We speak on happiness and joy. Understanding the difference can change the way we view and experience the world around us. Come and join our conversation.
a queer chaplain
Helping to lace one’s narrative with a spiritual thread.
Big shout out and Thank you to our monthly supporters. With your support we can continue to bring and upgrade Splintered Grace Podcast quality and reach.
To learn more or to join our Patreon go to patreon.com/bonnieviolet
a queer chaplain
Helping to lace one’s n
Engage! Rate, Follow, Subscribe & Share
Book ME! - Keynote, Panel, Guest on Show, Officiate Wedding /Memorial in/out of drag.
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Sponsor! Patreon, Venmo, PayPal
We speak on happiness and joy. Understanding the difference can change the way we view and experience the world around us. Come and join our conversation.
a queer chaplain
Helping to lace one’s narrative with a spiritual thread.
Big shout out and Thank you to our monthly supporters. With your support we can continue to bring and upgrade Splintered Grace Podcast quality and reach.
To learn more or to join our Patreon go to patreon.com/bonnieviolet
a queer chaplain
Helping to lace one’s n
Engage! Rate, Follow, Subscribe & Share
Book ME! - Keynote, Panel, Guest on Show, Officiate Wedding /Memorial in/out of drag.
Collaborate! - Join Team, Guest, Make a Pitch
Sponsor! Patreon, Venmo, PayPal
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[Music]
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is [Music]
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will be
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hey there how's it going going great how are you i'm good
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bonnie violet here um a queer chaplain with uh splintered grace i'm a transgender
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uh drag queen and a chaplain
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hi guys it's just me i'm tina frank i'm your conservative mature christian woman
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representative i also am a gardener i don't know if i said that last week so i'm also going to
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say i have a wonderful aquaponics system so part of that gardening includes tilapia nice that sounds great
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yeah it's more depressing right i'm like oh that sounds really
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really good actually good morning that means there's
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a portion of our garden that is grown on top of our fish tanks and
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our raft beds that are all attached together so we have fish tanks on the bottom full of tilapia
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and on the top we can put whatever type of growing plants we'd like so yeah it's been been nice to have some
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fresh salad um sounds good yeah it's been good so
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anyway lots of work lots of lots of work um sure
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so how was your birthday yay happy birthday yeah thank you uh the big 4-2
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it feels like a very just like a random number but um it's i feel like it was one of
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the best birthdays i've had in a while like um i had some you know one-on-one
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time with some folks i went with a hike a friend of mine um birthday was on
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saturday and so we like these sisters so we went for a hike which was nice um and then i went to
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dinner with my um pastor friend todd um and then uh he gave me a bible
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which uh let me see if i can get on here but it's a weird commentary that is awesome
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i'm really excited to i know you've been like um you've been suggesting or asking are you
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reading the bible you know not in a way that's like um but more like you know asking and so i
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was like oh this is perfect because i've been wanting to try to uh i don't know just get a different
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uh angle on things um than than what i've been you know what i learned in church because i haven't really i used to read
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the bible when i was um when i lived with you actually when i was a few years ago
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18 or 19 and i used to do it so that i could sleep like i would just start to read it and
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then i would fall asleep reading it um but when i was younger younger i definitely enjoyed like the bible study
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stories and all that sort of sort of stuff yeah yeah um i just that's awesome yeah i'm
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looking forward to sort of checking that out as well and then um i had a dinner
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last night with like five other friends which was i know it feels like we were breaking the rules but um
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we've kind of been on our own pod already um yeah it's been kind of intermixing and then
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um i actually like had a um a covid like someone really close to me tested positive for covet oh
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wow i didn't know that yeah i didn't really tell any too many people about it but
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i had found out about it on wednesday night and so i actually ended up going in and i was able to get tested
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to confirm that i didn't have i hadn't gotten covered um from that exposure luckily i hadn't
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um been with that person in like 10 days or something and yeah i'm pretty sure they got it after
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they spent time with me but it was still just kind of a moment where i was like okay i've been really
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and then it's just like all it takes is one right that's true that's true i've heard all
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kinds of random stories like that yeah so thankfully um that wasn't you
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know covet wasn't in the stars for me yet yay and you got to get together with your
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friends yeah it was amazing it was so magical um my sister mark had me over at his new place
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and um it was just really just sweet you know i've yeah i've been really wanting to focus
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on like relationships the last year or so and it just feels it felt really nice and
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it wasn't that um you know it wasn't that the people i mean the people that are
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around me are different than some of the people that were around me before but a lot of it is just i'm different
