Episode 8: The Journey Through Grief With Joy With Paula Jenkins
The Journey Through Grief With Joy With Paula Jenkins (Nurturing Habit Episode 8)
Paula has built her coaching and podcasting career around joy. This is no naive image of constant lightness and happiness, but instead a study of how people grow through and out of challenging or traumatic life experiences by committing themselves to finding joy - and the transformation that process can bring.I asked Paula to join us as we near the end of this series about nurturing ourselves through grief exactly because of that idea of transformation. How do we return to the world, after experiencing great loss? How do we take the experience and integrate it into our life "after"? Deciding to follow joy is one answer.Paula is a life and podcasting coach, and runs the wonderful podcast Jumpstart Your Joy. In this conversation, Paula shares how she recovered from a deep trauma in her life by the act of choosing joy in her every day life. We also talk about the hero's journey, and how we can apply these universal concepts to the stories of our own lives.Paula is one of the most profoundly joyful, thoughtful people I know, and this was a delightful conversation. My hope is that it will give you some ideas for how to reconnect with joy in your own life.Listen to Episode 8 with Paula Jenkins now by clicking the little arrow in the play bar below (if you don’t see it, reload the page), or head over to iTunes or your favorite podcast player.Here are links to the things discussed in this episode:
To schedule a free 30 minute introduction call with me, get on my calendar here. If you'd like to learn more about how coaching with me works, you can find that here.
I talked about the story of my divorce in Episode 1.
Liz Lamoreux write about holding grief and joy together at her site The And Space.
An essay I wrote about my experience with being told "At least..." after experiencing a loss in my life.
Byron Katie developed a framework of questions (called "The Work") that are designed to help you unhook from your beliefs and expectations about a situation, by discovering the difference between what is really true and what you believe to be true.
Paula's about page, where I found the quote by Henri Nouwen: “Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.”
Anne of Green Gables is a children's book published in 1908 by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery. It is the first in a series about the character Anne Shirley. The story has been remade in film and on TV many times, but the darker Netflix series we were discussing is called "Anne With An E".
Wicked - the book and Broadway musical.
Hamilton, the runaway Broadway musical.
You can find more about Paula, her podcast and her class offerings at these links:
Jumpstart Your Joy - the main site
Joy + You - Paula's free class to help you get re-aquianted with what brings you joy
Jumpstart Your Podcast - Paula's podcasting class
You can also find Paula on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.