The Joy Formula: The simple equation that will change your life

Hello there, how are you? Bonjour, bonsoir. This is Mary Schiller and I am hosting this talk today called The Joy Formula: The Simple Equation That Will— not can, but will— Change Your Life. I'm so happy to be here today, and it's been a while since I have done a talk like this. I think the last one was last fall as I am speaking to you now. So, I decided it was time to do another one. And so, if you are joining me live, please feel free to type in the chat and let me know, can you see and hear me okay? That would be nice for me to know. If you're watching this on the replay, thank you so much for doing that. Thank you, Wendy. Hi, Mimi. All right, excellent. Hi, Cynthia. Great, happy to hear that. One never knows with technology, as we have seen recently, at least if you're in my world. You saw me have some tech difficulties recently. So thank you so much for signing up to join me today for this talk. I would love to know if you're here live where you are watching from. I still get a thrill knowing that we are connected in all parts of the world. I am located here in Paris, France, and Mimi is in Coventry in the UK. That's awesome. Maybe one of these days, Mimi, I'll be able to go up there and see you in person since I do go to England relatively often. Laura is also in the UK. Cynthia is Wendy's neighbor in Massachusetts, and Martina's in the UK. Uh, Han says Thailand as usual. That's a little bit far for me to go to, but you never know, uh, you never know. I did go to Japan not that long ago, so welcome again. And if you are new to me, I want to say a special welcome because it's always exciting for me to connect with new people. And if you've known me for a while, of course, you know how much you mean to me. And I'm just thrilled that you're here. So it was so funny because I was going to hold up a copy of the book, The Joy Formula, when I started this talk, and I realized that all of our books are in storage right now because we are getting our apartment ready to sell and we moved a bunch of things into storage. And the book is in there. So, I don't have a copy to hold up, but I will give you, if you don't mind, just a little history of the book at a certain point in this talk because it's kind of interesting how the book came about. But the first thing that I want to do is I want to ask you— oh, Martina says you read it yesterday. Awesome. Thank you, Martina. I want to ask you, I'm very curious about why you signed up for this talk. What was it about this particular talk that sounded interesting? What sounded, you know, maybe there was something about the title or maybe you just wanted to hear me talk about it. I don't know, but I would love to know why you signed up. Amimi says, I wanted more joy in my life, or you want more joy in your life. Gotcha. I understand, as you'll hear in this talk. Anybody else who's here live, what was the reason why you signed up for this talk called The Joy Formula? And I remember when I came up with that title, I remember thinking, gosh, that's kind of a I don't know, a sneaky title. It's a little bit like, you know, you might say clickbait or something because, you know, who doesn't want more joy in life, right? You know, that's how it felt to me at the time. And I think that that title appeals to people. And I think that's why it's been one of my most popular books is because it, you know, confronts something that most of us want, which is we want more happiness and more joy. In our lives. Laura says, I'd like to learn more about how not to get so stressed. I can relate to that too, Laura, as you're about to hear. So, you know, it's, it's so interesting. Oh, hi, Martina. I noticed recently that I'm much more happy when I spend more time in now and here in a peaceful way. I thought your book related to that. Oh, thank you. Okay, that's great, Martina. Thanks. So let me just tell you how this book came about because it's kind of interesting. So back in 2014, which is quite a long time, I'm recording this and giving this talk in 2023. I came across something that was very influential and had a big impact on my life. I will share a little bit more about that. And when I came across all of this transformational information, I started sharing it with people who I knew, friends, family, anybody who wanted to listen. I was talking with them about it. And I remember back then I started a little Facebook group just for friends and family, anybody who was connected to me who might want to talk more about this life transformation. And I called it LifeSpark. And at a certain point, probably in, I want to say maybe 2015, Some people in the group said, you know, it would be really great if you could write a little book that would sort of put this transformation into simpler language that everybody could relate to and something that we could then give to other people. And I was like, oh, that's a fun idea. Let me see if I can do that. So that's when I wrote The Joy Formula, which, as you know, if you have read it, it's a very short book and I made it that way intentionally. So that the people who I initially wrote it for could have something to share and have a way of talking about this transformation, about, you