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yeah like i'm different in how i can show up and what i expect and don't expect and i just feel
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like i can just be present with people without being so needy or
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um i've never imagined you being needy um i i never really realized that either
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but i think there were parts of there were parts of me that were not getting
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tended to that i needed to take care of for myself and i would try to get other people to kind of like do that for
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me and then they never really could and so then i would just be like resentful about it and it's like
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not really like their thing it's really my thing so yeah um
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so that's been helpful and it's helpful to be in relationship with people who can kind of point that out to you too or that you can kind of like
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you know so it was really nice to kind of sit around and i felt like five of my like closest friends um here in the last year
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you know i was able to sit around a table have some cake and kiki and it was just it was just
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did you say kiki what's kiki i said kiki kiki is like it's just kind of like to
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like party hang out um okay okay i thought it was like a food i was like i
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have never heard of it yeah no akiki is kind of like uh it's i guess it would be something like
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time spent with really people who are really close to each other and just kind of like fun and
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fabulousness all that sort of stuff yeah awesome awesome awesome well i'm so glad you had a wonderful
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birthday thank you it was nice and what was your weekend like you know i had a good weekend also um i
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was really blessed to be able to spend some time with my daughter charlie who already said good morning um i got to go over and help her do some
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things around her house she was hosting a small gathering of her her friends and i was able to participate and
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help and serve in that capacity so that just blessed me a lot um we had church yesterday we were doing
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live church in our church so i was able to actually go in and have church yesterday
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so it was it was really nice and have lunch with some of my friends afterwards so that was nice also it's nice to be
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able to get out about just a little bit more now that's been it's been a weird year yeah it's been about a year i think now
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yeah i think it'll like be in two weeks i was like i'm like the last of my friend group who
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had a birthday in covid like almost everybody in a couple weeks will have had a birthday at least one birthday in
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covet yeah yeah that'll be something we all need to put in our um
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remembrance books of our journals or our photo albums or whatever was the the kobe year would be the the
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selfie with our birthday hat on i don't know right right yeah we took i took some photos last
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night with my friends and we were like okay let's we need to photoshop some masks in there
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yeah public right yeah public shaming but i think that you know there's just some
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opening up that's happening and we're all just going to have to yeah start to do that a little bit
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there's a qua quality of life that needs to be experienced as well i i agree i think the vaccine's helping
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a little bit um i don't think i think i know more people now that have the vaccine that
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don't so i i think that's making everyone feel a little bit more comfortable also yeah yeah um for sure and uh i just
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wanted it was like our conversation today is happy happy joy joy yes happiness and joy and we
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um got some news this morning that is not so happy and joyous and uh uh i just want
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to put that out there because i know we were like i feel like it's cool we got in our vibe now but i know like before we were like
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i don't know you know if we can do this but uh just so folks that are listening um if
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you pray or light candles whatever you do if you want to send out some
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good stuff and some angels and whatever it is that you do to um my nephew jasper um
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he um he is on his way uh to another hospital um folks might
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not be aware of idaho but my little brother lives in a small town and he had to go 20 miles
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to or 10 miles kidding 10 miles yeah 10 months 10 miles to a hospital because my nephew jasper
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was unconscious this morning with a 94 degree temperature and um
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my little brother then took him to the hospital and they were able to finally get him to kind of come too for a little bit
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um but then he kind of went unconscious again they thought maybe he had diabetes or it
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was some sort of diabetic thing he's three about three years a little over three years old um
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but they don't know that it's that anymore so they did test that it's not copied but they ended up having to take them by
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ambulance to boise which is about 100 miles from where they were um in order to see some specialists to
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hopefully get more of an idea of what was going on my parents are headed
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that way um uh uh in a separate vehicle from my brother um and um so there might be an opera there
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might be a chance that i might get a phone call while we're doing this and if that's the case i'm gonna be rude and i'm gonna answer it
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i need to but my my yeah my heart just goes out to my little brother right now because he's just been
