Dawn Taylor|11/21/2022

Transcript:

Dawn Taylor: [00:00:08] Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to the Taylor Talks. I have the most incredible guest today who has overcome such a ridiculously large amount in her life and has the coolest outlook on it. So her name is Joy Stone. She is an author of two bestselling books. She is an applied positive psychology certified coach. She's done all kinds of amazingly cool things, but also comes from a background of being raised by homeless hitchhikers with drug addiction and alcohol addiction and all kinds of craziness. And we really are going to dive into what it means to not be broken. And the fact that society has taught us that we are broken. But what if we're not? So stick around while we have a really beautifully vulnerable conversation, including an update on her relationship with her mom. See you soon.

Dawn Taylor: [00:01:02] Hey, good morning. I am so excited. Hey, so one of the coolest things about this podcast is having conversations with people that I would never meet in my day to day normal life. And today I have the honor and the pleasure of having Miss Joy Stone with me from one of my favorite cities in the world, Nashville, Tennessee. And we are going to jump right in. So tell us, Joy, what is the thing you wish people were talking about?

Joy Stone: [00:01:28] You know, I really wish people were talking about how whole and complete we are and how we are not broken. Like, no matter what we have been through in our lives, no matter where we've come from, no matter what obstacles we're facing, it doesn't matter. I mean, we... just the idea that we're not broken, we don't have to think of ourselves as projects that we have to constantly be working on and fixing.

Dawn Taylor: [00:01:50] Yes, I 100% agree. I often use the Mr. Potato Head doll with clients when I talk about that and go, No, no, no, you've been through some stuff. It's given you some jaded, maybe like rough edges, but that's okay. Like we can get through this. And I always say, like, I'm just a Mr. Potato Head doll that had some parts in the wrong spots. Like, I maybe had too many arms or too many ears or too many noses or whatever. But at the end of the day, we are actually all just these beautiful, whole amazing beings. And it's not all about just fixing. So tell us where this started for you and a little bit about your story and your childhood.

Joy Stone: [00:02:28] Well, this started for me, this idea that I'm not broken. It started for me really in 2012. So I'll share a little bit about that, like this sort of epiphany that I had, that I, I had been in therapy because of some of the things I'll share with you in a moment about where I come from, my childhood, and things I went through. But I found myself in therapy. I found myself in different group programs. I found myself reading books, going to workshops, all the things, and then eventually becoming involved in the yoga community and spiritual world and discovering all these amazing insights about who I am. And I would hear things like, There's more right about you than there is wrong at any given moment. And I had never heard things like that before, right? But I had been, so I'd been immersed in this world. And then in 2012, I met a teacher who introduced me to this concept in yoga, which is “tapas isvarapranidhana”. So tapas means like it's a Sanskrit word that means practice and isvarapranidhana –

Dawn Taylor: [00:03:33] I was like, Those are some big words.

Joy Stone: [00:03:34] Aren't they. They're so big. We're just going right in. We're just going right in for it. But tapas means practice, right? And then it means, like, purification. And then this idea of raga means detachment. And what I realize is the way he was sharing this with me is that I had been spending almost all of my energy on the idea of detaching from the things I thought were broken about me, like I had been spending so much energy on fixing the things that I thought I needed to be ashamed of, that I thought if anybody knew, they just wouldn't love me, or if anybody found out this, they might think less of me. So I had been working so hard on fixing and removing myself from the things that I thought made me broken and no time really on developing, which is the practice of having this profound relationship with who I really am. My wholeness. Like those are two different paths, really, and I hadn't thought about it that way. So 2012 was a big breakthrough for me in how I actually got to this point of this idea, thinking that we really need to talk more about this and then... do you want me to dive in a little bit to my childhood?

Dawn Taylor: [00:04:45] Well, yes, we're going to get there, but let's pause there even for a second, is you said like shutting out that side of you. I, for the longest time, have been a believer that every single thing in life is a double edged sword. A knife can be used to butter your bread, but a knife can also stab somebody. Love can be something that can absolutely rip you apart and destroy you, and someone can use it to manipulate and hurt. But it also is like the greatest thing in the entire world. And how all of these things are really just double edged swords. And I do find so often in healing - and please hear us, we're not psychologists, we're not doctors, we're not telling you don't go to therapy, we're not telling you not to heal the trauma of your past or any of those things like, that's not what we're saying - but it's looking at it in a way of you're not broken, you're not doing the work because you hate yourself. You're doing it because you love yourself, and you want to maybe shift a belief or shift your thinking or shift something that's like holding on too tight in that point in your life. But people are so quick to try to like, eradicate who they were. And not love that person for what they survived.

Joy Stone: [00:05:54] Yeah, that's beautiful. And it's true because we're like, that part of us, whatever we went through in our lives, it is a double edged sword. It's like I remember realizing that, thinking that that was a part of me that was so, so like just a part of me that felt so dark and so, like, I wanted to put her in a closet and never bring her out. I didn't want anybody to know that part of me that felt so wounded. And then even talking to a therapist, right. So about - and again, this is just part of my journey - and her telling me and she was actually like, really so deep in her thinking and her spiritual advice that she would bring into our sessions, and just her telling me that, like, you're actually born to know your joy. You're actually born to know joy. And it's like the same kind of like that poem, I think it's from Khalil, how do I say it, oh, Gibran. Like anyway, Kahlil Gibran, and it's a beautiful poem. He says, basically like that.

Dawn Taylor: [00:06:55] We'll find it and tag it in the show notes.

Joy Stone: [00:06:57] Like the cup that holds, like your sorrow is the same cup that holds your joy. So it's this idea that if I'm stuffing a part of myself down, if I'm pushing her down, if I'm if I'm ashamed of her, if I feel like I'm broken, if I feel like something's wrong, it's kind of like there's only one cup, there's only one container, there's only one me. And so I'm blocking the joy when I block that part of me off, when I try to close her out. And so it's that integration is what I think about as healing. And that word healing meaning to be made whole. It's like, I think about that I have to integrate all parts of myself and through that integration I can ascend. Through that integration I can like love myself more fully. I can have more compassion for myself. I can become more useful. So like you're saying, the double edged sword, all of the things that happened have made me so much more useful to the women that I love in my life who are going through things, my clients, my son, friends. I mean, it's just, it makes us so much more useful when we can actually not put that part of ourselves in a closet, lock her away, but say, Look, I see you, I hear you. I've been through this, too. Let's do this together. We're not alone.

