[00:01] Valerie Beck: Rise. Renew, Reconnect.
[00:04] Welcome to from the Ashes, a podcast where every episode ignites hope and healing.
[00:09] I'm your host, Valerie Huang Beck, and I'm on a mission to help you embrace your unique potential and become the vibrant visionary you knew you were meant to be.
[00:17] Shanta Fire in the darkest night of Phoenix burst It's ready for flight Shadows may come try to tear you apart but you're the alright friends. So we are doing something new today as I record this podcast episode from the floor of my office on Friday night for you all to hear in future.
[00:40] And shout out to my podcast producer, Maddie for introducing tonight's topic.
[00:47] So I was asked to talk more about the concept of embracing joy for life well lived.
[00:56] And the reason why this was brought up was because I've been talking about my own struggles with joy with my clients in our coaching group, Club Phoenix.
[01:06] And I have shared that I noticed that I've been choking my own joy. And because I'm choking it, it actually affects the way that I attract abundance in my life, the way that I am able to connect with my potential, my purpose.
[01:26] And of course, it also affects my freedom.
[01:28] So the message of tonight is actually that joy is essential to life. It's not an optional thing, it's not a thing for later.
[01:37] It's something to consciously incorporate into your everyday being to really thrive as a person.
[01:46] And this may seem intuitive for some or like a duh.
[01:52] But for someone like me,
[01:55] who has spent a lot of time focusing, especially in the recent years,
[02:01] on professional achievement, joy can escape us.
[02:06] So in my work, I talk a lot about the four aims of human life,
[02:11] or what I would call actually the flow state framework.
[02:15] So the flow state framework has four pillars. And the idea is that you have these four pillars that allow you to really be in flow, very present with your life, really feeling fulfilled, integrated, and you're living your best life,
[02:31] right? And we all want to live our best life.
[02:35] So the four pillars of this framework are living with potential, your purpose,
[02:41] your unique potential, right?
[02:43] Abundance, joy and freedom. Now, I. I've taken these concepts from a very, very old framework called the Purusharthas and Vedic wisdom. But I've adapted this to a more modern understanding and also my own take on what I feel is important.
[03:04] To live the very most vibrant and joyful life that you could live.
[03:10] So rather than looking at them as a hierarchy or an order or separate from each other,
[03:15] I look at them interconnected and dependent on each other.
[03:21] And when they're all in flow, when there's energy flowing through all four of these pillars.
[03:26] That's when we have this sense of true integration with our life and essentially all of the universe and the energy around us won't get too woo woo on this. I just want to paint a picture for you of what we're trying to get at when it comes to the these four pillars of flow.
[03:48] So like I said, without all four, it's really hard to feel fully integrated in your life and fully present.
[03:56] Because if you live without having a purpose, if you're not tapping into your unique potential, then there's always going to be an emptiness of like, what could I have done in my life?
[04:07] Right? When we live with purpose,
[04:09] we feel like we have a place where on this planet we have a sense of we're contributing to other people, or we have a mission, we have something that we want to do, or we have something that we can do not only to just live for our own selves,
[04:25] but to contribute to the environment. And that could mean so many different things. It could be we're contributing to our family,
[04:31] or we're contributing to our community, or it could be as simple as taking care of some plants outside.
[04:39] All right? But each of us have our unique potential depending on who we are,
[04:44] where we were born, the family we were born into,
[04:48] the country, the time frame or time in history that we were born into.
[04:54] So many different things determine who we are as a person and the talents and the gifts that we have been innately given that allow us to uniquely interact with our circumstances.
[05:07] So without that purpose, without that tapping into that potential, life can feel kind of empty if you're just living for yourself. Without abundance,
[05:16] it is really hard to go through life because we'll always be thinking or we're always feeling like we need more.
[05:27] We're always feeling like I don't have enough. And this is scarcity mindset,
[05:32] right? The opposite of abundance.
[05:34] When we have abundance, we feel supported, and that's what's important.
[05:39] We want to feel supported not only financially, but we want to feel supported socially. We want to feel supported in our resources. We want to have an abundance of time.
[05:53] And when we don't have enough time, when we don't have enough money, when we don't have a supportive environment or community,
[06:02] we feel that it.
[06:05] It's so hard for us to live through life because scarcity leads to fear,
[06:12] scarcity leads to feeling like we always have to be on edge because we don't know if we will have enough to survive.
[06:22] As opposed to abundance. We always have more than enough. And that allows us to be giving, allows us to,
[06:28] to lead with generosity, and also for us to contribute to and to ourselves without feeling like there's not gonna be more in the future.
[06:40] So abundance or the lack thereof can really choke our ability to act because there's that fear that if we use a certain resource, we're not gonna have more of it later.