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through a lot of our family been through a lot with with uh little ones getting sick
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yeah yeah so yeah so any of you who have a prayer group in your church that might
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be listening please please share our prayer requests pray for little jasper pray for the
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doctors and the nurses as they treat him pray for the family as a whole we want this to be a time of us all to be able
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to come together um and see a miracle and just pray that there would not be any opportunity for
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for anything bad to happen so we appreciate that very much and we'll keep you posted as best we can
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um but yeah same thing with my phone i normally keep it in the other room but i do have it next to me today so
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thank you for your grace up front yes yes so like that's a good
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um i could adjust myself i feel like i keep looking like i'm topless and that just
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i i think this is a good segue to talk about the difference between happiness and joy what do you think
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yeah do you want to start us off do you want to define one separate from the other or just compare
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them i can go either way all right well all right i'll just okay
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all right so we had a good conversation um in preparation for today
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uh about the difference between happiness and joy and so i think we had a lot of areas
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that we agreed on but we had some good discussion points too so we thought it might be fun for us to just share with you guys
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and open up the conversation because i think that we can only grow and learn if we
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ask questions right so if we ask questions to one another i think it'll be a good growing opportunity for all of us so
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i believe that happiness is a state of um uh i don't know fun
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it's a state of happiness when something good is going all the things are clicking you're having that great day
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everything's just lining up the way it's supposed to be there's no real conflict in your life and you're just really happy
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you're happy with everything that's happening around you and it's in its circumstantial um happiness that's kind
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of my definition of happy what do you think would you agree with that
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yeah i think for the most part i feel like happiness is very external it's very kind of reliant on things
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happening outside of you um so it feels like you know if like i'm in an environment and i'm around people
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and everything is going good or i'm able to kind of like just feel
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liberated and let go of the worries whatever like to me i feel like happiness is uh it's it's something that
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happens externally and that um i guess you kind of get from
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your environment yeah that's awesome so you say it much better than i do i i think i make it too hard sometimes
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i'm trying i'm i'm learning so um and then we have joy why don't you start with joy how do you define joy
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well and i guess just to kind of like speak to them differently is um uh joy to me is actually
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something that i think is inside of us it's something that i think is always there i don't think
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that joy actually ever doesn't exist like i feel like it's something that's deep within
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um and we experience it when we let ourselves like connect with it or we we let it out
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so i feel like it's something that i experience from within that then
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i can express out but i feel like it just comes from within it's like i believe it's like
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spiritually like it was born maybe i was born with it or you know even connected to my
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soul or my spirit but i feel like it lives and resides within me and i can tap into it and i can
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experience it whenever i choose to and like all those external things that make me happy
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like those things don't matter like i can be sitting in the most horrible situation
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and can feel like everything is going wrong and yet i can still feel this joy inside
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yeah well you and i are in total agreement with that so that's exactly how i thought that i
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i do believe that that we are all created with joyness and and the word talks about the joy of
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the lord is our strength and i think that's a good differentiator because as we're getting news today that is
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very not happy or even joyful um it's like we're choosing you know what
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we're going to choose to be joyful we're going to choose to trust god we're going to choose to
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be an encouraging word to people who are on the front lines and we're going to choose to be strong in that so so yeah that's awesome
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we're going to choose to connect with our joy even if the cat is screaming in the background that is true i was hoping you guys
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weren't hearing that oh my goodness but yes he's awake sorry
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i usually have him outside not so it's all good but the idea that the joy
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you said joy is the strength strength what is it the joy of the lord is our strength my strength yeah yeah and i feel like
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that that also feels like a way to utilize joy right yes tap into that strength
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type into that ability to i think for me i feel like to get your life to
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like to be lifted you know like that's what spirituality does to me is it kind of lifts me out of