Dawn Taylor: [00:08:09] Well, and it's true. Society has put such shame on things that have happened to us. And it's shown us like we aren't good enough or we're not pure or we're not whatever it is. And I often have said, like, what if you stopped hating yourself and looked at yourself with curiosity? What if you look to that part of yourself that you hate and realize that that was actually something that was developed out of a protection mechanism that you needed to survive at one point in your life? Right. It's like if you're trying to eat healthy because you hate your body versus eating healthy because you love your body and you want to nourish it, it's it's still your body, but a completely different way to look at it. So when you talk about who that little girl was, who that person was that you hated, talk to us about her life. What was your childhood like?

Joy Stone: [00:08:58] My parents were very... Well my mom was not very young, I guess, but she was 18 and my dad was older. He was 27. But they were traveling along like they were hippies on on the road. And they got pregnant with me along the way. So they definitely weren't planning to have a child. They were not equipped to have a child. They were homeless. They were living on hitchhiking, basically no home, nothing, backpacks. And so they had me along the way. And then we... so I was born into total poverty, total homelessness with parents who were dealing with drug addiction and alcoholism and physical abuse and just all the things going on. Just absolute chaos from the moment I came into this world. And that just escalated into my years as I grew up. And so I grew up in a home with alcoholism, drug addiction, abuse. I experienced abuse, physical, but more so like emotional, mental, neglect, some sexual abuse. And just all this completely unsafe, did not feel that there was any structure in my life, no boundaries. I had no voice. It didn't matter what I wanted. What I needed. That was not a priority. That was not a consideration. Going to school was like a complete torture, even though I absolutely loved going to school because on one hand it felt like such a safe place because--

Dawn Taylor: [00:10:16] You were getting away from it.

Joy Stone: [00:10:17] Yes, I could get away.

Dawn Taylor: [00:10:19] Yeah.

Joy Stone: [00:10:19] Yeah. But then it was like embarrassing because I couldn't play sports. I didn't do extracurricular activities. I didn't have the right clothes. I just felt odd. Right. And I was a secret. Nobody came to my house. Nobody came to my house. I didn't have friends over. We didn't go do playdates. You know what I mean? It was like none of that. And so we lived in a - by the time that my mom and dad separated when I was about five or six, they were never married, but when they separated, my mom was a bartender. And so we lived in a little apartment attached to the bar. And, you know, there were times I would wake up in the middle of the night, my mom would not be there. She would be at the bar or somewhere else. I would be left for like days, like sometimes three days. Didn't know where anybody was. And I would walk the streets at night like anybody know where my mom is? Like I'd be knocking on bar doors. So it was, it was just a difficult time growing up like that. And I learned to, like, retreat inside myself. That I can only rely on me.

Dawn Taylor: [00:11:17] Well, and then from from this magical society's view on that, you were different. And all of these things that we've been taught are bad or broken or wrong or... So what did that childhood, did it continue to go like that your entire life? Did it... what did it train in you?

Joy Stone: [00:11:38] Until I was ten when my mom met a, she met a man and married him for a very short period of time. But in that short period of time, she had a baby. And that's my brother, who is ten years younger than me. But my mom,and then that man, she married, separated. And I was left home now, still alone, but now with a baby at this very young age, not knowing what I was doing - and just to explain, like I don't, it was absolute terror is what I lived in, because I didn't know what I was doing, didn't know how to take care of myself, really, because I'm young. And my brother. And so it got to the point where even my brother would call me mom because it was just like as he aged, I was his primary caregiver. I mean, my mom was around, but she was young, she was bartending, she was out at night. She had her life. She was off with her friends. She was dealing with alcoholism. It was just... And my dad had had moved away, which I felt very angry about. I felt very abandoned by him. So it instilled in me as I grew up, again, that I'm the only one that I can rely on. I was starting to get very resentful, very angry, and also very scared, which is what's underneath there. So I grew up and I did not get to. We moved into some low income housing. We left that apartment and ended up in low income housing in another city. And now my teenage years were hard because I didn't really get to go do all the things that girls want to do. And you're supposed to be discovering yourself and you're in puberty and you're totally awkward and you're like, No one's teaching me things about this, you know what I mean? So basically I was looking outside of myself for normal. I was looking outside of myself for an identity. I was looking at other people and saying, What are they doing? Like, how do other girls behave? Because I literally felt like an empty shell inside. I did not know myself. I didn't know how to function. And so there came a point where my mom, it just got more difficult to take care of my brother, my mom not being home all the time, that I had to quit school. And that was devastating for me because I also, inside of me, we're so complicated, we're so dynamic as people. It's not one way. It's not like I was devastated and like feeling like my life's falling apart and I had no ambition inside of me. I also had a desire, like I want out of here and I want to make a life for myself and I want to never be here stuck here again. And so I knew that I wanted to go to school and I had like, even ideas that what if I could go to college or what if I could do this? I had an ambition, but I couldn't fulfill it because the weight of the world at such a young age was on me. So when I quit school, it felt very devastating. But the depression got so great that it was so hard to live the double life, go to school and pretend like I was okay, and then come home and know that it wasn't. So I ended up going back and getting my GED and then working my way into my life. We can talk about later, but that was it until I was 18 and I moved out finally.

Dawn Taylor: [00:14:31] Wow. And so where is your - I have to ask, because that's who I am - where is your relationship with your mom now?

