A Cup of Joy

I have had the great pleasure of being a mom for 25 years now. I've experienced and learned a lot through those years and just wanted to share with you in this episode some of the lessons I've learned and why I love and find such great joy in and enjoy being a mom.

In this real, raw life episode, I share some of my personal thoughts and feelings in how I've been experiencing and handling the current COVID-19 crisis and pandemic. Although there is a lot of fear and unknown out there in the world which often leads to panic, there is always peace and JOY to be found within. And there is also a lot of amazing things happening even among all the crazy that we can be curious, grateful and joyful for.

This episode concludes the discussion with the incredible Devin G. Squire about what life is like growing up on the spectrum and dealing with disabilities. His words of wisdom and insight aren't just for those dealing with disability but for all of us dealing with life in general and how we can best find joy in all our experiences no matter the circumstances we may be in or with whom we may share them with.

In this episode we continue our discussion with Devin G. Squire learning more what it's been like for him growing up on the spectrum and dealing with his disabilities. 

Today I'm honored to have another special guest with me, my son Devin, to share with us his experience, insights, struggles and joys living on the Autism Spectrum. Take a look into this real raw life discussion as we share some of the journey we've been on throughout the years as mother and son learning and discovering the many joys in living with Autism.  

It's February and Love is in the air. It's everywhere! Learning from the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh in "How to Love" we gain a deeper understanding just what true love really is, where it's found and how it's nourished and expressed.

Join with me in this truly real raw life episode where I share some things I learned to experience great gratitude and JOY in through a major surgery and extended recovery process. 

Whatever the holiday you celebrate, even with all the hustle and bustle of the season, take some time to find JOY there and to give of the best gifts to yourself and others. These best gifts are the gifts of time, presence, peace, forgiveness, laughter and more.

Today we celebrate that I was born 50 years ago. What a wonderful experience and truly joyful journey it has been thus far and I look forward to celebrating and enjoying many more years. And let's enjoy celebrating your presence on this earth as well. It is a gift to be born and live in this world. We are all blessed to have you here. Happy Birthday!

Thanksgiving is a time when we all seem to express gratitude more openly and freely, but there is so much to be grateful for in all our living, not just at Thanksgiving and not just for the obvious things to be thankful for. Expressing and feeling gratitude for all things and in all things is truly a joyful way to live.

We all spend a lot of time on the road driving various places, sometimes for shorter distances and sometimes longer ones. There are many great lessons to be learned as we travel the road of life and a lot of joy to experience in the journey.

Today I am so honored and happy to bring you my first guest interview. Her name is Xeni and she is a very talented musician and artist, singer songwriter and producer and also my daughter Kendra.  Music is everywhere, it's something that we are all exposed to in our everyday life. In this very powerful and personal episode, we explore how music can enrich and bless our lives, help us heal, help us better find ourselves and so much more. SHOW NOTES: Listen to Xeni's album "Concept vs Delivery" Get the book "The ABC's of Joyful Living"

One of the greatest tools for finding Joy in all things is learning to laugh. Laughter is truly great medicine for the body and soul. Laughter allows us to experience the fun and joy of life even when things don't seem to be all that fun and joyful.

There is a lot of stress that we all seem to experience in life but just what is stress really and is it something we can actually find Joy in? There is a way to be at peace and to feel joy during stressful situations in our life. 

We all age, we are getting older every single day. But how are we experiencing our aging lives? Are we fighting the aging process or learning from and loving it? Life is truly a joy to live at any age.

In such a loud and noisy world it's often difficult to be quiet and calm and at peace. Yet as we're able to find moments of calm and stillness, within and around us, we are able to learn some very valuable things about us and our world and experience some of the greatest joy in life.  

There is a lot of chaos, noise, mess and madness in the world which can make living life hard and hectic, and very loud at times, yet because it exists in life, there is a lot of joy to experience in it as well. Find out how to see and feel the value, beauty, peace and joy in the messy, chaos of life.