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whatever is kind of keeping me from yeah yeah with the head held high and
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moving forward on the path you know so definitely joy is right up
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there with some of those other things like love that we have to choose
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no matter what hi david thanks for the birthday wishes and
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charlie sorry to inform you over the podcast sorry i didn't know it's been it's all
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been happening so quick um and you know how it can be to try to like talk to everyone and then you want to
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have more information because you want to freak everybody out but so apologize that you didn't get
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that directly charlie um we'll do our best to try to communicate it there's some stuff
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prayer stuff at least posted online but we'll try to keep everybody updated for
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those of you who are just listening and not not seeing the pop-ups uh charlie said she didn't know that
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jasper was in the hospital so we apologize for you not knowing we thought you knew
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yeah so thanks for speaking to it too yeah yeah
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yeah so anyway so happiness and joy anyone have any comments about
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that i mean i feel happiness every day um and but there's days that i have to choose joy usually on a day when i wake
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up and my body's kind of achy the weather's maybe not so great or i'm
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dreading something that i have to do during the day those are times i don't know how many years i hated mondays
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did you hear that oh monday is the first day of the week it's monday um yeah yeah i've changed that
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with this and just before that even yeah i used to get up and say okay i'm gonna make monday my favorite day of the week
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that's a that's a joy that's a joy response so go ahead i'm curious as you know like
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how we i wonder like i'm curious how we can we transmit joy or is happiness
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what people experience because we're in our joy or i don't know what what are your
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thoughts i feel like it can be both well i'm just wondering if like if joy comes from within
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and you have it inside you then can i give you mine or can somehow i lift or connect you to
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yours yes i think so like maybe my joy and then you can see yours or
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i think so wouldn't wouldn't you agree i think so because i feel like i still feel like it's still like it's
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such an inside job like i don't know that i can actually cause you joy whereas i feel like i could do
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things to to make you happy so to speak um even though sometimes you can't right
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but like it feels like i could maybe control some of those external things in some
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ways to try to create happiness for everyone else whereas i don't think joy is something that i can give you
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um but maybe i can i guess know you or inspire you but i don't i don't know that i can
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transmit it or can i you can i think you can create a space where people can tap into their joy and
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kind of kind of guide them through that process you know i i feel like if you can come
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along around someone sometimes someone's having a bad day or even there they're having issues with i don't know
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maybe they're having i don't know family challenges i don't know but just to come alongside one and
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just be able to listen and create a space for them encourage them just like you said
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remind them of who they are and maybe some good things that they're experiencing that maybe
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they can't find in that moment you know we get to a point where we can have a bad day and we forget
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about all the great things that we really have going on around us and we focus in on those things that steal from
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us our joy so that we don't have that foundation i think joy is a foundation and i think
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happiness is is a big external piece of that but i think at the end of the day well
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you've even said it um on on air oops my kitty just jumped on the bed sorry
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that um you like talking to me because it just makes your spirit light
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that's that's that's joy that's what joy joy feels like so i think we can create
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a space where people can choose to walk into it you can choose to be a negative nelly and say no i don't care what you say
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i'm not gonna let you bring me up or or encourage me or speak life into me
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so there is a difference and i think a lot of times people are pursuing they're looking for happiness
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and they articulate it as happiness and they put the characteristics of happiness when really what they're looking for is
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joy i think that's that's a bigger uh conversation
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um we don't define things i think uh the way they're intended to be
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defined for us spiritually do you think that there is a vulnerability
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when you're in joy or with joy i think there can be
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because when when if we're why wouldn't we choose joy all the time
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like why why wouldn't we i think some people don't think it's something you choose
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i you know what i mean and i think that's where the definition gets gets gray you know how
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how do you expect me to be happy i just lost my job right you know how do you expect me to be happy i just found out my nephew's
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going to the hospital and that has nothing to do with joy