know, moving into a more joyful place inside yourself, that they would have a simple way of conveying that to people. So I made it into a little PDF, and I really worked hard on the design of this PDF. I remember trying to make it look really pretty, and I have to see if I have a copy of it still. I'm sure I do somewhere, but I really poured my heart into the design to make it look really nice. And at the time I had a blog, I wasn't a coach at that time as I was working full-time and other things and I, and, and jobs and things. So I had this blog that was called the Daily Principles. And if you wanted a copy of the Joy Formula, you could just input your email address and I would send it to you. So that's how it started. And then a very dear person who I had met on when she was in New York one time, and, and she was kind of part of this whole transformation conversation, she either called me or emailed me, I don't remember, and said, hey, Mary, um, you know, I'm feeling kind of bad about this. So I wanted to just tell this to you personally, that I'm printing out copies of your PDF and giving them to people, and I feel sort of bad about that. Like, you know, I've tried to refer some people to your website, but a lot of people weren't really— aren't into that kind of thing, and so they just want to read it on paper. And she said, would you consider putting it on Amazon so that I can refer people to your Amazon page? Then you get paid for them to access it. And I was like, hmm, I think I can do that. I don't know. I had written a book prior to this called I Am Just a Woman, which is my memoir, and I had put that on Amazon, but I had had a service do that for me, which I would not recommend. That's a whole other topic. But I didn't know the process myself. I didn't know how to design a book or self-publish it or anything. So that's what I set out to do. And eventually, The Joy Formula got online on Amazon, and that is how it came to be on there. And it's turned out to be quite a popular book. So that's, that's a little backstory behind The Joy Formula book itself. So I have another question for you. If you are here with me live or if you're watching on the replay, if you're here live, feel free to type this in the chat. What does the word joy mean to you? When you think of the word joy, what does that mean? You can describe it in any way that comes to you. And then after we have a little back and forth here, because this is going to be a little bit of back and forth in this conversation, I will share what it used to mean to me. Hi, Martina. Mild euphoria. Oh, interesting. So kind of a, um, yeah, sort of a sense of being like fully present, maybe like, you know, really like here, kind of like that. Mimi says fun, dancing, love. That's a beautiful one too. Fun, dancing, and love. That's nice. Dancing. I can picture you doing that, Mimi. What else do people think that joy means? What does it mean for you? Because sometimes when we have a word like that, that's rather abstract, it's helpful to put it into more concrete terms for ourselves. Martina, yes, fully present and happiness. Peace of mind too, Mimi says. Peace of mind. So feeling like— just so I'm clear, Mimi, what peace of mind means for you? So feeling as if everything's okay, essentially? Is that how you mean peace of mind, or is it something else? Yes. Okay, so feeling like everything is okay. And, um, I think that all of those things and more were what joy used to mean for me. It's changed a little bit, which is why I'm talking with you. Laura says accepting how things are, peaceful mind, no anxiety or stress. Got it. Cynthia said feelings of gratitude. Oh, that's nice too. So we have Peace of mind, no anxiety or stress, feelings of gratitude, fully present, happiness, fun, dancing, love, mild euphoria. That's quite a beautiful definition of joy. I know that for me, uh, what joy used to mean for me when I wrote the book was definitely a sense of inner peace. And for me, what inner peace meant was freedom from all of the anxiety and stress that I had been suffering from for several decades by that point. I won't go into the details, you can read my memoir if you're interested, but I had a very challenging time in my 20s and 30s and dealt with some extreme violence towards me, and I lived under kind of a threat from someone for a very long time. And as a result of all of that, I developed symptoms of what is typically called post-traumatic stress disorder. And so from the age of 22, when all of this started, until the age of 52, when I discovered what eventually helped me, I was really having a tough time. I was attempting to manage these PTSD symptoms the best way I could. I sought help for them, both in traditional ways and some non-traditional ways. And really, I was so frustrated because nothing was really helping me. Literally nothing was helping me. And I remember one of my lowest points in all that time was in, I believe it was 2012, 2011, 2012, somewhere in there. I had been seeing a therapist and she was an expert in this field, particularly women who had been through what I had been through. And I went through this process with her to try to learn to better manage these PTSD symptoms. And I was so frustrated the