beyond what we can understand, but what
calls to us from those regions beyond. Why do we
all care what we look like? Why do we all
care what people think? Why do we care so much?
Why do we spend why do people Some people spend
so much time in the gym or on clothing or
(16:44):
cosmetics or whatever it is that they do that they
think is going to get them one step closer to
becoming that incredibly innately beautiful self that they have a
concept of somewhere in their other than conscious mind. We
all know that there's something there that's more beautiful than
what we experience. And to have somebody come along and
(17:05):
to see that at us, and this works everywhere. Let
me tell you to see people as they're To see
someone as their very best. To believe in them before
they believe in themselves. If they're on your team at work,
if they report to you, if they're in your family,
if they're a neighbor, if they're a friend. To have
anybody come along, especially at a downtime, and say, hey,
you know what, that might not have worked out so good,
you might not be feeling so hot today, But I
(17:27):
see you. I don't see you with my eye. I
see you through my eye through to the heart, through
to that other than conscious mind area that just knows
you are far more than what you're seen and what
I'm even seen. I just know that your most incredibly
overwhelmingly beautiful self is there, and that it's going to
(17:49):
be revealed one day, and that in the meantime we
can keep walking towards it. But to see somebody like
that and to truly believe that that produces joy as well. Now,
another thing I'm going to tell you a joy. As
I was thinking about this, it came to me is
that joy longs to be shared. There's there's a big
difference between watching sunset over the Grand Canyon alone and
(18:11):
watching it with somebody else. Even my wife and I
affer will be sitting on the beach just looking at
the clouds and oh do you see that? Do you
see that? Oh did you see the dolphin jump? Did
you see the turnfly behind you? See what that cloud
looks like? And just it's one thing to just see it,
know that it's there. That's a certain type of joy,
But then there's a very different type of joy that
comes from a shared joy. And another book, I'm kind
(18:32):
of on a C. S. Lewis kick today. It appears
that wasn't delivered. It just kind of happened. But there's
a book that my wife and I have been reading
called A Severe Mercy, and it's by the author is
Sheldon van Alkin, but it has letters that he wrote
back and forth with C. S. Lewis, and it tells
a very beautiful, touching tale of romance and marriage and
(18:53):
and just extreme closeness, the kind that most of us
just long for. But they had it, they really worked
towards it. But early on in the marriage is a
very young woman, the wife Davy, contracted cancer and she
didn't get better. In spite of all of their hopes
and all of their prayers, she got worse. And at
the point where she was near near comatose in the
(19:15):
bed just before she passed, her husband was there, Sheldon
val Aalkin was there with her, and just before she
died she came to fully aware and gazing. There wasn't
anything in the room. But it's like she was gazing
through that curtain of time into the next dimension that
has always been calling, and saw the most beautiful things
(19:37):
she could ever see. And she took his hand and
she said, look, dear heart, and she was gone, moved
over into that other side, to the other dimension. But
even in that parting moment of seeing all that lay
before her, whatever that may be, her desire was to
share it with him and to have him see it too.
(19:57):
So joy is most profoundly realized when shared. Then there's
also this number six. There's a relief of joy. There's
a verse in Some one six one through two that says,
when the Lord brought back the captive ones of Zion,
we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was
(20:17):
filled with laughter, and our tongue with joyful shouting.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Shouting.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Again, there's another translation that I liked. It says when
the Lord returned the fortunes of Zion, they were in
a state where they couldn't care for themselves. They were
captives in a farm land. There's too much backstory to
explain right now, but suffice it to say there's been
many people displaced from their home, displaced from the good
that they would have who have lost businesses, money, fortunes,
(20:44):
and to have those restored, to have restoration come. It
says we were like those who dream. Our mouth was
filled with laughter and our tongue with joyful shouting. Now
often it's it's what we become in those times of
waiting and working towards the goal and trusting and becoming
developed on the inside that make us able to do
what we need to do on the outside when the
(21:04):
fortunes are restored. But boy, to have that come back,
to have something lost that ached to come back, Our
mouths were filled with laughter and our true with joyful shouting.