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the joy underneath is is the okay this is a horrible situation and i'm not excited about walking through it
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but i know that i'm going to come out of it i know that there's going to be something to gain out of this experience be it the
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closeness with my family be it's a new opportunity to find a different job
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be it an opportunity to have new relationships i didn't even know were going to be available to me we just have to face the world with joy
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choose it every single day and when the negative stuff happens we have to just manage it it
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go ahead no i just was agreeing i i feel empowered recently by
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the word manage which i know seems really weird but i i've never thought about the
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things around me as they come at me or just happened in my life that
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i have the ability to manage it i don't have to allow it to just happen to me
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i get to manage it so so you know if i'm in the grocery store and someone comes up and starts yelling at me or
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or gets in my face and they don't have a mask on i get to manage that situation right and i don't have to take it as an
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offense or as a whatever i get to manage it and understanding how
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to manage experiences my life the interactions i have with the people around me in the
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relationships if i can manage it the way that i perceive and understand joy to look like
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for me personally and for them i believe the outcome is totally different than if i if i don't if i can choose a
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joy response over an offensive response i think it changes the situation for both of us
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yeah i agree so anyway that's my word today manage
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yeah well um so as is happiness um i think what there's like come on
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things come into mind is the idea of like happiness can change like what one thing that maybe hadn't made me happy before
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um might not make me like make me happy anymore um can you think of it those sorts of things that happiness where happiness
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has changed for you um yeah um well
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my job i was i was happy in my job for years for years
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you know i 10 12 years oh i shouldn't say that i was happy first 10 years
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the last two or three were not as happy for me i don't know if it was because i was bored or what but i really felt like
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that maybe it was time for me to transition and i wasn't ready to do it and but when i transitioned or
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actually my job came to an end when when coleman started i didn't get a choice in the matter
24:55
then i was like upset but then i'm like oh my goodness i found my happy again so i started out
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happy i went through this portion of oh my gosh because my livelihood was changing
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and it was scary the livelihood that i had known for the last 10 years was was gone in an instant
25:13
and then it's like oh my goodness and then i had to move forward and say okay you know what i need to find my my joy in this
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i need to stand on who god says that i am and who he is and i need to move forward and now i've
25:26
been able to move forward i still don't have a job but i've been able to move forward and i'm finding happiness
25:33
because of the joy that i chose to walk in now in the external things around me
25:38
[Music] yeah i i hadn't realized that um i think somewhere along the way i had
25:45
come to believe that um i didn't deserve happiness
25:53
joy and freedom and the only reason why i even say that and just kind of put that into the language is
25:58
when i first got into recovery there's something that said often a lot is that um the belief that
26:05
um god higher power wants us to experience wants us to be
26:10
happy joyous and free that's like a common uh statement that's that's made um in some recovery circles
26:18
and i hadn't realized that i had kind of been living my life as if that wasn't true like that i believe you
26:25
know what i mean like i wasn't super connected with that idea that um that's what god wanted for me
26:32
and that maybe that's what god's role was in my life to help me have that experience
26:38
somewhere along the way i had started living as if like the world and maybe the world i
26:44
don't think the world is out to get you but i think there are things in the world that
26:50
can kind of come at you i guess and so but i was realizing how much i was living my life as if um the world was out to
26:58
get me and maybe and god whether or not god was out to get me or not but god wasn't part of that equation
27:04
um and so it was like it was helpful to kind of like hear that and then think about it and
27:10
realize that somehow that had changed for me and then once i could believe
27:15
in a god and a higher power and a purpose that um involved me experience
27:22
happiness joy and freedom then i know that i can begin to do the things that
27:28
i need to do in order to experience those things and not only for myself but also with
27:36
with um the world and i think because i had that mentality i settled for a lot of not so great circumstances
27:44
and situations that um just caused a lot more pain or maybe i couldn't even be as
27:50
like present with happiness and joy and freedom in some really great environments with
27:56
some really great people with some really great opportunities i wasn't able to really fully
28:02
be present and latch on to and experience in that way instead i kind of you know had a came at
28:08
it differently yeah to have a different effect yeah yeah i get that you know i'm
28:15
just i'm listening to you and i'm thinking i think and i mean you probably too do you know anyone who has an
28:21
idea what happiness looks like i i feel like we get a stereotype in our
28:28
head you know if to be happy i have to have you know the little house with the white picket
28:33
fence and two and a half half kids and i have to make this much money and and if i don't
28:38
have that then i'm not gonna be happy and i'm gonna try to get you know what i mean and i think that's a false
28:44
a false joy well i think that could be the performance of happiness right yeah way of performing happiness
28:52
to the world you look at me you see that i have all these sorts of things so i must be happy
28:58
um whether that's my experience or not like i don't know how much of it is performative and then how much of it is
29:05