Joy Stone: [00:14:38] It's a complicated relationship because as much as I've healed, as much as I've worked on loving myself, getting to know myself, forgiving, forgiving, doing the inner child work, doing all the shadow work stuff that we do, doing all the things, when I'm around my mother, I can see that I love her deeply because I see I have compassion for her because she also came from a very hard childhood. She was not equipped to have, she she did not have a good life either. And yet I have these visceral memories. I have these cellular memories. I have these things that arise. So when I'm around her, I just have to be very intentional and also very patient with myself because I used to beat myself up when I would get triggered. I think, what's wrong with me? Why am I still, yeah, why am I getting triggered? I've done so much work. Why am I still feeling so bugged? Or you know what I mean? And it's like, or I'm spiritual, I'm evolved, I am a teacher. Like, what's going on? So I've learned to have compassion for myself and my mother. But I will say that it - just to be transparent, because that's what this conversation is about - so just normal to all these things, even right now, as we're talking for this podcast, my mother and I are having a disagreement. And what I'm doing right now is I'm trying to break a pattern in myself where when my mom - because what happens when you grow up like that too, is you end up putting everybody else's needs before yours because there's no room for your needs. But you're angry about it, right? So what happens is if my mom can do the passive aggressive or the guilt trip, like kind of because she has trouble communicating, so that's how she communicates, then I let that guilt, I let that guilt control my decision making, and I'll do things that I don't want to do. But what I'm doing right now is I'm really working on allowing myself to break that pattern. I can sit with guilt, I can hold this guilt, Joy, like that's what I'm telling myself. This guilt is not going to kill me. It's just a feeling. And the more that I grow, the more that I realize that's what growth is as my capacity to hold more of this duality. Because it will not go away, that one day I'm just not going to get triggered. It ebbs and flows, so I just have to be able to hold more for myself. So that's where I'm at with it right now is, yeah, I'm a little triggered and I'm working through. When I say trigger, it's a teacher, it's teaching me because that trigger is taking me back home to myself is what I'm learning. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:17:07] Isn't that... No, thank you so much for the vulnerability and honesty there, because it is a thing. And I know in my own life my husband always laughs. He's like, You're the first person to, like, pick your own scabs. And it sounds gross, right? But what he's meaning by it is like the second, that split second, I'm like, Oh, there's a thing there I haven't worked through, I haven't processed or I haven't dealt with. I'm like, Oh, let's sit with it. Let's sit with that and dig through that and figure out what that is. And I was at a conference here, I think it's like a Tony Robbins conference, and he was talking about like, you can fight your fear, you can fight it or you can dance with it. And he did this visualization of like this person, like pulling. And they're fighting back and forth on stage. And then it's like, no, no, no. Or you like, wrap your arm around it and you can use the energy and the power of it to dance with it.

Joy Stone: [00:17:56] Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:17:57] And so as we can sit, sit in our shit, is really what it is. As we can sit there, how can we then heal.

Joy Stone: [00:18:07] And also not make a judgment about it. It's like the idea that we have this problem, quote/unquote. But then we add another problem to it. So we have the problem that arises, let's just call it that name. It's a problem, I have a trigger, I have a feeling, it's like, Oh my gosh, here I am again in this experience with my mother. And then I layer it with, Well, I shouldn't feel this way anymore, what's wrong with me? And then that adds that layer of shame, like, Oh, now what's wrong with me? And then I don't want to talk to people and then I just want to wall myself off and then yada, yada, yada. And wait a minute. Like this is why I think we're not broken. Like I said, like we can talk about this is that this is just part of being human. We are like, we are on this planet with other people, with these dynamic relationships, with these wounds, so to speak. But sometimes the best I can do is just lean back and observe. I don't need to bite the hook, and that's sometimes the best I can. And that's a great thing not to bite the hook. Because if I don't bite the hook, right? I can like, then I can have some... I have a choice.

Dawn Taylor: [00:19:12] Yeah. So with that, one of the things that I love to look at in that way is like, Oh, what an amazing flashlight. Like shining light on the fact that I probably need a boundary there and we mess up boundaries so bad in that I'm putting at the boundary against your behavior. Instead of being like I'm putting up a boundary on my behavior, how I'm going to react, how I'm going to respond, how I'm going to deal with it. Because we can't make anyone feel a feel. We can't. Like think about that for a second. We can't make someone feel a feel. So right now I could be like, Wow, you have really ugly hair - which Joy doesn't, by the way, she's stunningly beautiful and looks like she's 25 - I could say that and you could start laughing and be like, Wow, you're weird. You could go totally different. It could cause a massive emotional response and you could like scream and yell and swear and lose it on me. We actually are in charge of our feels and our emotions. So as soon as we're handing that power over to somebody, as soon as we're giving them that power, it's this amazing moment to be like, Whoa, why am I allowing you to make me feel something I'm not willing to feel? Because I'm actually allowed to attach meaning to this.

Joy Stone: [00:20:31] Yes.

Dawn Taylor: [00:20:32] Not you. So that is another thing. Having been raised by passive aggressive humans and having a lot of them in my family. Oh, the guilt and shame. Huge, huge, massive, massive issues around that. Yeah.

Joy Stone: [00:20:48] And toxic.

Dawn Taylor: [00:20:50] Right? Like so toxic. And one of the things that I do personally is I always look at like, okay, what was my intention behind my behavior? What was my intention behind it? Was it to harm? Was it to hurt? Was it to cause somebody else to react in a horrible way? If so, then damn rights I should feel some guilt and shame over that. Like, let's just put that out there, right? Like, if I actually consciously set out to harm, I should feel bad. But when you can even take a look at it and for people listening, if you're in a situation like this. If you can, like she said, step back. Don't bite the hook. And maybe that's like a close your mouth. Don't bite the hook. Stop talking. Is like pull back from it for a second and then be like, okay, what was my intention behind my side of the situation? Behind what I said, behind what I did, behind how I responded or reacted to it. What was my intention behind it?

Joy Stone: [00:21:48] That gives you a lot more, it's much more empowering, right? Because then you're at least you're taking control of your experience and you're using that thing, which is that double edged sword as either something that can continue to harm you or help you grow. And the other thing that's very... there's a book by David Hawkins, and he talks about how we kind of measure emotions, right? Like each emotion has a vibration and how shame is really like the lowest vibration. The vibration of that emotion is in proximity to death. Like we actually feel like a non person. Like when we are riddled in shame, we actually are so close to death, like energetically. So if you think about that, living with so much shame and when you grow up as a kid living with that, but that profound ripple effect that has on your body, mind, spirit as you're growing up, and still knowing that we're not broken. So it's like if we have any sort of like impact, that's normal, that's normal. So don't layer it with more shame or more guilt or more, more fear. Don't be like another abuser in your own life, sort of speak, with your own words to yourself. And one thing that I find very humbling is that, again, this is a real conversation, right? We're like... is that even though I can say, oh my goodness, my mother does these things that can really trigger me, and yet I know that that trigger is coming from that wound within me. What's so humbling is when I see myself acting like my mother. You know what I'm saying? This happens for us and that, my husband will bring that up to me sometimes. I'll share with him things that I experience with my mother, and he's like, He says it in a loving way if it's appropriate. You know what I mean? We're having conversation. He's like, Can it bring that to light? That that's actually something that I do. And I'm like, Wow, you're right. I do do that. So it's that when I am seeing something in another person, it's that idea, too, that it's something in me that I need to be healed. Because that whole idea, even though there is the experience of what happened, not everybody gets wounded, quote/unquote, in the same way. And that obviously is something in me that needs some attention, like you're saying. So that's just another humbling experience when that happens. And this past year, I've really been noticing it more and I've been really willing to let myself admit that. And because I can admit that and see that and not just go, no way, I'm not like her. Well, yeah, well, if you grew up like I did, you'd be like this too, kind of attitude.

Dawn Taylor: [00:24:21] Oh, the justification.

Joy Stone: [00:24:23] Yes. So really allowing myself to go, Yeah, I see that about me. It's not a judgment, because the only way I can see something about myself and really take it in stride and say, I'm going to heal this or I'm going to bring this into the fact that I'm actually whole and it's okay. I'm going to like, integrate this, is if I don't make it a bad thing about me. If I make it a bad thing about me, then I'm going to get busy defending it and I just don't need to go there. So, doesn't mean I don't ever go there. But I'm, but that's, I think part of this thing that we need to talk more about. That if, it's just part of the journey.

Dawn Taylor: [00:24:57] Oh, it so is. So I want to backtrack a second because I have people all the time - I have such like a logic masculine brain often - and I have people all the time say things like, oh, gosh, energy, you're talking about energy. And I had someone else on my podcast the other day and they're like, Is it going to be all like coaches talking about energy and like, woo woo shit? And I was like, You're hilarious. And no, I promise it won't be. But I want to go to the energy for a second because so many people think that it's actually just woo woo, right? Like it's just this hippie new age spiritual woo woo stuff. Guys, we're molecules and atoms.

Joy Stone: [00:25:39] 100%.

Dawn Taylor: [00:25:40] Like, that's actually just science.

Joy Stone: [00:25:43] Everything is energy. And we hear that. But it's absolutely, it's science.

Dawn Taylor: [00:25:47] It's science. We're molecules and atoms that literally are vibrating all day every day like, and friction of, like, bumping up against each other. Like that's, that's actually all it is. So when you hear anything about energy or you hear anything about that stuff, know that it's actually scientifically proven. They can actually test the energy in food, they can test it in people, they can test it in emotions, they can test it and all these things. It's the reason why when we walk into a room, someone feels gross. You know, that moment where you meet someone and you're like, oh, and you're like, why does oh, I just don't want to be around them. It's because their vibration is so low.

Joy Stone: [00:26:28] Yeah, well, I mean, everything.

Dawn Taylor: [00:26:30] That is incompatible with yours.

Joy Stone: [00:26:32] Yeah, it's awesome. I mean, everything is really energy and the fact if we think about our thoughts are energy. Our thoughts like, can produce emotion in us and emotions are just simply chemicals in our body. So even our emotions put into science a little bit if we want to look at that, right, they're just chemical reactions to what our brain is telling our body. And so those emotions, though, put us into motion and motion is energy. And so a lot of times I'll when I'm talking to women or myself or just think about my life too, is there's a lot of things that we can't control. There are so many variables to what our life looks like.

Dawn Taylor: [00:27:08] We control hardly anything.

Joy Stone: [00:27:10] Hardly anything. But what we can control is our energy. I can control what I choose to eat, how much sleep I choose to get, what I choose to focus on, how much TV I watch, who I spend my time with, what I read. I can control the energy I bring to something. And when I learned that, that was a game changer for me, because there's the power of influence, I can either let everything influence me, and it certainly will a little bit, because there's just that variable. Or I can put the focus on how I can influence things. So that is, that is just the way that it is.

Dawn Taylor: [00:27:48] Oh, totally.

Joy Stone: [00:27:49] And that's been really helpful for me.

Dawn Taylor: [00:27:53] Isn't that amazing? I know people are like, but I can control that. And I'm like, Really? What in your life can you actually control? So like, everything, I'm like, Really? Have you ever farted in public? Because I'm pretty sure you weren't in control of your body in that moment, right?

Joy Stone: [00:28:09] Like there are a lot of things that we can control. But the problem is people get stuck in that, what they can't control. And then they start to feel... Like there's that whole idea of the power of influence again, which is we're either going to live in our power of influence or we're going to live in our power of concern. So if a person has high anxiety, like I was, is always living in the circle of concern. Like what can I, what can I, what can I do? I don't have any control. I can't control her. I can't control that. I can't control the past. Why did that happen to me? Why did that happen? That was the thing over and over again, versus what can I actually influence? I can influence how I see my past. I can influence how that, who that past is going to allow me to become or who I want that to help me become. You know, and again, there's going to be factors that come up, but there are a lot of things that we can influence. And I think that as part of healing - and remember that we're not broken and that we are whole and complete - is that putting the emphasis on that in our lives and having compassion for the parts of areas where, hey, when things happen that we just... Because we have a physiological body and we have cellular memory and we can get triggered in the sense that something can happen in a second like, Oh my God, I wasn't intending to have a freak out. I wasn't intending to have that reaction. But wow, that came up for me because I've done things where I've felt embarrassed, where - and I'm someone who has done a lot of work on herself, quote/unquote, right, like a lot of that work - and there's times where I'll be in a public situation because I can still fall back into that little girl vibe where I don't feel like I fit in. I don't feel good enough. And when that gets triggered, it's like sometimes I can just act in a way. I'll have my walls up, I'll do, I'll do a a look or I'll shut down or I'll act cold and aloof, because that's the way that I used to act. And I can catch myself. But it can happen before I catch myself because it can happen so fast.

Dawn Taylor: [00:30:00] Oh, it's so quick. We have no grace for that in ourselves, which is mind blowing. Like we really should. I find myself too, and I don't know about you, but coming from a past trauma is people used to always be like, Well, you're really sensitive to things. When I was like, No, I don't want to watch a horror movie because it makes me feel too much and it affects me psychologically too much, or I don't want to watch that TV show or I don't, I don't want to watch the news. I don't want to play that game. Like I refuse to, like, bring those things into my world. Like, I just don't want that in my world. And people would be like, What is wrong with you? You're super sensitive. One of the best things that I ever did was say, No, I'm actually just tender. I'm just tender. And they were like, What do you mean? I was like some of the most elaborate, gourmet, fanciest, most beautiful things in the world are fragile or they're tender or they're they're just a bit, like they can't handle the roughhousing and the, like, that aspect of life. And I said, But it doesn't make them less beautiful.

Joy Stone: [00:31:08] Yeah, and that's beautiful because the concept you're sharing about is like this idea of just really knowing ourselves, knowing what we need, knowing our needs. Like some people really love being around people. Some people really love the whatever it is. I mean, my husband's very much an extrovert. Well, he says he's an introvert, but he loves, he's so social, he loves being around people and he probably may feel like an introvert inside. I'm definitely more introverted. We always joke about this. So the point being, he loves. So I used to kind of think, Oh yeah, I wish I was more, I wish I was more comfortable around people. I wish I was more outgoing. I mean, I'm not going, but it's just I like, have a limit, so.

Dawn Taylor: [00:31:49] You're an ambivert, or whatever they call it.

Joy Stone: [00:31:52] I'm a little of both. Right. So it's okay, though. It's. But the idea is having that wisdom and giving ourselves permission. It's like to say it's okay. Like one of the things that I tell myself and women that I support, is it's okay to want what you want for no reason at all or for any reason at all. In other words, you don't have to justify it. You don't have to validate it.

Dawn Taylor: [00:32:12] Say that again. It's okay to...

Joy Stone: [00:32:14] What you want for any reason at all, or for no reason at all. Because one of the things I used to walk around and say was, Do I really want to do this or that? But here's why, I would tell people why or, Well, but we probably shouldn't do that. Like I'd say what I want and then I'd say never mind, that's probably stupid. Like, I would do that and it's like, whoa. Or I would say something and I'd say, But I probably don't really know what I'm talking about or I'm not making sense. It's like a discount. And so it's like, Wait a minute, let me just say what I need. Also, if we don't allow ourselves to want what we want, nobody else is, like the universe isn't. And I'm not talking woo hoo, because there is like we have this thing in our brain called the reticular activating system, which is that I have this filter in my brain and it's looking out into the world, bringing back to me evidence of what I already believe. It's not bringing me facts, it's not bringing me truth. It's bringing me evidence. So if I believe that it's not okay to want what I want, that somehow I'm selfish or it's bad or that's stupid, well, I'm going to find a lot of evidence in my world that yeah, probably dumb idea to ask for what I want. I might pay more attention to an eye roll. I might look at people who seem to not really like me or think... I'm going to read into things because my brain is looking for congruence. So it's really important that we start on the inside and we say, Look, it's okay, I'm whole and complete. I'm allowed to have what I need. I'm allowed to want what I want. I don't need to go after it and harm people to get it, but I'm giving myself permission to be my own, like parent, like I'm parenting myself. I'm allowing myself to have that. I'm, it's okay. And that's one of the things like going back and doing some inner child work, which again, I used to have a real aversion to. I used to be like, Oh gosh, please, because I was very stuck in the masculine energy. And I don't mean that in a bad light. It can suppress our feminine. We need the balance. It's where I was like growing up in that fight or flight. I was going to push my way through life. I was going to get through life. I was not going to like--

Dawn Taylor: [00:34:10] You were going to pit bull it.

Joy Stone: [00:34:12] Pit bull it. So when I started learning about this inner child work, I would just immediately put up a wall. I was like, No, I do not like even that word. I don't even want to hear about that.

Dawn Taylor: [00:34:22] It sounds, it sounds like fluffy, do you know what I mean?

Joy Stone: [00:34:26] 100%? I do. Because sometimes even like, I would just get so, so angry at my therapist or my spiritual teacher or any of the work that I was doing from the spiritual side or the science side. I was like, all this work. But I will tell you, it's been some of the most profound work I've done. And what it is about is if you think about, now from a spiritual aspect, there is no time like we see time now. Like it's everything's kind of happening all at once. This is just an idea. We live in a fort. We think we live in a universe like that has a straight line time. But we don't. So when I go back and heal my inner, when I go back and talk to that little Joy, it's like I'm healing myself now because it's all happening at the same time. One of the things that I really got to understand more of, even this year in terms of this, is, Whoa, what I'd been doing was, when I would get triggered or when I would feel like, Oh, that like little part of me when I'm in a social situation, because that's where it would really kind of trigger me a lot is in social situations because I didn't have a lot of that growing up. I would start to immediately kind of go back to that little version of me that felt scared and insecure and am I going to say the right thing and what are people thinking about me? And that's just that kind of back story.

Dawn Taylor: [00:35:39] Oh, 100%.

Joy Stone: [00:35:40] So what I would do is I'd kind of like be like sitting there breathing and like, okay, it's okay. I'm fine right now. But I was allowing her to kind of take over my world now. And what I realize is, oh, my gosh, I go back and what I do is I bring her here and I say, Look, we are okay. Like we are safe. You are so proud of how far we have come. And I just let her kind of know. And it's not like I'm talking to a separate part of me. It's like I'm integrating. I'm saying, I see you. I hear you. You were never heard as a child. You were never seen. I get that. I get that this can be a scary situation, I'm acknowledging. And then I'm saying, but or and we've got this. We are okay. And I think that that's really important because when we're just trying to muscle through again, we're going back to that same cup that my joy and my sorrow is going to flow through is not clean. It's not, it's not open to like let things kind of fill and flow. So, yeah, that inner child work was interesting. And so I do really love it, though.

Dawn Taylor: [00:36:43] It's, yeah, I'm such a big believer in that and diving in. When people are like, Oh, but I just need to like, push, push, push, push, push, go forward, forward, forward. And I'm like, Maybe you don't understand so much of moving forward until you can accept what happened behind you.

Joy Stone: [00:37:02] Right. You just got to. Yeah, because you're not... You are, it's that idea that you are your constant companion. You are the main character in your story. You are every character in your story. You are every character. And so...

Dawn Taylor: [00:37:16] You're the author.