entire time that I was working with her because it kept coming back to, well, you should be grateful that you're even here. And alive. You should be grateful that you escaped eventually that relationship with your life intact. And so anything else that is, you know, something that you want is sort of gravy, you know. But you shouldn't be trying to go after anything else because really you should just be happy to be here. That should be enough. And that was the message that I had received from a lot of the people that I had seen professionally for these problems, was they would say things like, well, you should just be grateful to be alive because you almost weren't. And I would say, yes, that's correct. I know I was almost not here anymore. And is that all? Like, is that all that I'm supposed to have is simply my presence, but nothing more than that? Is it my destiny and my lot in life to simply endure these, you know, difficult symptoms, and to really not feel like I'm in charge of my own life? You know, is that really my destiny? And when I saw this final therapist who was this expert, and she was repeating the same things, and was also saying things to me like, you know, Mary, um, you've accomplished quite a lot considering, considering all you've been through, considering all of the symptoms that you have 24/7. You've done some incredible things, as if it wouldn't be normally possible for someone to achieve anything under my circumstances. So I'm curious if you're here with me live, you know, how does that sound to you? Does that sound very encouraging? Because it certainly didn't to me. And I got to this point where I just thought, you know, what am I supposed to do now? You know, I didn't feel suicidal or anything like that. It was insulting. Martina, thank you. Yes. Make me feel very sad and tearful. I felt like that all the time, Mimi. And you know, when you have people who are somewhat in a place of authority, when you have people telling you that, you kind of start to think maybe they're correct, you know, because certainly my life up until then had looked that way. I hadn't had what I would consider to be extended periods of real joy and happiness. I certainly hadn't had peace of mind. I didn't even understand what that meant. I mean, that was just not in my, in my experience at all, because I lived in a state of what they call sort of hypervigilance, kind of like what we were dealing with during the pandemic, where you're constantly looking out for yourself and You're in this state of high alert all the time. That's how I lived all the time. And so when all of these people— and when I say all of these people, I lost count at 24. I think there were more than that, but that was when I got to 24. I stopped counting when I was looking back at how many people I saw over the years. And when you get to that number and they've all kind of said the same thing, you start to ask yourself, you know, am I ever going to experience what I think real joy is? Like, is that even in the cards for me? Is that, is that just an impossibility and I should just give up and assume that, you know, anything I had, you know, experienced before all of this trauma, that was that was my joyful period in life. From age 0 to 22, that was it. And then anything after that, it's just not going to happen. Well, I went through this whole process with this therapist. I finished that, and I would say for maybe 6 months to a year after that, I was feeling a little bit better than I had in the past, but not significant enough for me. And then I started to go into a real, what I would call sort of a downhill spiral, because once again, I came back to this feeling of, you know, that song, Is That All There Is? You know, it was kind of like that. Is that all there is, my friend? You know, I just was having a hard time accepting that this was truly how my life was going to be. You know, I want to be clear that my life had some joyful moments. For example, I was able to get remarried and I married a wonderful person. I have a daughter who's now in her mid-30s and we've always had a fantastic relationship. So there was definite, you know, happiness in those areas from, you know, in, in significant ways. However, the overall sort of atmosphere, my inner atmosphere, was as I described. It was very panicky, it was very stressed, it was very vigilant. It was just, um, I never— when people would say, oh, just relax and have a good time, I didn't understand what that even meant. The word relax had no meaning to me at all. Because I couldn't. I felt like I physically, mentally, emotionally, I was never ever relaxed, literally for 3 decades. I didn't know what that meant, couldn't relate. You know, I would see people having a good time, a relaxing time, you know, in the park, like in Central Park. I used to work near there and I would go watch people on my lunch break, you know, having a good time and I would enjoy watching them, but at the same time, I didn't really understand how they could feel so free and so, you know, have so much fun without any sort of cloud over the experience, because that's how it felt for me. Like, even in times when I was enjoying my friends or my family or my daughter or whatever the situation was, there