actually i mean i think it does manufacture those things um hey for how long i don't know
29:12
um and if you're always chasing that that happiness in that way um yeah i think eventually you're going
29:18
to you know run out of that effect from that thing you know
29:27
yeah true happiness i think comes from our our relationship with jesus
29:32
and as long as we allow that to continue to grow in us i think it can be infectious to the people around us
29:39
i mean i think happiness is trans i think happiness is transmittable um you can transmit it from one person
29:47
to another oh yeah yeah i i think joy can be and it's just at a different level
29:58
i think go ahead i feel like maybe joy is more trans it's
30:05
more transmitted in internally like yeah deeply
30:11
within rather than like something on the outside i agree that's what i was going to say
30:18
i was channeling you that's perfect that's awesome yeah well and one of the things one of
30:25
the things that i've noticed as i've gotten older that's been helpful for me to uh practice or to realize is that kind
30:32
of like we've talked about a little bit is that like just because one thing isn't going well
30:37
or isn't going the way that i would like to or is causing me to feel unhappy that doesn't have to make everything
30:44
unhappy and i feel like you know there was probably a maturity level where everything was more black and white
30:51
right you were either happy or you were sad you were either rich or you were poor you were either
30:56
this or you or that and the reality of is like well actually you can be a lot of things you can be poor
31:02
you can be happy you can be like devastated about this over here and still have
31:07
another experience over here i mean i think ideally that's where we want to be able to get to a place of
31:12
right right right we need to be steadfast or steady no matter what's happening in
31:19
the circumstances around us that we're we're steady yeah and then we can still smile we can still care for the people around us we
31:25
can still not be so introverted that we're no good to the rest of the world right
31:32
well and i think that's important to us like that's important for us but it's also important for
31:37
like the people around us because if we if we take this awful feeling over here
31:44
that was caused i get to have construction you have the cats with all these distractions but um
31:53
i don't know what what i was gonna say i lost my my train of thought do you did you catch it
32:02
well we were talking about how the uh our internal joy can affect the people
32:08
around us and how that comes in an internal level versus an outward pouring of happiness yeah so if we're if
32:16
we let something that's awful happening over here cause us to treat
32:21
the people over here in a bad way from that i mean i think that's probably when abuse happens that violence happens
32:27
that's when you know all these sorts of things is because we haven't been able to um deal with our stuff over here in a
32:34
way that needs to be um without it you know creating more harm over here you know it's like
32:40
yeah people hurt people so how do we begin to have hurt but also healing that's a
32:47
whole another topic huh it is a whole other topic but i think you make a good point our our emotions which is what happiness
32:56
is um can just flow through us okay they can flow through us and
33:01
they'll eventually come to a point where they're they're not so not um um i wouldn't like what's the
33:08
word i'm trying to look for that they're they're gonna they're gonna it's gonna eventually fade away
33:14
where joy as it flows through us it can be a steadfast space for us and for the people around us i
33:21
i'm my core value system as a christian is that my life is not my own and so
33:29
my life every day needs to be surrendered so that the people around me can receive something good and valuable
33:37
okay and i don't want them to receive the momentary happiness i want them to see receive the the
33:43
life-changing joy because it's like all the things you've already said that joy transforms all these things within us so
33:51
that we can have freedom so that we can be happy and we can enjoy our lives
33:56
so really i'm curious then if if like if you're listen and i'm just i'm
34:01
not like i'm not okay so if you're i think i just feel like some people might be wondering this if your life is not your own
34:08
then what is your own what is my own is yours yeah um my joy
34:15
the fact that i get to wake up every day and uh one participate in that day the fact
34:22
that i even woke up today is a a blessing and an amazing opportunity you know my what is mine is my ability to choose
34:31
and to change your life life is yours too would you say your your life is not your yours or no
34:38
yeah well yeah just my life can't it shouldn't be self-serving it's my it's not about me my life is
34:44
life but it's a life that brings life to those around me and in that i find life does that make
34:49
sense yeah so i don't find life when i'm just taking care of me
34:55
i find life when i'm serving and helping my daughter entertain her friends i find life when i can stand in the gap
35:01
and pray for my sister as her grandson's in the hospital i i find life when i can go out
35:08
and and take my neighbor grocery shopping because she doesn't feel good or because she's scared of colby
35:14
that's that's what that's what my my and that is joy all those things are joyful to me not
35:21
now that said i sometimes don't like it when i get the call that there's you know i i need to go to
35:28
the store today can you go to the store today i don't want to go to the store today but i'm still excited at the opportunity
35:36
that i get to do it so that's what i mean when my my life is not my own
35:41
my life is about i don't know being available and and being turned back i say all that because
35:47
my life has changed oh my goodness so much over the years um
35:52
to a point where that you and i can have a conversation for 20 years we weren't able to find a common space to
35:58
have a conversation so i really believe that's because of the changes that had to take place in my life in addition to
36:03
the changes that had to take place in your life that brought us to a point where we can now have a conversation
36:08
and walk in love with one another and freedom right so that's kind of what i mean it's
36:15
it's a maturing it's it's a growing up you know i don't think every decision based on how it's going to affect me i i base every decision
36:24
based on how is it going to affect the people around me because i know that when i affect the people around me in a positive way it comes back to me
36:31
and that's the kind of life i want to live and that's where joy lives yeah and i think i think i know
36:38
for me like i feel like when i heard that when i was younger i would definitely kind of feel like okay then i have to like
36:45
i don't know if it's like martyr or sacrifice or like i feel like it can be kind of a toxic
36:52
it could toxic idea um unless i'm not saying like in the way
36:58
that you said it but i think sometimes if you're not like i don't know if you're just hearing it a certain way you might just think
37:03
like this is i just have to give up everything of me and dump myself into and that can become toxic
37:09
when you're putting so much out and but part of that is also being able to take care of yourself
37:16
so that you have so that you can show up for others right so i think it's just that balance of like
37:22
my life is mine but because of because i have my life my life
37:27
is for you too you know what i mean like it's like a i don't know it's more of a i don't know
37:34