Joy Stone: [00:37:16] You're the author. And that part of you that's that has gone through what she's gone through or he's gone through has so much wisdom. And that's one of the things that I'm also learning more and more of in my life is to learn to extract the wisdom. Like if you just close off, you're also closing off the wisdom, like there is something to be learned, there is something to know. And I think that's where having the PTSD and the anxiety that I dealt with as an adult, right? Childhood and adult, is that instead of looking at that as something that's wrong with me, is that that's actually something that's guiding me.

Dawn Taylor: [00:37:53] What is the gift that came out of it?

Joy Stone: [00:37:55] Well, anxiety, I actually had a very profound experience with my anxiety because I had been really struggling and again, a lot of shame around it because at that time I was teaching, I was coaching, I was writing, I mean, all these things. And I was like, and I had all the mala beads and I was doing yoga and meditation and breathing and therapy, and I was like, What is wrong with me? Help, right? And I had this epiphany and it truly was almost like, I joke and say, Oh my God, it was like a download, which sounds I know, woo hoo, but I was driving, I remember the moment. I was going to the grocery store and I was so upset. I was just in my, I was just driving, I was like really frustrated. I was like, seriously? Like, how long am I going to deal with this? How long, how long, Joy? How long is this going to go on? What the heck is wrong with you? And I pull into the driveway of the grocery store and I'm parking and I can't bring myself to go in because I'm just in that like, I got to cry, but I don't want to cry, you know, kind of feeling like. And I'm frustrated because at the time my dad was busy and I was feeling triggered and I was like my husband... and there's a lot of stuff. And I thought, Oh my gosh, wow. Like, anxiety is not failure. This is the actual thought that came to me. I'm not failing right now, Joy. Like I'm not failing because I was driving the whole way thinking, what's wrong with me? What's wrong with me? What am I going to be through with this? What's the deal? I'm not failing. This anxiety is feedback. This anxiety is showing me where I am in relationship to myself. Because when my anxiety gets off the charts like that, or when I say off the charts, I'm functioning, but it's like I'm just, I'm out of alignment with myself. And that's what anxiety is. It's a gift. It's a messenger. It's showing me where I am in my focus and my energy and my attention and my, and all of it. Because every time I can track my anxiety back, it's that I have now become so out of focus that I'm putting my peace and my safety and my security on something that has to change out there. And that doesn't have to change for me to feel safe and secure anymore. So when I can, when the anxiety flares or the worry or overwhelm or that perfectionism or whatever it shows up as, flares, it is not failure. It's like, oops, it's like, alert, alert. Pay attention, Joy. Pay attention to what's really going on here. And then right after that, I got this next message and it was like, boom, boom, boom. It was like, wait a minute, anxiety is not really me. It's just a pattern. It's a physiological pattern. It's a mental habit. It's a point of focus. It actually is not me. I'm completely separate from anxiety. And as long as I keep trying to hammer on anxiety, I'm never really finding my wholeness. I'm not really experiencing my wholeness because I'm not broken. So this is kind of this idea. And then and then after that, I was like, Whoa, wait a minute. My diagnosis is not actually anxiety, it's disconnection. I'm disconnected from myself. And these were huge like, and again, I call them downloads to be funny, but it's like they kind of were messages that came through, but they came through from years of journey.

Dawn Taylor: [00:41:07] Of doing this.

Joy Stone: [00:41:08] And it was like, Wow. And so my life did change in that moment. Now when I say it changed, I changed the way I related to myself from that moment on. I changed the way that I was in relationship to myself. And that's the key. Because we aren't broken. We're whole and complete. And we're either going to start from that point where I wake up each day and remind myself, I am whole and ncomplete. And am I going to have some challenges in this day? Probably there'll be some that arise, that doesn't have to mean anything other than what I make it mean. And it doesn't have to say anything about my worth or value unless I choose it to.

Dawn Taylor: [00:41:39] Isn't that amazing? It's what we choose.

Joy Stone: [00:41:41] It really is.

Dawn Taylor: [00:41:42] I am always amazed at how little people are connected to themselves.

Joy Stone: [00:41:47] We're not taught to be.

Dawn Taylor: [00:41:50] We're not taught to be. We're not taught to be at all. We're also not taught to be critical thinkers anymore, which is why there's no common sense anymore.

Joy Stone: [00:41:56] Yeah, I know. It's so funny. During my pause, I went back and studied a positive psychology with - that was amazing - but the point is that my positive psychology teacher, Tal Ben-Shahar, he said the first day of class, we were all out in the class, and he stood up on the stage and he said, What I'm going to teach you is going to be it's going to sound like common sense, because what the problem with common sense is, most people don't use common sense. We're not using it. So the things that we're going to hear, even on podcasts like this, us talking, even things that we read in books, they're not like, wow factors most of the time. There are things we've heard before in one way or another, but we're not applying them. We're not integrating them. We're not, we're not making them be inside out. We're thinking the outside in really approach. And I think that's the big shift, is like I kind of joked I had all the mala beads, the essential oils, I had the yoga mat, I had the yoga.

Dawn Taylor: [00:42:51] You had all the things, all the things the self-help world had told you you needed.

Joy Stone: [00:42:55] I had them all, right. And I mean, I and I like those, right? But the thing is, like, they're supposed to be inside out. They're little mirrors for me to see that Oh, the peace is really in me. It's not out there. It's not in these mala beads. It's not on this yoga mat. It's not on the show.

Dawn Taylor: [00:43:09] Isn't that what everyone is thinking now? Right? We don't ever look outside of ourselves. So right now, for anyone who knows anything about my personal life, is last fall, I was diagnosed with a pretty rare severe thyroid disease, and one of the lovely parts of it - and I say that because it's actually like the weirdest gift on the planet - is through a whole pile of treatments my thyroid is under control right now, but the second I have any amount of stress in my life, I'm talking any amount of stress or overwhelm in my life, it flares my thyroid. Which then makes me completely exhausted to the point where I feel like I'm going to die. I'm so tired I can hardly get out of bed. I just want to sleep all the time. I can't function. I don't have words, like I feel like I'm literally falling apart and it knocks me out for a good 48 to 72 hours. But then what happens, is now I haven't been able to work and I haven't been able to do my house stuff and I haven't been able to function, which then just adds more stress, which then makes me more tired, which adds more stress. So I play this weird dance all day, every day, of like, how do I keep myself so grounded and so calm and no stress? So that I'm not tired except when I feel really good. So I want to do more things.