was always a cloud over it sort of hovering that would never allow me to kind of let loose. So if you're here live, is this making sense, the what, what I am describing? That for me, life looked, you know, I don't want to say bleak, but kind of. I didn't understand at all what anyone's experience was like who didn't have this cloud over them and who could walk through life with a sense of purpose and freedom and, you know, and not feeling like they had to be on alert all the time. I had no concept of what it was like to live that way. Another thing that was very prevalent in my experience was jealousy. As you might imagine, I would look at people in my life, I would look at my friends who had had great careers and all of these things and had been sort of driven and very purposeful about things. And I would just go, you know, why is that not my life? Why can't my life be that way? Because somebody decided to, you know, be violent with me. So therefore, that just kind of obliterated any possibility that I have of creating something. And that's really how it looked. And that's what the professionals told me. I remember even, I think the worst moment or one of the worst moments was with this final therapist I saw who said to me very plainly that even my experience of motherhood, even though, you know, I felt that was like the most positive thing that I had in my life, she said that that was tainted too, that I would never know what it was really like to be the mother I could have been. Because of all of these things that had happened and all of the trauma that I was— had been through and all of the PTSD and all of that, that all of that had tainted my experience of even being a mom. That was probably one of my lowest points, was hearing that and being told that the only way for me to have any semblance of anything was to accept that this is how it was. So as you can probably tell, joy seemed very far away. Inner peace seemed very far away. Let me just take a quick water break here. Any questions or any thoughts if you're here live? I'm happy to, um to check over in the chat. One of the reasons I decided to tell you that part is because I don't think I'm alone. I think that a lot of people— um, oh, Mimi says, unbelievable they would say that to you. I'm starting to feel very angry. Well, I felt angry too. I definitely did, Mimi. And I, I'm telling you this because I know that a lot of people go through a similar experience to me where, um, yeah, Cynthia, unfortunately, you know, she was like number 26 or something, you know, who had all basically told me the same thing over the years. And so it was very frustrating to keep hearing that same message. And I know that other people who have had similar experiences, maybe not with you know, PTSD is the quote unquote diagnosis, but other mental illnesses or health problems have the same kinds of experiences where they're told, you know, the best you can do is learn to manage this. The best you can do is to accept what's going on and just be grateful that you're here and that it's not worse and all those things. And I'm here to tell you And then in 2014, all of that literally flew out the window in a matter of weeks when I happened upon a book that was recommended by someone who I didn't know, but I found someone online, very random way, but it doesn't matter. I read a book called The Inside Out Revolution by Michael Neal. And at that point, I was feeling like, okay, I don't know where else to look for help. If someone says that this book is good, I will check it out, you know. So I read the book, and the first time I read it, I didn't really understand what Michael was talking about. I can call him Michael because I've now met him a couple times, but I didn't know what he was talking about. It sounded kind of similar to other things that I had heard, but not exactly. And so I reread the book several times. I actually listened to it multiple times as I was on the subway commuting in New York City to and from work. And then after about the 5th or 6th time through the book, I really started to understand what Michael was saying in there. And, uh, I'm not going to go into huge depth on what I heard, but I'm going to tell you something right now that has continued to have a major impact on the way I live my life. And it's why I decided to do this talk today, which is that one of the things that I heard— I don't know if Michael even says this in the book, but this is what I heard and what just was so revelatory for me. What I heard was that the emotions that I was having, the quote-unquote anxiety, stress, you know, all of those PTSD symptoms, all of those things were in fact normal. That in fact the label that had been placed on those feelings, that they were somehow problematic, that they indicated that I had an incurable mental illness, which is what these people told me to my face, that those emotions that had been labeled in that way We're actually completely fine. That emotions in and of themselves are not problems at all. And the only reason that they look like problems is because we've been told that they're problems. Before I continue, I'd love to know if you're here live, Is that coming through? That when we have, I'm going back up to