Stories of Joy #3: Getting Curious About Joy
don't worry, your cats are safe
I have a podcast with my friend, Andrea. Did you know that? I’m terrible at sharing the work that I do so I honestly don’t know if you know that it exists. With something like five million podcasts around the world it would be a miracle if you stumbled on it accidentally.
And yet that must be what I think happens since I rely on the marketing tactic of accidental discovery.
At any rate, since today’s Story of Joy centers around an episode or two we recorded recently, I guess now would be a good time to tell you: I have a podcast. It’s called Halfway to Sunday and it’s a faith-based conversation between two friends about various topics.
And sometimes those topics kinda line up with what we’re talking about here.
An Episode About JOY
The morning before we were supposed to record one of our episodes, Dre (Andrea) sent me a Marco Polo message telling me about a conversation she just had during coffee with a friend. Our Marco Polo messages are epic. Not long after she moved to Chicago from where I live in California, we all experienced this thing called a pandemic and we were all a bit disconnected from our community. Marco Polo, a video messaging app, became a lifeline for many of us to stay connected to our loved ones during this time. Honestly, this silly little app continues to be a lifeline for many of us as a way to keep in touch with our loved ones who don’t live near us.
And for Jill and Dre, our epic Marco Polo conversations turned into a “what if?” which turned into a full-fledged podcast. (My sincerest apologies for speaking in third person. It won’t happen again. I don’t think.)
Anyway, it was during this coffee date that Dre was asked, “What is bringing you joy?” and as these words flew out of her mouth my first thought was: hey, that’s my line. (Apparently I’ve become a bit possessive about talking about joy?) But it was because of this question, because of this Marco Polo message between Dre and I, that we decided to record an episode about joy. One of my absolute favorite topics. And again, if I was better at marketing, I would wait to tell this story until later because the episode doesn’t even come out until next week but YOU GUYS…
I had the most fun recording an episode all about joy.
But I’m not sure I would have if we had recorded the episode any sooner than we did.
What If?
I don’t have time to go back to school and find a way to study the effects of joy in a more official capacity but you’d better believe I’ve thought about it. I read in an article that there are more scientific studies about anger or fear (to name a couple) because those emotions and feelings are trouble spots for people and in society. Comparatively, there are far fewer studies on joy. Even though it feels like joy (and hope) are the answer to those trouble spots.
I’ve been talking about JOY off and on for over five years…maybe more. Even though Ridiculous Joy didn’t officially take flight until the middle of 2020, the topic of joy has been bubbling up inside of me for years. My experiences, and what I was learning about joy, led me - led us - to seek joy, even when it felt ridiculous. To bring light to a dark world. And it was good. But. I think this is the first time I’ve gotten bolder in my curiosity to know more.
Dre and I have this theme that keeps popping up on the podcast that takes the “what if?” question and turns it into “brave curiosity" as we intentionally lean in just a little bit more. Honestly, it was the intentionality of being more and more curious that led to digging even deeper to ridiculous joy. I’ve been reading and, yeah, even studying about joy because it’s more important that we realized. AND I THOUGHT IT WAS SO IMPORTANT BEFORE ALL THIS.
Every conversation about joy with me should come with a warning. I can’t help but get fired up and way more curious about all the ways joy inspires and heals and helps and as I talked about joy on this episode that was so fun to record, my entire being lit up like a Christmas Tree and then I got emotional towards the end of recording because, whew, there is nothing like experiencing true joy. And what that run-on sentence was trying to do is maybe explain why things look a little different this time around and why I can’t seem to let it go…again.
I may sound completely unhinged, but man this has been fun.
I can’t wait to see what our curiosity finds.
❤️ Love, Jill
Make Joyful Noise
Did you know that the very beginnings of Ridiculous Joy began all because of a playlist? Well…it did. As ridiculous as it sounds, this is where it all started:
