Grief Talk w/ Vonne Solis
As an Author, Angel Healing Practitioner and bereaved mom since 2005, through guest interviews and coaching, I share great content that is informative, inspiring and practical to help anyone who has suffered a loss, or other adversity, manage grief and heal. Topics focus on loss, grief advocacy, grief support, healing, personal growth and consciousness expansion for holistic wellbeing.
Grief Talk w/ Vonne Solis
Ep. 24 Coaching Lesson 8 Becoming Joyful – A Win in Anyone’s Book!
As a bereaved mom, I know all about losing all of the joy I once felt in life. Not wanting to get stuck in this dark place, I also have developed a practice to get "unstuck" of which being able to feel joy plays a key role.
In this coaching episode from Lesson 8 of the Beyond Bereavement online course series "Get Me Started!", learn how to increase the joy in your life or how to feel it again if life has robbed you of all joy. This episodes includes a calming mini-mind reflection and 5 practices to immediately start feeling more joy in your life.
TIME STAMP:
0:00 Welcome
0:41 What is joy?
1:22 How joyful is your life?
3:30 Mini-mind reflection
4:45 When we're robbed of joy
5:59 How to feel joy
7:04 Key takeaway
8:58 5 practices to feel joy
9:42 Finding joy in a dark tunnel
13:22 Closing
BOOKS (by Vonne Solis)
“Lessons in Surviving Suicide – A Letter to My Daughter”
“Divine Healing Transforming Pain into Personal Power – A Guide to Heal Pain From Child Loss, Suicide and Other Grief”
“The Power of Change”
RESOURCES (Blog, Course & Meditations)
BEYOND BEREAVEMENT "GET ME STARTED!" COURSE Discount
COACHING EPISODES:
Start at Lesson 1: Regrets: Letting them go! Audio or YouTube
Go to previous Lesson 7: Trust: You Can Do It! Audio or YouTube
Subscribe to the podcast! Share your favourite episodes! Connect with Vonne on LinkedIn and Facebook.
Vonne Solis 0:00
Welcome to another Grief Talk Coffee Chat episode. I'm your host, Vonne Solis.
Vonne Solis 0:13
Okay, so welcome to Coaching Lesson 8 Becoming Joyful, A Win in Anyone's Book! This is, as I said, Lesson 8 from the Get Me Started! course of the Beyond Bereavement online course series. So welcome. I'll put links below to previous coaching lessons that have already been covered as I want to jump right into the lesson here about becoming joyful.
Vonne Solis 0:41
The PDF download I offer for the first six lessons, stops at the moment of willingness. And willingness plays a hugely important role in anything we do in our life, of course. And becoming joyful is one of those things we have to be willing to do. Now the very definition of being joyful is experiencing contentment and happiness from something or someone in our life. So joy is defined as something that comes from a deep feeling of contentment, or happiness. It feels exceptionally good and/or satisfying.
Vonne Solis 1:22
So if you think back for a moment about how many things you're creating in your life right now that are giving you that feeling of, I'm going to throw in bliss, but something that is that is exceptionally satisfying, and brings you a feeling of contentment, you can pretty well gauge whether or not or to what level you're experiencing joy in your life. And we all want to be feeling joy, of course. And it is not something I'm going to suggest can be sustained all the time. But when I'm talking about becoming joyful, what I'm actually talking about, is having that as almost at the center of your core, your core experience that you're going to choose to feel contentment, and satisfaction. Deep satisfaction with everything you are choosing in your life. Including your environments, what you do, who you surround yourself with, where you live, and everything that you're wanting to create in your life from this moment, and going forward.
Vonne Solis 2:26
However, if you're lucky enough to feel joy, and you're lucky enough to be having a life that is manifesting for you is probably a better way of saying that. without too many struggles. Too many uh oh's, then that's fantastic. And I lived my life like that for many years, actually. But when something happens unexpectedly. Could be tragic. It could be a death. It could be a disruption to your life in any other way. Job loss, relationship breakup, money struggles. Just a sense of feeling lost in the world. And I will wager a lot of people actually do feel lost in the world. Whatever has happened to you or may happen to you that robs you of your joy, it can be really, really difficult to get it back and some people never do. So becoming joyful takes on a whole new meaning. And sometimes we have to actually work at it and have the steps presented to us to help us find that joy within us again.
Vonne Solis 3:30
As a short exercise I'd invite you to think about one experience at least that previously brought you joy in your life. Just close your eyes and think about that.
Vonne Solis 3:59
Now as the next part of this exercise, I would invite you to think about any of those things that you believe would bring you that feeling of joy again, and just sit with that. And if you can't think of anything, just focus on the first part of this exercise.
Vonne Solis 4:45
I'd suggest it's tragic if we have been robbed of our joy. That we can't feel it again. Because we are on this planet to experience a joyful, content life. Joy comes from within and can help you through anything. And I know that because I was robbed of all my joy when my daughter at age 22, died by suicide in 2005. All of the joy and contentment I had been experiencing to that point instantly left me. So I understand and know what it feels like to not be able to feel joy, or have any hope you'll ever be able to, again. And while many people think it's the external things that actually represent joy itself, in fact, joy comes from those things that you are connecting to on a very authentic level that can ignite the spark within you. In fact, it is the spark within you that allows you to feel and express joy.
Vonne Solis 5:59
So how do you do that? Being able to appreciate the best of your experiences, and the worst of your experiences, including pain and suffering, will kickstart your ability to shift your mindset. One that is definitely rooted in low energy frequency and vibration, and raise it to a much higher vibration where you can start to feel and look at things differently simply through the willingness you are choosing to experience life differently. In fact, with a different mindset, we can reduce or over time, eliminate our pain and suffering altogether. And joy plays an integral role in helping us do that.
Vonne Solis 7:04
The key takeaway in this lesson Becoming Joyful, A Win in Anyone's Book is that it is the choice you make to experience your life differently that will allow you to experience your life differently.
Vonne Solis 7:17
We are here on this planet to evolve. So the more that you allow your life, to expand. Your consciousness to expand, the more you'll open yourself up to being able to feel joy. And the more you can feel joy, the more your life will actually change for the better.
Vonne Solis 7:39
So right now, if you are someone who has been knocked down by any number of life's circumstances, major life event that has been super painful, you may be suffering, you may be sick, you may be struggling with chronic disease or illness, there's just numerous things that could be challenging you. Finances, can't find work, don't know what to do next, you know, I mean, the list is so long, I would never be able to cover it. But whatever it is for you that may be challenging you to think you could feel joy again, or you really can't feel joy again, just like I couldn't for so many years because the death of my daughter just wouldn't allow me to. The pain was just far too much for me to surmount and break through, even in those moments when I couldn't do it, I worked with angels. I helped other people. I went into a healing practice and you know, focused on things. But at the end of the day, even no matter how much you do, do for others, you still at some point to feel joy, have to turn to the pain and the suffering and the discontent within yourself in order to open yourself up to joy.
Vonne Solis 8:58
Here are some of the things that you can do. These are really good practices that will help any of us through tough times. Through creating more joy in our life. Just expanding ourselves to the point that we want to feel as fully expanded as possible. One smile more. Two, serve others. Three, find a passion. Four, choose to have a more positive outlook. And five, consider that all of your experiences, good and bad, have been worthwhile. If you want an immediate shift in consciousness that last one will do it for you pretty quickly.
Vonne Solis 9:42
I could go into a really long story about you know, the depths of despair and the hopelessness of finding happiness. Finding contentment. Finding relief. Finding joy in one's life. Clinging to that But instead what I'll do is say one of the earliest things that happened to me in my bereavement back in 2005, early 2006, was having to do some things in life that were pretty hard. Finding a job that was not at all aligned with my skills. Who I was. And in fact, I just wanted to stay curled up in my four walls of my home and never go out in public again. But financial circumstances at that time forced me to, at least feel that a minimum wage job that I had never been done before, was retail-related, but nevertheless, I had never done it before, and it did involve serving others. And it did involve me being a different person through every shift, whether it was a day shift or an evening shift. And it did involve me wearing a uniform that just felt completely out of alignment with who I was. And it did challenge me to physically do parts of the job that were quite laborious. And through all of that, and all of my pain, my daughter had just died a few months earlier, and through all of that and having to hide the grief. Hide the bereavement. Hide the loss itself. Never talk about the suicide and so on, I latched on to this little teeny, weeny pinprick of light in my mind that felt like it was at the end of a very, very dark tunnel. And while that wasn't joy itself, my willingness to anchor myself to that pinprick of light was what eventually allowed me and quite quickly too, to move beyond that situation to a slightly better situation to another slightly better situation, to ultimately becoming an Angel Healing Practitioner, and then having my world open up exponentially. Which I talk all about, in my book, Divine Healing, Transforming Pain Into Personal Power.
Vonne Solis 12:12
So taking people from the absolute worst point you can possibly possibly think about, I've been there. I have done it. And while I will not sit here and say I am the most joyful person in the world, my family is noticing that my eyes are changing. They're not quite as painful anymore. And all the steps I give you here. And all the steps I give you in other coaching calls, and in my course, basically present myself as living proof that when we allow ourselves to have our circumstances improved, and becoming joyful, is a huge part of that process, we really can change our lives. And live one again, no matter what has happened before, we can live one that is filled with as much contentment, peace, relief and expansion as we want.
Vonne Solis 13:22
So that's it for today. Hope to see in the next coaching call. Until next time.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai