Opting into Joy: the gift of love

Help love yourself, others and opponents and listen to this week's podcast. Like really, listen to it!! I feel rich, loved, like I belong, and am called to live my life fully, brimming over with joy, anger, grief and wonder. And I need you all with me cause that isn't going to be easy!
Maia
Below are multiple ways to engage this week. Choose what feels right for you and your group. Find more questions and ideas on this week's Episode Page.
Check In

In the podcast this week Melissa talks about joy and it's relationship with lightness and heaviness. Start off your group with some childlike joy, or lightness that is unaware of the heaviness.

Somatic Check in. Take turns saying Hello, followed by a way your body needs to move. Maybe go around more than once!

Squirrel Scale: Take turns relating to the squirrel scale when asked how are you feeling today?


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Group Agreement

Valerie Kaur, the author of See No Stranger uses these ground rules in her book clubs. Share this image and take turns reading them to set the tone for your group.
Meet Cheese Doodle Guy
This man is speaking in a language I cannot understand, but I can feel his extreme joy in finding some processed junk food after being in the wilderness for 86 days.

Joy is a full bodied experience!
Draw a stick figure or a human figure. Circle where you are feeling joy (or other feelings) in your body.
Where have you felt joy in your body before?
Where would you imagine Cheese Doodle Guy is feeling joy in his body?
Story and Listening

Inklings of joy: that momentary sense that you belong just as you are right this moment - and not just to anything, but to something deep and wide and extravagant. You are alive and here, plugged in. All is well – even when it isn’t.
Let's play "have you ever"! Raise your hand if...

  • you've had an inkling of joy
  • you've figuratively or literally danced in the rain
  • you've felt joy alone
  • you've felt joy with others
  • you've felt joyful with nature
  • you've experienced radical self love
  • you've witnessed revolutionary joy
  • you've know where joy shows up in your body


Did one of you have a story come to mind? Choose one or two people to share. Stuck? Listen to minutes ~34-38 mintues of this weeks podcast to hear Kali Pliego's story about allowing joy into her life.
I’ve found that laboring with love allows me space to breathe and creates the conditions to let joy in...I’ve come to believe that laboring for a more just and beautiful world...with love and joy is the meaning of life.
-Valarie Kaur
Listen to and enjoy the company of the Keep Going On Song by the Bengsons

Try on some of these questions as discussion or journal and share reflections afterwards.

  1. How was this video revolutionary?
  2. Joy seems selfish sometimes, doesn't it? How is feeling joy revolutionary?
  3. Does joy matter?
  4. How does Valerie Kaur's meaning of life fit into yours?
Gratitude is our superpower!

Find tangible ways to express gratitude this week and see if it makes some new space for joy.

Here are some ways to practice expressing gratitude in your group:
  1. Take turns simply saying the words 'thank you' to one another. This could turn silly and that is ok.
  2. Spend a few minutes writing down things you are thankful for
  3. Water your plants and tell them thank you as you do it
  4. Take a few minutes to write a thank you card to someone and mail it later
Closing
In the start of our gathering we held some childlike joy. Now after digging in, maybe got a little vulnerable, let's practice some been through it joy.

Do something collective to mark your time well spent together.
  • Virtual hands in the middle "goooo team" moment
  • Virtual high five or fist bump
  • Do a collective shake. Spend 30 seconds jumping and moving!
  • Watch this rendition of Mary Oliver's Don't Hesitate poem