anxiety, stress, when we don't have a quote unquote, when we have experiences within ourselves, like I was sharing with you, we have been conditioned to recognize those as problematic. Feelings that we want to go away. That is the message. That's the message I was told continuously, continuously, in one way, shape, or form, that those feelings, Mary, are not helpful. And in fact, they're indicative of a major problem that you're going to have forever. So Mimi says emotions are neutral. I'm really glad you said that because over the years that I have looked at this— I'm glad it's coming through, Martina, thank you— over the years now, so this is, you know, I think I wrote that book in 2015, so that's like 8 years ago. I came across all of this through Michael's book in 2014, 9 years ago now. As I've continued to explore this I've realized that in the book I say that joy equals you or and me minus a misunderstanding. And part of that misunderstanding is recognizing that emotions are not necessarily problems. That's a huge piece of it. It's not all of it. I'll tell you some more in a moment. But I started to see that back then, that, oh my gosh, you know, what if all of these feelings that I'm having are actually okay? What if they can appear as they appear and all I have to do is experience them without labeling them as problems? What if I can simply experience whatever it is— anxiety, as we called it, stress, or fears, whatever they are, what, whatever is going through me— what if I can just experience that, full stop, and not wish it and not try to force it to change. Wendy says, wow, emotions are not problems to be swatted away. Exactly. What if I don't have to try to, quote unquote, manage my emotions? What if I don't have to be concerned about them at all? What a concept. This is not what the world out there is saying to us. The world out there and the traditional conversation about emotions is that certain emotions are desirable and other emotions are not desirable. So if you're here with me live, what are some undesirable emotions? What are some that we are told that we need to manage, that we need to do something about? What are some that, you know, people have prepared courses and written books and all kinds of things to try to help us to deal with? What are the emotions that we typically see in this cultural conversation as being ones that we should try to rid ourselves of, that if we have them, they are a sign of a problem and we need to do something about it? Mimi says sadness, depression, anxiety, stress. Yes, for sure, all of those are in there. And what are the emotions that we're supposed to strive for? What are the emotions that we're supposed to try to develop within ourselves or try to create? Somehow. What are those? So we have the list of unwanted ones, you know, the anxiety, stress, depression, sadness, right? What are the ones that we're supposed to cultivate? Love, happiness, joy, love, kindness. Yes, thank you for those comments. Those are the ones we're supposed to try to cultivate. Well, over the years, I started to realize something very profound that has become even clearer to me over the last year, I would say, which is that in fact, when we are brought into this space here as human beings, we have been given a tremendous gift of the entire range of human feeling. And I recently worked with someone one-to-one in this area, and I hadn't done that for a while, and it was so much fun. It's another reason why I decided to host this talk. I was explaining to this person that to me, the way emotions look now— this is not how they looked even when I wrote the book The Joy Formula, but this is how they appear to me now. Is that they are simply a rainbow. They're a rainbow. They all belong. They're all supposed to be there. And just like if you see a rainbow in the sky, you just kind of take it all in, right? And you, you kind of marvel at that, that natural phenomenon, and you look at how the colors are sort of, you know, that sort of glowing quality that a rainbow has in the sky. I love that so much. It's one of my favorite things to look at. It's sort of all glowing, and you can sort of, you can sort of see the lines between the colors, but not really. They're kind of just this spectrum that flows so beautifully across the entire color scheme there. Do you know what I'm talking about? If you're here live, you know that. Can you picture that? And you take that rainbow in and you're just like, wow, that is such a marvelous, beautiful, natural phenomenon I'm witnessing there. We don't say, oh gosh, you know, that rainbow would look a lot better if it didn't have red in it. I mean, I feel silly even saying that. Yes. Yeah, thanks, Wendy. Yeah, that rainbow glow, right? We don't look at it and say, oh gosh, you know, it'd be better if purple wasn't quite so glowy. You know, we wouldn't do that. Instead, we take the whole thing in and we We feel that for a moment. We feel the beauty and the magnificence of that and the power in that, that there is something that we can witness right then that is a natural occurrence but is so magical and beautiful. And most of us can't really explain how it happens. We kind of get it, but not really. And that is to me how emotions look now, where