Joy Stone: [00:44:27] Isn't that interesting?

Dawn Taylor: [00:44:29] Which then adds this amazing level of stress back to my life, which then makes me exhausted. Right? And as I have been learning to manage this and deal with it, I got some really crazy bloodwork results yesterday and my cortisol levels are like perfect. And my doctor was like, What? You have perfect cortisol levels. He's like, okay, are you like disassociating and disconnecting to have them that good or have you actually just gotten that phenomenal at managing your stress? And I said, honestly, I've gotten that good at managing my stress. But in that I have to watch it, like I have to check in constantly to be like, How are you feeling? What's going on in your body? Like, I have to be connected at all times to know when I have to move a client or know when I have to cancel something or know when I need to say no or know when I need to have a nap. And it's even been as far as like a massive to do list at the end of the day, and I have time to do it. But I can feel that elevation, you know, that moment in your body where you can like start to feel the overwhelm.

Joy Stone: [00:45:32] Yes.

Dawn Taylor: [00:45:33] But we all ignore it.

Joy Stone: [00:45:35] We do.

Dawn Taylor: [00:45:36] We totally ignore it and we just push it aside and act like nothing's going on because we're like, No, I just have these ten things I have to get done, right? Like that urgency. Oh, no. If I push through that like, I may as well just, like, wipe out my entire calendar for the next three days.

Joy Stone: [00:45:49] I mean, when I say this, of course, and you and I were talking, these are like the anxiety or the thyroid, these gifts of kind of that book, gifts of imperfection. Right? It's like, oh, my gosh. Because in again, my background is in positive psychology and yoga psychology, so I do blend east and west, is if we look at it through the lens of the yoga psychology or yoga therapy, is that autoimmune or any sort of issue, right, when we look at this is what it really is energetically - this word, again - we're ignoring our needs. That's what it actually is. And you just said that. So that's why I brought up, because I was like, that's actually what it's showing us. So a lot of times we'll be sitting at the desk and we're working, Oh, I got to go to the bathroom, but we're not going to go. Well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. People like even that basic need, I need some water. No, I won't get it because I got to just do this. We are ignoring our basic needs, and it's like everybody's going, Hey, hey, hey, don't ignore me. So this is the very, so it becomes this wake up call, like you have this beautiful now relationship with yourself. And when you said managing your stress, my brain goes into because of how I had just done a talk on this recently, rather than managing our stress, and it's exactly what you're doing, we're learning to manage our own energy. And so we go back to that energy where you are managing your energy, you're like, Look, I'm learning to listen to myself. I know when I need this or need that and I'm getting it and I'm not pushing it, I'm not doing... So it's like you're not managing the stress, you're managing your energy. And that's been the game changer. When we try to manage stress and all the moving parts that we think are making us stressful--

Dawn Taylor: [00:47:19] It just makes us more stressed.

Joy Stone: [00:47:21] Yes! So it's inside out.

Dawn Taylor: [00:47:23] 100% it does. No, and my husband's been laughing at me because it has been things like when I feel that right, like that moment, I'm like, Oh, stop, walk away, go for a walk, go outside and garden for 10 minutes. Go do something to, like, completely drop that back down and be like, No, now I'm good, now I can go back to what I was doing. And I've always been so hyper aware of what's going on in my body. I mean, when you have a brain aneurysm at 17 and you've dealt with the health stuff I have, like you have to be aware. And so like I've been so aware for so long and that's why I knew I had a thyroid problem months before anything would even show up on tests like I was diagnosed in September. And on my birthday in April, I told my friend I was like, Something's growing in my body right now. I can feel it and I don't know what. Like I'm hyper in tune with my body. And people always asked like, Well, but how? And I'm like, Oh, no, no, you actually have to listen to it. You have to actually listen. And what's amazing in those moments is I have been more productive. I've been, I've gotten through things way better. I'm enjoying life so much more managing that energy and managing those things. But like, if I even have - and I know it's been hard on friends - but, like, I'll have like something booked for, like, a date with somebody and it'll be like, Nope. Can't.

Joy Stone: [00:48:44] Oh, and giving yourself permission to do that is huge.

Dawn Taylor: [00:48:48] I do all the time.

Joy Stone: [00:48:49] That's awesome.

Dawn Taylor: [00:48:50] All the time, and it drives people in my life insane. And I'm like, No, right now that is not actually beneficial to my physical health right now. And I can't handle that. Actually, no, I can handle it, but it's not going to be beneficial to me, so I'm choosing not to.

Joy Stone: [00:49:06] Yeah, which is huge because a lot of people don't do that. Right? And I know we're not taught to do that. So sometimes we can even be told that's selfish, like we get these mixed mixed signals.

Dawn Taylor: [00:49:16] Well, because I'm broken.

Joy Stone: [00:49:17] Yeah. And I think that's huge. And listening. I know one thing I've done lately is saying I don't make commitments too far out because I am notorious for like, Oh yes, I'll commit. And then the day before or the day, I'm like, Why did I do that? So it's like I know my, sort of my, my human design in a way, like who I am. I make it up and like, no, I don't really want to commit that. I gave myself permission to say, Can I get back to you? Or maybe. Or do you need to know now? Can this wait? Like, or if it's something I really want to do and I know I'm going to stick to it? Sure. But yeah, it's beautiful. Beautiful to be able to give yourself permission to do that.

Dawn Taylor: [00:49:55] You know what? It's all these areas of our lives where, like, yours was so much of how you were raised in your childhood made you feel so broken. Mine has always been like labeled the sickly one or the one with all the health issues. And it's like, Wow, but I'm not broken.

Joy Stone: [00:50:09] No, we're not broken. And it's kind of like this idea that we're born broken and maybe get made whole or something. And I like the paradigm where we're whole and complete, but we just forget that.

Dawn Taylor: [00:50:20] We totally do. We totally do. So for people listening, guys, you are whole. You are complete. You're beautiful, you're perfect. You are amazing. And maybe you just have some parts in the wrong spots and that's okay, but give yourself some grace with it. So in the show notes, we're going to teach everyone where to find genius Joy, so that people can know who you are and what you do and all of those fun things and follow along with your stuff. Right now to end our hour together, what I want to do is just some fun, rapid fire questions. Just, I don't know, it's fun to get to know little facts about people. So what is the favorite place you've ever traveled?