Now also, fortunes can be restored, hearts can be healed.
Joy can heal. I believe every hurt and restore all laws.
(21:25):
I think that there is in all of our hearts.
There's so many losses, and it hurts so much to
hear about the things that people have lost and the
anguish that they're going through. But I always believe there's
a joy that can come that's greater than those losses.
That's going to come if we'll hang in there a
little bit longer and look for it, there's going to
come a restoration and it can heal hearts. It can
(21:46):
also heal our bodies. There's a huge joy that comes
when there's physical healing. I have a dear friend and
she has had the worst year ever, diagnosed with cancer
and heart issues and kidney issues and colon issues and
just infections, every kind of thing. And we just we've
scratched our heads and just been in bewilderment while you know,
(22:09):
just praying that she be raised up, and just got
the post a couple of days ago that a procedure
had been successful and she has now been declared cancer free.
And the joy that came from that, we were just
my wife and I we were shouting and just in
tremendous gratitude and just overwhelmed by it. Of how how
(22:30):
after all the bad news, how good it was to
hear of this healing. And also not only our bodies,
but our relationships can be healed. When our relationship is healed,
when somebody finally sees the light, and when somebody's heart
is finally softened in forgiveness, and when the hearts that
had been hurt by each other can come back to
each other and restore value to each other, see them
(22:52):
with the value that wasn't seen to start with and
let down the walls and begin to trust again. Maybe
it's little by little, but relations can be healed too,
and then that brings the joy as well. And the
last thing I have for you, number seven, it's on
giving joy. Joy is sometimes often best experienced when we
are giving it to others, seeing others as better than
(23:14):
they see themselves. We already spoke about that, but to
see that image of them, to hold to that true
image and vision of who they're meant to be, regardless
of where they are right at the moment. It's really
good to have a vision beyond the moment, for both
ourselves and other people and creating joyful experiences for them.
I think of the kids on Christmas morning, you know.
I can remember as a child getting up very very
(23:37):
early on Christmas morning to plug in the tree.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
We had those old big glass bulbs.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
And the specific type of light that that would cast
in the living room, and I would just lay there
for hours, just kind of between wake and sleep and
dream land and wondering what was in the packages, but
just that sense, and I didn't think through it at
the time, but just knowing that, hey, somebody was thinking
about me. Somebody cared about me, somebody loves me, somebody's
done something for me. I wonder what it is is
you and just waiting anxiously like the song says.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
You got to get up, you gotta get up, you
got to get up.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
It's Christmas morning, and waiting for my parents to get
up so we could finally see what was in the gifts.
And then also introducing people to new beauty, to new opportunities,
to new ways that they can be fulfilled. I'll never
forget a friend of mine chat Percival that he was
the physics high school teacher that offered a bird watching
elective in eighth grade, and I took that elective and
(24:27):
it helped me so much to give me a focal
point and something that I loved in high school because
I wasn't very social at the time and not doing
that well, and introduced me to travel and to other
countries and to so much, and also years later would
become the basis for starting a photography business.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
It's the way that I.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Met my wife by posting a photo of a bird
that I took in a Facebook group and she got
in touch and as permission to paint it in a
couple of years later we were married. But you never
know when you introduced somebody to something beautiful or some
new opportunity, what fulfillment, what joy might come out of it.
So thank you so much for tuning, and we're going
to be back in just a minute after a short
(25:04):
break to look at two applications of applying joy to
our lives.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Jeff will be back shortly to wrap up today's message.
This is Gabriela still on the scene today with Top
Network Radio. If you're just tuning in, you're listening to
Empowered Living with Jeff Bird. If you've missed any part
of today's message, you can hear it again online as
well as the entire archive of Empowered Living at www
(25:34):
dot Topnetwork Radio dot com or search keyword cashtag empowered Living.
We would like to acknowledge our music partners Sound Ideas
for Corporate to the Max and Kevin McLeod for Airport Launch.
Any scriptures read during this broadcast are from the New
(25:54):
American Standard version of the Holy Bible. If you would
like to learn more about Jeffreybird Coaching, visit www dot
Jeffbirdcoaching dot com. That is j e f f B
y r D Coaching dot com. Do a Facebook search
for at coaching rocks or drop Jeff Aline at Jeff
(26:19):
at Jeffbirdcoaching dot com. Again j e F f B
y r D Coaching dot com. Let Jeff's coaching rocks
be the building blocks of your empowered success. Now let's
go back to Jeff for the rest of today's message.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
And thank you so much for staying tuned in with us.
This is Jeff Bird with Jeffreybird Coaching, and this is
empowered living. Uh. We've been talking about joy today and
I've given you seven steps in the experience of joy.
But what I'd like to leave you with is two
applications today. First appletion on joy is that joy is
(27:02):
all around us in this world, and it's in the colors,
it's in the beauty, it's in the music, it's in
the people around us, but we have to look for it.
But there's also the joy that we can perceive with
the senses. But there's also, like we talked about, a
joy that's beyond those senses, that is calling us, calling us,
(27:23):
calling us to wholeness, to our best selves, to a
view of life and self and others that we and
God that we have yet to get much of a
grasp on. And this is my advice on this to
myself and all of us, is to seek it and
to ask for it, and to never ever rest until
(27:43):
we find it any like C. S.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Lewis also said.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
He said that if we, in our quest for wholeness,
for completeness, for reality, if everything that doesn't work we
resolutely abandon and keep seeking, it will lead us to God.
It will lead us to wholeness, it will lead us
to completeness. That's why we're told to asking. It will
(28:07):
be given to us seek and we will find knocking.
The door will be open when we seek it and
ask it and abandon the things that don't work, that
don't provide this deep seated joy and wholeness and completeness.
And if we'll leave those things alone and keep looking,
we are going to find them, it is promised. And
when we do, we're going to have what our next
(28:28):
session is going to be about, contentment. And contentment helps
a lot, So please come back and tune in for
that next week. But for right now, that's number one
is joy is all around us. To seek it and
to keep seeking it and to never stop until we
find it, or maybe until it finds us. And number
two is create joy for others. Introduce them to wonder,
(28:54):
create a sense of belonging for them. Let them know, hey,
I see you beyond what you see, and you matter,
and you belove, You have a place. You may not
have discovered it yet, but I know it's there for you.
See them with perfect eyes, See with perfect eyes what
cannot be seen, not seen with our eyes, seeing through
our eye from heart to heart, and see what they're becoming,
(29:16):
See what they're meant for. See beyond with spiritual eyes,
with eyes from the heart, see beyond into what they
can be, and believe wholeheartedly in that and support them
wholeheartedly in that. Then see their value, the value and
their gifts, the value and their abilities, and to the
best of your ability, create opportunities for them to express
that and to keep moving forward one step at a time,
(29:39):
and then show them restoration. We talked about restoration in
a number of categories, financial, heart restoration, relational restoration, and
in those in those ways, so many of those things,
where so many of us are in the midst of
those right now. Just keep showing people the restoration that
is possible, that can come through God odds of goodness,
(30:00):
through our perseverance, through our not giving up, and through
our faith to continue to move forward. Show them examples
of that restoration that can come that's going to produce joy,
and keep that vision of joy out before them so
that it'll give them the courage to keep going, because
I tell you, anything worth doing is uphill, and it
can get really discouraging at times along the way. We
(30:21):
need each other to help remind us and help us
keep taking that next step. Sometimes we got to kind
of put an arm around their shoulder and help them
take that next step because it's just they're just out
of gas. But to keep them moving towards that direction,
the right direction, and that vision of joy and fulfillment
and completion that's actually there. So thank you so much
for tuning in. I do wish you a joyful and
(30:43):
joy filled holiday season.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
This is jeff Bird with
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Jeffrey Bird Coaching, and this is Empowered Living
Popular Podcasts
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com