instead of having to name everything, I would say that my experience of human feeling has transformed on its own over the years into much more of this rainbow. And where I used to say, oh, I'm feeling stressed today, I don't think I have said that phrase in a really long time because that's not how it looks to me anymore. It looks to me like I'm having a certain sensation that maybe at one time I used to label as stress, but that's not what's happening anymore. I'm simply having a piece of that rainbow experience. So I'd love to know in the chat if you can tell me— it may be hard to type this into a little chat box— but would it change things, or how might it change things for you if you were no longer trying to push down or swat away, as Wendy said, feelings that looked bad or unwanted. If you weren't spending your time doing that, you weren't trying to swat those down, and you also weren't trying to create or chase after the supposedly quote-unquote good feelings, what might happen in that situation? What if your days were spent, instead of trying to manage that or create that or whatever, just living your human experience? And while you're thinking about that, I can tell you that one of the things that that did for me was it freed up a heck of a lot of time. Yeah, that's what it is, more time. Yes, exactly, Wendy, you and I are thinking the same. Emotions wash through us. It sounds relieving. Yeah, Martina, it's totally like that. It's just they kind of just come and go, and we don't have to engage in this whole labeling process of, oh, I want this emotion, I don't want that one, I want this one, I don't want that one. We're kind of doing this back and forth and chasing and all over the place. Instead, we can just be this conduit of emotions that we are naturally and kind of watch and enjoy the experience and allow ourselves to be fully who we are, this full human experience. Just go with the flow, Mimi says. Yeah, it is the flow, and we are always going with it. We just have this idea that it's not okay if a certain feeling comes up that we've labeled stress or anxiety or whatever it might be. We panic and we think, oh no, I'm not supposed to feel that. What if we just didn't have to care about that anymore? What if it could just be whatever it is and we don't have to try to divert the flow somehow? Watch and enjoy anxiety, Wendy says, question mark, question mark. Inherent in the question, Wendy, is that anxiety, quote unquote anxiety, is something bad. Because we have labeled a certain physical sensation, if you will, quote unquote anxiety, and we've decided that that is bad. That's how it looked to me for all my adult life, literally, until I started to see things differently. So it— now how it looks to me is this. I'm going to see if I can explain this. As best I can. I don't talk about this too much, so bear with me. This is how it looks to me. It looks to me like we're sitting here, we're going about our day, and something appears, right? I, I got you, Wendy. I was okay with watching the flow but enjoying the anxiety flow. Okay, here's where, here's where I'm going. So we're going through our day and something appears right? Something. It could be, you know, a, a thought of something. It could be a sense of like your intuition, I don't know. Or it could be a physical— feels like a physical sensation, right? Things simply appear. Would you agree with that, that something appears? Okay. And then what happens is that the brain goes into motion and it tries very quickly to label that thing that appeared in some way, shape, or form. And you may have noticed, because I certainly have, that I told somebody this recently, that it's kind of like Google where it will go back through the files and see what the most logical answer is based on your previous searches. So, you know, it will, it will come up with what it thinks is the closest possible answer to what that sensation or thought or whatever is based on previous information that has been input, and that's the answer that it spits out. Now, when you are, you know, When you are on Google for real, not in your mind, but when you're on Google, do the results that come up always fit what you're looking for? Because they sort of sure don't to me. I was just Googling something right before this, and the results that were coming up, I was like, that is not at all what I was looking for. That's what the brain does. It kind of just goes into this machine mode and spits out what it thinks we need to know. Like, do I need to address this? Do I need to run from this? Do I need to, you know, is there danger? That's what it is designed to do, but that does not mean that it's actually accurate. Uh, Mimi says, yes, like falling over and banging your head, that's bad. I'm laughing. I hope you're doing okay, Mimi, from that. Martina, I struggle with panic attacks when I'm going to sleep. If I think about it, it gets much worse. If instead I listen to something, I may get distracted and the panic goes away. Okay, so one thing I want to point out— thank you for sharing that, Martina, I really appreciate that. Um, I know it's not easy to talk about these things, but one thing I want to point out is like enjoying the quote-unquote anxiety, Wendy says, or