Joy Stone: [00:50:58] Oh, my absolute favorite place is Byron Bay, Australia.

Dawn Taylor: [00:51:04] Oh.

Joy Stone: [00:51:04] Yes. I got to spend almost a week there. It was so fun.

Dawn Taylor: [00:51:08] You should see how Joy's face just, like, lit right up. She just, like, felt herself in Byron Bay.

Joy Stone: [00:51:14] Loved it.

Dawn Taylor: [00:51:16] How would you describe yourself in one sentence?

Joy Stone: [00:51:19] Oh, boy. I'm a silly person with a very serious side who likes to be alone, but also spend time with people.

Dawn Taylor: [00:51:28] Love it. That's why I didn't say like a couple of words, because I'm always like, I'm way too complicated for one word. What do you spend a silly amount of money on?

Joy Stone: [00:51:41] Oh, my gosh. Like books. I would say books, like things like that. Books. It's going to sound funny, but like oils. Even though I talked about all those things, I like that kind of stuff. Yeah, if I look around, that's what I spend a lot of money on. Books you should see. I literally don't even get the the Kindle books or the Audible, I get books still, and I have ones I haven't read.

Dawn Taylor: [00:52:08] My favorite's when I buy multiples because I forgot that I already bought one.

Joy Stone: [00:52:12] Yeah. Or it's like, Gosh, I want this one. Please. I don't know. I can't decide. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:52:17] Oh, my husband the other day, he's like, Are you literally following along in a book and listening to it on Audible? And I was like, Mmm hmm. He's like, Isn't that..? I'm like, Yes, I also have the book in hardback. I'll give that one away. He's like, you're ridiculous. What is your secret guilty pleasure way to decompress?

Joy Stone: [00:52:39] It would definitely be to watch like, it's a bad one. It's not bad. I, here I am saying it's bad. It's just. It is, this is an embarrassing one, I will admit it. It's those, like, Dateline murder mysteries. 2020 Dateline channel. Yeah. I haven't watched them as much lately because I was getting a little bit like, Yeah, this is kind of weird, but like...

Dawn Taylor: [00:53:01] Not weird at all. You'd be amazed the things I've heard asking this question. Is there a purchase of $100 or less that you've made lately that has really positively impacted your life?

Joy Stone: [00:53:13] Yes, I will say that I actually went to the Dollar Store recently, like a Dollar General or something like that, and I have it on my desk right now, these cute little journals. And I love them and I love to journal and I journal every morning. No, I know this, this sounds... but journaling is big for me.

Dawn Taylor: [00:53:30] It is to some people, I don't. And if I journal, it's like, it's like these weird, like disjointed sentences. Like point form. It's like a point form checklist journal. People are like no, Dawn, complete sentences. I'm like, Why when you can write three words so it means the same thing. So no, I've never understood the thrill of journaling personally.

Joy Stone: [00:53:52] That's something I bought recently. But yeah, I would say my journal I love so much. Oh, I won't say one more thing then. That's it. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor: [00:54:00] Oh, no. What was it?

Joy Stone: [00:54:01] It was really, my really cute blue light readers. I have to try these on because they are.. My husband makes fun of me, but I absolutely love them. They're huge.

Dawn Taylor: [00:54:11] What is it about blue light glasses that are so gigantic? They're always like, so big.

Joy Stone: [00:54:18] Hello. Could they get any bigger? But I love them. And I'm like, I'm not sending them back. Even though he was like, those things, do not let anybody see you in them.

Dawn Taylor: [00:54:28] I think they're adorable. And send me the link. We will post this for people to look at, if you're curious. Yeah. If you could choose to live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Joy Stone: [00:54:42] Goodness. Oh, gosh, that's a hard one, because there's two places. Okay.

Dawn Taylor: [00:54:46] Give us both.

Joy Stone: [00:54:48] If money was no object? I could have everything taken care of.

Dawn Taylor: [00:54:51] Money, family, friends, nothing. No objection.

Joy Stone: [00:54:54] I would love to live in New York for a while because I never have. And I love New York. And Hawaii. I'd love to live in Hawaii.

Dawn Taylor: [00:55:01] I'm trying to convince my husband that we should like, winter places, but not like winter, like seniors that go for like, six months, but just escape like that nasty cold of, like, January, February, and, like, just find random places to live different every year.

Joy Stone: [00:55:14] It's so fun.

Dawn Taylor: [00:55:16] Not sure I'm going to get my change adverse husband on board.

Joy Stone: [00:55:20] I don't know. But it would be fun.

Dawn Taylor: [00:55:24] Wouldn't it? Well, thank you so much, Joy. This was an absolute blast. So if you are looking for Ms. Joy, they can find you everywhere. Joy Stone Coaching dot com on Instagram, Facebook, I'm guessing, all over the place. We're going to link everything in the show notes for you so you guys can find her. Show notes are found at the Taylor Way dot ca. And yeah we're also, she has a really fun giveaway for you guys today. So what is the giveaway that you have said. So what's the giveaway you're going to get?

Joy Stone: [00:55:56] So yeah, so it's my book. It's my, and it became a bestseller on Amazon and it's available on all the bookstores. It's called "If I'm So Spiritual, Why am I Still so Anxious?" So it's kind of a funny spin on if I've done all this work, I've done all the things, why am I still so anxious? And it comes from this idea that we are not broken. And it's the journey from trying to fix myself to actually discovering that I'm whole and complete and how to have a new relationship with who you are.

Dawn Taylor: [00:56:21] Amazing. So there's going to be a link for you to, I don't know, we'll figure it out. It'll be in the show notes, but you have an opportunity to win a hardback. I will actually purchase one that we can mail out to you for an opportunity for that. But I think there's also a free download you had said, where people could just like download it.

Joy Stone: [00:56:37] Yes, absolutely. So you can go to my website at Joy Stone Coaching dot come and download the digital copy right now. And there's also some bonuses there where you have the worksheets for the book as well.

Dawn Taylor: [00:56:49] Amazing. So we are going to link all of that in the show notes so that you get everything because we love giving stuff away on this podcast. If you love this episode, please share it with people you know and possibly leave a review. Thank you so much for hanging out today, Joy, and I can't wait to talk to you guys again soon.

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