we got it we got to remember that um it's not all just about the works or we're we're we're we're putting a
37:41
spiritual connotation on a uh i'm sorry physical connotation on a spiritual principle
37:47
you know and so the the opportunity that i have to love on
37:53
people um that's that's what i call it when i get to opportunity to do some of that
37:58
um that brings me joy there was a time when that didn't didn't happen so we have to take that
38:04
all into balance now my joy still comes when i can um just have a conversation with someone or
38:12
or um what else am i trying to say here uh just be it be available
38:18
my needs are met because of the time i spend in my quiet space with god every day
38:24
my needs are met by these same people that i serve because they too want to receive and give back to me
38:33
yeah that's kind of where all that i know you don't you did you hear anything i said i i mean no
38:39
i was like everything just went black and it was like bloop and it's all good i kept talking so i don't know if anyone
38:45
else heard me either but it was all good it's i'm sure i'm sure i think and and you
38:50
know sometimes it does that to where like for us we're experiencing something and then happening completely different for other
38:56
people yeah so charlie says i struggle with the balance
39:02
we all struggle with the balance and you know what i'm not sure that balance is even something real will we ever find
39:08
complete i'm not sure that that's even real right well i think i think the way that we can um
39:16
change when we feel unbalanced uh it sounds like charlie did hear all
39:22
of you so that was great um but i think the way that we can battle imbalance or the feeling of
39:29
imbalance is to just broaden our container so i think sometimes when we look at what
39:35
this week look like it can feel really unbalanced but if we look at the last month then it could be a little bit
39:43
closer to feeling like oh there was half time with family and half time with work even though there might have been one
39:48
week where you were worked the whole time do you know what i mean but if if you just
39:54
look a little wider then i think you can start to see that there is balance
39:59
um even though it might not feel like it in that particular moment so i think balance or that um i don't know if the
40:06
balance is the term the um or even just the cohesionist that the wholeness you like have to look
40:13
further out to see that the bigger picture right hmm yeah i think that's that's a good way to look
40:20
at it yeah like it's not going to be that way forever right right and you know i don't know
40:26
i really feel like balance is a marketing tool that that people tell us oh you you're
40:31
off balance you need to spend more time working out or you're off balance you need to spend more time working or you need to spend
40:38
more time doing this or that it you know i really feel like if we could just find it within ourselves
40:44
to wake up every morning it's been some quiet time to get our day set and and i believe that that time should
40:51
be spent with with god i think we just set forth and say i'm gonna do whatever is put in front of me today
40:58
and and and just go out with that mindset i think it'll it'll happen work may happen family may happen but life's going to
41:05
happen and then we get to manage the joy the happiness the fear whatever it is that's going to
41:12
be a part of that day and and move to the next thing yeah like let go of the kids don't all over
41:20
yourself as they say yeah here's a uh comment and or maybe question i haven't
41:26
read through it yet but isaac says i often find happiness to be aspirational i i want to be happy
41:33
i strive to make people smile i seek the perks of happiness etc and i see joy as an inexplicably
41:41
experiential moment of serendipity joy to me is something we as humans
41:46
can't make happen it is simply a gift from the moment to our most inner soul that's a great comment
41:55
well said yeah yep i mean i i believe that joy is it's like our soul it's connected to our
42:01
soul for sure absolutely it is yeah i like that and it is what a gift right
42:07
yeah absolutely a gift choice and it's a choice to exercise it indeed
42:13
i really like that statement yeah thanks for joining us isaac and your
42:19
your great words yes yes yes
42:24
[Music] what's on your plate today uh today
42:31
i don't know we'll have to see how the day progresses i might be going home to idaho um to spend
42:39
time with my family i think that's something i might discern anywho um
42:46
regardless of the situation um but um i've been kind of feeling drawn to going
42:51
home for a while but it's been complicated so oh um i mean the last time i was home
42:56
was when jasper was born oh wow three years ago yeah and now he's
43:02
you know in in a tough spot so yeah yeah um yeah it's probably a good time for a
43:08
visit i guess yeah yeah i think so i think your family would love to see
43:14
yeah there's i really wanted to try to get vaccinated before i go if i could
43:21
um but just because i know that family like some folks have chosen not
43:26
to um and i just don't uh i don't know okay do you have a vaccine option
43:34
um not quite yet i know the clinic that i the hiv clinic that i go to they
43:40
um are going to be offering it soon i know they're just waiting for the johnson and johnson
43:46
vaccine to come out because that was something that they could handle within their clinic yeah and i think they got approved
43:52
didn't it didn't they get it yeah they got announced i thought i saw the announcement yesterday it could have
43:57
been before but but i saw it yesterday okay but if i mean if if this is
44:04
definitely like an emergency kind of situation i'll go but uh well yeah i mean that's the thing i
44:10
have to think about it's like it's not like i can just you know what i mean there's just more than you know do i go
44:16
just away from everybody while i'm there so that it's just so that like i'm kind of there or do i
44:22
just you know yeah yeah that's something you're going to have to work out
44:28
so just yeah yeah wow that's that's a lot to manage yeah yeah it'll you know it'll work
44:36
itself out it'll work itself out yeah yeah yeah i just you know yeah i just want to show up for my family if
44:42
i can especially my bro my little bro yeah your little bro's not so little
44:49
anymore oh my goodness i'm looking at looking at pictures of all of us it's like oh my goodness so
44:57
much time has passed in the end i just got to ask myself what have i done with all this time
45:02
um a lot well you know when you look at the when how much older than you jesus doesn't
45:09
say much are you seeing in balance what this i'm just saying that that the priorities
45:16
change you know as as we get older and i look back and i think oh my goodness how many joyful moments did i miss
45:24
how much time did i spend pursuing happiness and then i i missed some of these
45:30
precious moments of joy that i could have in my life i don't i don't i don't feel guilty about it i'm not upset about it but as i get older i'm
45:38
thinking you know what i don't want to lose any more of those yeah i want to i want to be attentive i want to i want i don't want to settle
45:44
for happiness when i can choose to have the joy and so that's really what my heart is
45:50
but i've been i've been just looking at all and you know i don't know get on facebook and i'm so grateful sometimes as much as
45:56
sometimes facebook can be a challenge but um i love that i can see people's pictures and
46:02
pictures real pictures not not these things that are all perfect driven but you know the