We all experience pain in our lives, sometimes it may be severe or chronic, sometimes it may be less intense or short lived, but regardless of the type of pain, it hurts, and it can be hard to feel any joy and peace with it. However even in pain it is possible to still experience joy.     

When we can learn to let life flow and be as it is and not always try and force it or make it be something else, we are able to relax and truly enjoy all the experiences of life just as they are. Letting things go the way they go and loving and being grateful for how they go, fills our lives with great joy in all our many experiences.

Sometimes we get so busy with life and all the things we have to do and places we have to go that we forget to slow down and enjoy the process. As we learn to slow down and allow ourselves and things to simply be as they are, we will find that there is a lot more joy to experience and greater rewards to be gained in life than just getting places and doing things.

We all have parts of us in our life that we see as limitations and weakness, things that get us feeling down on ourselves and keep us from doing or being all that we'd like to. But as we learn to experience joy in them we can begin to see them as great strengths and successes in our lives that truly help get us to where and how we want to be.

This is a true real raw life episode of my experience in dealing with a strange situation. We don't always know how we are going to feel in certain circumstances, and that's okay. By allowing our emotions to be expressed and felt just as they are and being okay with what they are in the moment is truly a joyful thing to experience.

"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you." Lewis B. Smedes What does it really mean to forgive? Who and why are we to forgive? Forgiveness is one of the great tools we have for experiencing real joy in life. Regardless of what has been done to you, you can choose to forgive and be free and full of joy. 

There is lots of joy and fun to be experienced in life when we're with people we love. But what about when we're alone? Is it possible to experience joy being alone? It is when you learn to count all things joy and learn to truly love the person you're with, especially if that person is yourself.

It's tough to feel joyful when you don't feel good. But JOY is still there, it is in all things, everywhere, every time. We just need to know how to feel and experience it regardless of how we may feel physically at the moment.

We all have places to get to in life and often that means we are on the road going somewhere. There are a lot of cars, buses, trains, motorcycles and people out there all trying to get places, it can be frustrating sometimes getting stuck in. But since you're going to have times where you're stuck in it anyhow, the real key is to learn how to experience joy in it. 

We all have times and places and situations when we have to wait for things and wait for others. It can be very frustrating or it can be very joyful. The choice is yours whichever you want to experience whenever you have to wait for anything or anyone.

In this episode I share with you one of my own deep real raw experiences that helped me discover the joy in awareness. When we are aware of who we are and why we are, we are able to find the joy in all experiences, even and especially the difficult ones. "Awareness allows me to perceive possibilities rather than difficulties, to feel connected to my Source of being and see the outcome as working rather than failing." ---Wayne Dyer

Today I read to you from my own book "The ABC's of Joyful Living". Writing that book was my own way of being able to more fully express what it meant for me personally to experience joy in all things. It's a bit of a personal journal of sorts. As I learned how truly simple and important it was to live joyfully regardless of circumstances, I just had to write it and share with others.

Today we continue reading from Christian D. Larson and get some more insights into how all things that happen in our life can be an opportunity for experiencing joy. Even moments of adversity and hardship and disappointment can lead us to greater experiences of joy if we know where to look and what to do. We are the masters of our own joyful living.

There was just too much good stuff in Christian D. Larson's book that I couldn't contain it all in one episode so I made three! So we continue to read and discuss more ways to train ourselves to count all things joy. In this discussion we learn how to see every occasion and relationship as an opportunity for experiencing joy and bringing in more light and love into our own lives and thus making it possible for us bring more joy, light and love to others and into the world.

This is the first of a three part episode where I read from and share my insights and understandings from the book "The Ideal Made Real" by Christian D. Larson. All of our experiences no matter what they may be can truly be joyful if we train ourselves to Count it all Joy.

Welcome to A Cup of Joy. I'm so grateful to have you sipping along with me. This episode is just a bit of an introduction into why I'm creating this podcast and what it's all about. I will be speaking from my own experience and bringing others along with me through discussion and reading from books to share of our real raw life experiences in joyful living.