[06:52] Without freedom,
[06:54] the third pillar that I'm gonna talk about.
[06:56] Without freedom,
[06:58] it's also hard to enjoy life because we're never living for ourselves. In that moment, we are always feeling like we are at the mercy of somebody else's order, somebody else's needs, somebody else's demands and expectations.
[07:12] When we don't have freedom,
[07:14] we don't feel like we have a choice in what we do.
[07:17] And that can be incredibly limiting in our spirit.
[07:20] Right. There's no way for us to really be in flow state if we're never, if we never have agency.
[07:26] So that leads to the fourth one that I'm going to talk about today. And I'm not talking about these in order, but that's joy.
[07:33] And joy is so natural.
[07:37] Joy is our ability to choose to be happy, but also it's our ability to just enjoy, just be fulfilled in whatever it is that's in front of us and to have these moments of, yeah, things are good and I like what I'm doing.
[07:53] And it could be as simple as like, I love this smell or I love the taste of this right. Enjoyment. Pleasure is what I'm pointing at.
[08:01] There is definitely room for pleasure in life, and not just room, but actually necessity for pleasure in life. Because without this ability to really engage with the senses and really love what we're doing, what is the point?
[08:17] Do we just go through life and not feel this positive energy at all?
[08:22] No.
[08:23] Joy moves us forward. It's a motivator. But it's also,
[08:27] it's also essential for us to feel like what we do comes back to us. And that's very, very similar to abundance. But joy has this uplifting feeling to it.
[08:41] And it comes from having fun. It comes from being around people that you love. It comes from, comes from so many different things,
[08:49] enjoying the environment.
[08:51] But the thing is,
[08:53] if you're a high achiever, if you're a perfectionist, if you're a people pleaser, joy and fulfillment often get neglect. I mean, they go to the bottom of the priorities on your list of things.
[09:04] And it's not because you don't want to be happy,
[09:07] but it's that it doesn't seem as important.
[09:13] Even though I'm going to argue that it is just as important.
[09:16] It's just not as obvious as to why.
[09:20] So let me make my case first. Let's think about, well, why is it that we choke our own joy?
[09:26] One thing that might be happening is that you feel like you have to earn your joy without the hard work.
[09:32] You don't deserve the joy.
[09:33] And I speak from personal experience,
[09:36] but I oftentimes I feel like, wow, I haven't pulled my own weight.
[09:40] I haven't pulled my own weight in earning enough income. I haven't pulled my own weight in maybe doing my chores, or I haven't pulled my own weight in just contributing to the world.
[09:51] I feel like I have to give, give, give, give, give.
[09:54] And so I put off the joy. I put off fulfilling my own cup. I've put off going out to smell the flowers. And it can get very, very restricting.
[10:04] Because when you're not filling your own cup with joy, it's like you are saying that you don't deserve the joy that everyone else deserves that you're trying to give too.
[10:18] You're working so that other people can be happy, other people can be uplifted, but then you neglect yourself in the process.
[10:25] So that's one way that perhaps you might feel like or why you might put joy off.
[10:32] Another way that you might be putting joy off or why you might be putting joy off is because you're really goal oriented.
[10:39] So for those of us who have big projects on our plate, maybe we run businesses like I do, maybe you are high on the corporate ladder or you have a lot of responsibilities in your workplace and you want to accomplish things.
[10:54] The tendency is to want to push towards the goal and just put the horse blinders on and get to the end of it because you know that there's so much satisfaction at reaching that end goal.
[11:09] So what's the problem with this?
[11:11] Right? Because the end goal is gonna feel really good and that's gonna be really happy and you're gonna feel joy with that. Right?
[11:18] But for some of us, the end point is not so guaranteed.
[11:23] So I'm gonna speak from an entrepreneur's perspective because you don't know sometimes when you're gonna have a good month or a bad month. You don't know if you're going to sell out a launch.
[11:35] You don't know if you're going to get another client in the next month sometimes.
[11:40] And when you're working, working, working, working,
[11:45] and you're constantly putting off your joy because you're waiting for the reward at the end.
[11:51] You could be putting that off for a long time.
[11:55] And it almost feels like you're punishing yourself if you don't get there.
[12:01] And you kind of.
[12:02] You are using that as a mechanism to pull you forward towards the goal.
[12:07] But the thing is,
[12:08] you're now saying to yourself again that unless you accomplish that thing,
[12:14] you don't get to have your cup filled.
[12:18] And the thing is,
[12:19] with joy, it keeps you motivated. Remember, it keeps you positive.
[12:24] It keeps your spirit fulfilled and actually fills on your resilience.