46:08
pictures of the of the um crazy makeup and and the laughing so much that you snort and
46:15
stuff comes out of your nose and you know i just love seeing all those pictures of family and the extended
46:21
family and and it's like you know what i i want to have some pictures i want to have some pictures that are
46:27
that are uh joyful that i can share with my life so yeah did you um did you see you know
46:35
so jessica got married a couple weeks ago someone oh my goodness yeah and so she
46:42
had a picture of her little one um her little girl her little girl alison
46:49
is wearing the dress that jessica wore when she was the flower girl at my
46:56
wedding i didn't know that that was there that i saw her she looked so
47:02
cute oh my goodness yeah i didn't realize that either until i um until like i i commented on the
47:09
on the picture and jessica's do you recognize that dress and i like zoomed in and looking at it
47:14
i'm like well it's periwinkle so i think it was from my wedding that was like
47:20
almost 20 years ago now um yeah isn't that crazy that is crazy we are not old enough to
47:27
be saying that was 20 years ago oh but we are
47:32
but we are i was resonating though a little bit like when you're talking about like kind of like looking back and thinking
47:38
like oh there's so many things i missed out on um like i i knew like when i like even like moving away from home and
47:45
deciding to focus on hiv aids advocacy and my my political work and all that sort
47:51
of stuff like i knew i was sacrificed sacrificing time with my family and my family knew that too and it was
47:58
and i think that we all were like kind of okay with it you know what i mean in the moment because we didn't feel like it was for
48:05
the the greater good if you will um but i can say that i can
48:11
i can i am experiencing now what it was really like to sacrifice
48:19
that like it's yeah it didn't necessarily feel like a sacrifice in the moment because i
48:25
was so um into everything that i was doing but now that i'm kind of away from that
48:31
i can i'm starting i would say i'm kind of not over it but like it's been years ago
48:38
that i started realizing that and starting to really feeling that that um that i it was a sacrifice and
48:45
that it did come at a price and it did come at a cost um and there's just a certain connection
48:50
there are things i didn't get to show up for um there were still some things i was able to show up for
48:57
um that were significant but there was a lot of those kind of like um opportunities that i wasn't there for
49:04
in a way i guess you know but i was still there for them and i think those are the things that i've had to kind of let go
49:10
of is that expectation of what it means to be
49:16
part of my family's life you know um and i can choose
49:22
to do things differently now if if i want like i feel like i have more
49:28
agency and i have more awareness and i have more strength and ability to um
49:36
to manage if you will um how how i want to be and show up in people's life to some
49:42
degree yeah a little more so at least yeah yeah i
49:47
agree i think that's awesome i i for the first time in my life and all these years i feel like
49:52
finally i have some understanding and some the wisdom to manage my life in
50:00
a way that is edifying not only to myself but to the people around me including my
50:05
family yeah you know it's easy for people to see us here in this position but the last 20 years
50:12
like you said has been a sacrifice and and the the learning the understanding that
50:18
the mistakes that we've made the the missteps the offenses we acquired
50:26
uh both that we took on as well as gave to other people i mean all those are things that we've
50:31
had to work through and are still going to be working through and building their relationships back with our with our family is is a step in
50:38
that in the right direction and i think this forward motion that we're going on not only is a choice and
50:44
i think choosing and choice is a really big um uh
50:50
indicator yeah i mean but i feel like choice comes comes
50:59
like i don't feel like i always had choice i feel like choice or my choices were
51:06
much small does that make sense like my understanding of that do i have a choice in this situation is
51:12
there only one path i have to go through you know what i mean i think i think it's taken a certain amount of like
51:19
i don't like growth i don't know the best way to say it but for me to realize that i do have like i
51:27
actually do have choice in this particular situation um whereas there were plenty times in my life when i really didn't feel like i
51:33
had any other choice to make the decisions that i made
51:39
and i feel that a lot less now yeah that's like i feel like i have more
51:46
and sometimes it's almost overwhelming to realize how much power i do have
51:52
um or choice um i have in my life you're right choice is power you know
51:59
that the bible talks specifically that each and every day we have the ability to choose life
52:04
or death and it's amazing to me that those are the only two options
52:10
so the choices that i make are going to bring one of those two results so and so i wouldn't i want to choose
52:17
life i want to choose joy that's that soul uh steadfastness
52:22
that comes with joy i enjoy the happiness though let me tell you right i enjoy jumping around to concerts
52:28
i enjoy hugging people i enjoy when my grandkids call me grandma that
52:35
is like my most coveted title ever it's right up there with wife and mom but grandma that i would be entrusted
52:42
with another generation that just blows my mind right you know so those are the happy
52:47
moments that i that i have and i'm so grateful but i think i can really embrace them because i have a joy that's
52:54
like like we talked about from the beginning that was put in us in the very beginning that i've been able to access because
53:01
i'm choosing life every single day yes wow that we've had a great episode
53:08
today huh is it over already much yeah we have like oh my goodness
53:14
seven minutes before i'd have to edit and um but yeah it's been a real
53:23
conversation i um i'm glad that we were able to kind of like just stick with it and move forward in this
53:30
moment um i really got a lot from having the conversation i hope that other folks um did too we'd love to hear your
53:36
comments or your thoughts please leave them in the description and uh we'll get back to them and then also
53:42
if you have any ideas for our topics next week um feel free to let us know or future weeks i think
53:48
we were we thinking about talking about integrity i don't know we're talking about one of these words so
53:56
we'll talk about integrity um unless something i don't know more about something else
54:03
something more sexy comes up to talk about i don't know
54:08
awesome well do you want to um take us out sure hey you guys it's always a pleasure
54:14
to spend our money monday mornings with you um it's a great honor that you would just allow us the opportunity to have a conversation
54:21
uh we covet your prayers and we ask you continue to pray for little jasper and for our family we believe that
54:28
there's power when you guys and us come together to pray and so we just really appreciate that so
54:34
have a wonderful rest of the week and um watch our our facebook feed to know what we're going to talk about next
54:40
week and if you have any great ideas make sure to share them god bless awesome thank you so much take
54:46
care everyone love you bye-bye splinter grace podcast is brought to you
54:54
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