Joy Based Living

Dear JBL Friend,

If you’ve purchased a product or a course, or if you’re participating in one of our programs, or if you’re simply an awesome follower and supporter of what we’re up to at JBL … I want to officially welcome you. And thank you for being here.

Our intentions at Joy-Based Living are inspired by the needs of many people in our world today. These two quotes, repeated throughout our JBL website, sum it up really well:

“Humanity is always transitioning. But this is the first period in human history where we are having multiple transitions simultaneously, and each one is tectonic, is enormous, is fundamental.

Even more importantly… in previous transitions, people always had a fallback… they could always go back to the clan, the tribe, the village… they could always revert to something that kept them grounded and centered, that buffered the changes, that reduced their anxiety. ..

In our world today, we have widespread anonymity coupled with total loneliness. It’s a toxic mixture. It’s the recipe for mental illness.”

Sam Vaknin, professor and author of Malignant Self Love

“Pain that is is not transformed, gets transmitted.”

– Fr. Richard Rohr

The fact is that most people today have been through some trauma. Even if they haven’t, they know someone who has. For these reasons, we practice trauma awareness. Talking about trauma and being aware of it helps to create environments that are safe and inclusive. JOY can thrive and grow in such spaces.

The journey of Joy-Based Living is easy if you already know yourself, trust yourself and esteem yourself in wholehearted and worthy ways. However, if you, like most people, find yourself wavering or stagnating or even self-sabotaging… if there are holes in your boat or in your sails… it takes a brave soul to turn within and face your broken places… and fill them with love.

Our members at JBL admire you. We commend you for your willingness to take the risk to be more fully YOU in the world. Not narcissistically. But with the bigness of the LOVE that resides within you. The bigness of LOVE that you are. By letting the love in you WIN, you become a beacon of light for others. AND… you give us all permission to shine bright, too.

At one of our gatherings, our members at Joy-Based Living wrote this letter for you.

1. WELCOME: We want to welcome you wholeheartedly to our Joy Based Living community. We invite you to BEEE a part of our bee hive of Joy, Love, Support, Growth. This is a judgement FREE zone where we hold space for others without trying to fix anything. We try not to use the word should. What we do instead is listen to one another, offer love and acceptance, and hold a vision for one another as we wish we will be once healing has occurred. The BEEE for us stands for Belongingness through Experiencing Embodiment and Emotional Literacy. Emotional Literacy is like learning a NEW language and this is your place to immerse yourself safely and completely to fully FEEL and embody that process from healing to thriving. The 12 Practices E-book unifies all of our conversations and relationships.

2. PRACTISE PARTNERS: We believe that the only way to keep JBL is to give it away. If you have a gift of learning a new language of BEEE (Belongingness through Experiencing Embodiment and Emotional Literacy), and your joy increases; then you want to give it away. You don’t get to keep a language that you never speak. That is why we believe finding a PRACTISE PARTNER or 2 is very important in finding the courage to truly make this journey within. We want you to feel supported and not alone. This is the opposite of anonymity or the anonymous aspect of other healing processes out there. Ours is not anonymous. We want you to feel fully seen, fully heard, fully accepted, and fully loved. That is why having a PRACTISE PARTNER who can be there between our meetings is so important. The one who is helping hold your hand gains more of a depth of growth by giving it away. It literally enhances the connections in the neural pathways of all the things we are growing. It also takes the power away from the negative neural pathway connections that keep us in survival mode. We cannot create while we are in trauma or survival. That is why connections and belonging are so important.

3.  CONVERSATIONS: We would like to suggest having private 1 on 1 conversations with other JBL friends every couple of weeks. This is a special way of building trust, feeling safe to heal and share.  Since we are learning this new language of emotional literacy, the more conversations you have with those in the group that understand the language and the process here, the more it relieves trauma, and creates new neural pathways in your brain. These NEW neural pathways will grow your feelings of joy, love, safety, peace, and trust. It is our deepest desire that the relationship between you and other members will help you feel that you belong here and have a group of people who deeply care for your journey of wellbeing. We suggest that you schedule and have a 1 on 1 conversation with a member once every 2 weeks to share a little about your personal stories. These can alternate with members initially and eventually become more frequent with whomever you feel a deepening resonance. This is an important part of the process as it allows for greater depth of understanding of the concepts that you are learning.

Remember that bees are amazing! They are pollinators, spreading pollen and drinking delicious nectar from flowers. That’s who we are being with each other in our JBL hive.

Bees can also fly (against the odds of physics).

I wonder, what do you love about bees?

Let us know in the comments below.

And WELCOME to Joy-Based Living!

Much love,

Joy-Based Living Members

April 2022