[12:29] So if you're not having moments of joy as you are going along this road, trying to get to the top of whatever mountain you're trying to climb, you're gonna get really tired, really depleted,
[12:40] and the journey is not going to be the journey that is formative for you because you're torturing yourself so much of the growth. Actually,
[12:50] when we are going towards this big goal, whether it be to build a business or to climb the corporate ladder or whatnot,
[12:57] we forget that it's actually the journey that matters. And we're so focused on that end point because we think that's gonna be the thing that's gonna make us happy. But it's not the thing that's gonna make us happy.
[13:09] It's actually the efforts that we've made along the way, the people that we've met, the self discoveries that we've had. Sure, the money or whatever it is on top also is gonna be great.
[13:19] But a lot of us, when we finally get there, realize what we've been fighting for may not be exactly what it is that we wanted in the first place.
[13:28] And what we should have been doing along the way is to make sure that we have what we need and want,
[13:37] no matter what.
[13:38] And that is joy.
[13:41] All right.
[13:41] Another reason why some of us may be putting off joy is because it doesn't feel like a priority. It feels like something that you could put off because the work is really engaging or interesting or interesting,
[13:57] or the goal is really important.
[13:59] But yeah, it doesn't feel like a priority until it is because we notice that we're grumpy or really stressed out or we have a headache or like, you know, we can't get up in the morning because we've been working too hard.
[14:14] We don't notice that we haven't been giving ourselves some time to actually enjoy life.
[14:21] And then all of a sudden, lo and behold, we feel depleted.
[14:24] And then the fourth reason that I have found in the past to be true for myself is that having fun can seem like a silly distraction.
[14:33] And I think it's because in the past I've had a really up and down extreme relationship with fun. Meaning when I was doing street dancing and doing professional dancing, whether that be teaching or holding events or performing shows,
[14:50] I actually went out a lot to socialize and have fun because it was part of the networking too, and it was part of the gaining visibility.
[15:01] So I was mixing up fun and these other motives.
[15:06] And it kind of burned me out the way that I was having fun.
[15:10] And I also judged myself for wasting a lot of time going out and not really.
[15:17] It wasn't really to connect with people on a really deep level. It was just to kind of,
[15:22] you know, to be seen.
[15:24] It is superficial.
[15:26] And having surface level fun of dancing around with people or getting to know people in the industry or whatnot. And yeah, it just gave me a bad taste in my mouth because I would go sometimes to a party and then I wouldn't know anyone even.
[15:42] And I'm like, why am I even here? I don't care about anyone here.
[15:46] But I think looking back on that now,
[15:49] it wasn't actually fun.
[15:51] So I think part of it is realizing, like, you gotta have fun your way.
[15:56] And maybe having fun for you or having joy.
[15:59] Introducing joy into your life doesn't mean you have to go out and party and go all wild.
[16:07] It could be just taking some time to smell flowers.
[16:11] So that was that. Lesson learned.
[16:14] Now the problem with putting off joy is that it's really hard to fill your cup.
[16:20] You don't take the time to enjoy the process and the journey.
[16:25] And it's actually really hard to be present when you're never having fun or if you're never giving yourself time to enjoy anything.
[16:33] Like if you're rushing your meals and you don't take time to enjoy that, savor the flavors.
[16:38] Or if you are not taking the time to enjoy the company comfort of your own bed. Because you crash so hard at night after working really long hours,
[16:48] everything becomes a bit of an emergency because you're not really living in the moment. You're driving, driving, driving, driving hard.
[16:56] And then what could be used for time to enjoy is actually just used to restore what you can in terms of your battery, but not really,
[17:08] really charge it up all the way.
[17:10] So the thing is, hard work is actually easier when you try to have fun doing it.
[17:16] And this takes a little bit of discernment these days.
[17:22] My fun is going to the gym.
[17:24] I freaking love going to the gym. Lifting heavy Weights,
[17:29] doing some cardio, getting really challenged.
[17:32] For some people this isn't fun, but for me, oh my God, this is when I'm having the most fun.
[17:38] It's not only that I feel like I'm getting stronger or I'm going some someplace which as a goal oriented person,
[17:45] this type of fun is perfect for me. To me it doesn't have much of a consequence.
[17:50] It's not like I'm trying to save the world,
[17:52] I'm trying to do that maybe with my work, but when I go to the gym it's really just for me and I get to feel alive. I have to breathe when I'm, when I'm lifting weights,
[18:04] I have to be really present, right. I have to really pay attention to what I'm doing in the moment because if you drop a weight can be dangerous. So I'm always present when, when I'm at the gym and that is the number one fun for me.
[18:19] I could check out if I go dancing or to a club or something these days,
[18:23] easily check out within a couple of minutes if I get bored or if I don't like the people there.
[18:29] So find the fun that, that works for you.
[18:32] I've also,
[18:33] because to balance the hard working aspect of myself and the joy that I get from that, I've also started doing a little bit of aromatherapy.
[18:42] So I introduced some rose and sandalwood to my aromatherapy that I'm going to meditate with.
[18:49] And I love just experiencing those scents and sitting back and relaxing and maybe just reading a book or something.
[18:58] And that probably brings me as much joy or more than let's say going out dancing these days.
[19:08] So times change, you change. And the way that you have fun can also change.
[19:13] The thing is, if you're having fun in a way that depletes you, it's probably not for you.
[19:21] It's probably not what you need right now. And you might be operating from an older way of being that is your past self.
[19:30] So you can always take inventory of how you have fun and make different choices. Right? So if you were someone that went out drinking every day in your early 20s and you're feeling like when you do that now,
[19:45] it doesn't really fulfill you.
[19:47] Well, it's time to look at that and maybe choose something different and that's okay.
[19:52] That are simple, can be very, very, very joyful these days for me,
[19:56] having flowers on my table that I love. I love peonies.
[19:59] Having coffee with a friend,
[20:02] love that.
[20:03] And just chatting it up and enjoying the outdoors a little bit is good fun.
[20:08] So fun is not something or joy. It's not something that you should have someday.
[20:13] It's something to integrate and incorporate into the now.
[20:19] Something that is going to inform the way that you are, that you be.
[20:27] Joy is a way of being.
[20:29] The more that you can integrate joy into your life,
[20:35] the more that you can actually give.
[20:37] So that leads to more abundance.
[20:39] When you have joy, of course you want to spread joy, right?
[20:42] More joy leads to more freedom.
[20:45] Because when you're joyful,
[20:46] of course you feel more like yourself.
[20:50] You feel like,
[20:51] of course I want to show up because I have all this great energy to share with other people.
[20:57] Naturally,
[20:58] when you feel more joyful, you do actually feel more free to be yourself more. Joy leads to true purpose as well.
[21:06] Because when you're doing the things or experiencing things that you truly enjoy,
[21:11] you get closer to the things that light you up,
[21:14] rather than just the things that you're trying to master.
[21:17] You naturally get closer to what it is that you're here to contribute to the world.
[21:22] If you've ever heard of the Japanese word ikigai,
[21:25] it's kind of like that dharma, or sense of purpose.
[21:28] What you can do well,
[21:30] what you love and have fun with,
[21:34] I forget exactly what it is. What you can make a living of is what your ikigai is. I know I'm butchering that.
[21:41] But the point is that when you enjoy and love something from a deep,
[21:47] deep place of knowing,
[21:49] when you enjoy life,
[21:51] that energy will guide you towards what you can truly do in this world. That's going to be really, really powerful.
[21:59] Not only for you, but for the people around you.
[22:02] Because spreading joy, uplifting people by doing that is a huge gift.
[22:09] So I think I've gone through most of my notes and questions on embracing joy.
[22:18] So I'd love to hear from you guys on how it is that you find joy and how you're incorporating it into your life.
[22:25] And I'd love to hear your questions too.
[22:29] Because for those of us who do choke our own joy, it can be really obvious how that affects the other aspects of fulfillment and of integration in our lives,
[22:39] our purpose and whatnot.
[22:41] If you're someone who actually has an overemphasis on joy and not enough on the other pillars, that can also be imbalanced. If you're. If you're focusing solely on pleasure at the expense of maybe doing something that is more in alignment with who you truly are,
[23:01] or at the expense of your abundance, right? Or of your purpose,
[23:05] that can also be an imbalance.
[23:09] So if you spend a lot of time on pleasure,
[23:13] so much so that you actually deplete your resources, right? Your abundance that can lead to major scarcity. And if there's no awareness on that, you may be wondering for a long time why it is your life isn't working the way you want it to.
[23:28] So these are all things to ponder.
[23:31] Each of us have a different profile in terms of what aspects of fulfillment and integration we need to work on.
[23:39] I'd love to hear what you heard for yourself in this talk and also any questions that you have,
[23:46] and I hope some of that made sense.
[23:50] Thanks for listening and I will catch you next time.
[23:56] Thanks for tuning in to from the Ashes. If this episode sparks something in you, I want you to know your evolution matters and we're rooting for you all the way.
[24:04] For coaching, community and resources to help you rise into your full potential,
[24:08] visit intrepidwellness Life and check out what we have to offer.
[24:12] If you love the episode, please leave a comment,
[24:15] share it with a friend, or tag me on Instagram ntrapidwellness Val because I'd love to hear what resonated for you.
[24:22] Until next time, keep rising.