a panic attack. Can you see how entrenched these labels are? And that we have so accepted these words that sound extraordinarily negative for something that has no word to describe it. When you think about that rainbow, you might look at the colors and say, okay, that's red, that's blue, You know, in French they're different words. Rouge, bleu. Are they really? Is that really what it is though? Is it really red? Is it really blue? Or is it something that has appeared that we perceive and the brain has gone into action and has labeled things a certain way? Because we can't really describe the rainbow. It's not possible. It's too magnificent to describe it in simple terms like that, to Google it and come up, oh yeah, it's a rainbow. Oh yeah, it's blue, it's green. That's not what it actually is. And the emotions that we are experiencing, the thoughts we are experiencing cannot be put into those boxes. They are inherently neutral. And it's only when we listen to that brain kick-in machine that we go, oh my gosh, it's a panic attack. Oh my gosh, it's anxiety. I can't enjoy this. What if that label wasn't there? What if it just wasn't there? Hi Martina, I get what you mean with the labels of emotions. I always thought anger was wrong to experience, but not anymore since a few years ago. Yeah, what if we can experience all of these things even without— I'm taking this very far here— even without a label like anger? Some Some of you may have heard me say this in recent months or maybe the past year where I'll say, I'm having what might have been called, what formerly I might have called doubt, but it doesn't have any consequence to me anymore. I'm feeling what I might have called anger before, but now it just is kind of this neutral thing and I'm experiencing it and I'm Yes, Wendy, enjoying the human experience, because I don't want to ever do anything to tamp down my human experience. So why is it that we're not allowed to enjoy the whole emotional spectrum? Why is that forbidden? Why can't we have just as much joy in the red as we do in the blue, or whatever your color of choice is? Why can't we? Because for me right now, the definition of joy has evolved quite far to be more like, I want to experience all of being human without the labels, without the negative attachments that certain emotions have garnered. They don't deserve that, and I don't deserve that, and you don't either. We deserve to know that it's all okay. It's all okay. Now, if I'm angry and I do something to harm another person, that's not okay. But if I am angry, quote unquote angry, and I say something I shouldn't have, I can apologize for that. No harm done. Yes, we are told we are love and joy at our core, Mimi says, and that is what I wrote in the book, and that still looks true to me, except if I were going to rewrite the book, I would say that we are also, quote unquote, anxiety. We're also quote unquote depression. We're also quote unquote stress. We are all of it. We are all of it, and it's all okay. We no longer have to have any sort of judgment about anything that we experience. And what really started to shift all of this for me, even way back then, was Martina, for example, not distracting myself. It was more about, wow, I'm having a big experience right now. Like, this is actually kind of amazing that there is so much power surging through me. That's kind of more of how it feels to me. It feels more like the power behind whatever is coursing through me and surging through me at a high level right now. That's really cool. We don't have to label it as a panic attack or euphoria. It can simply be a big experience without all of the labels being attached to it. So Mimi, I'm really glad that you said that because that was the next point on my piece of paper here, was that We are joy and love, and we are also everything else. And we don't have to keep putting these boxes around certain emotional experiences and saying that they are unwanted, because that is where suffering comes from. To me, suffering, quote unquote— I no longer really see that as real, but I'm going to use that word anyway. To me, the suffering came from not realizing— the bigger misunderstanding I had was that everything I was experiencing was completely normal in a human being. It didn't have to be dealt with. It didn't have to be worried about. No one needed to be concerned. I didn't have to manage anything. I could simply start having this full gamut of the human experience this full, fuller, and more dynamic life was absolutely fine. It's how we're meant to be. It's how we are made. We have decided that certain feelings are problems when they're not. And one thing I want to say, and then I'll go back to the chat here is that I want you to start paying attention to how often this comes up in conversation, how often people are saying, I've got to do something about my stress levels, I've got to do something about my anxiety, I have so much anxiety, it's a, you know, problem. I want you to start paying attention to that and ask yourself, what if we just didn't even have that conversation anymore? What if— to go back to the Joy Formula— what if the formula was actually it's all fine, that joy actually equals us in total, not only when we're feeling joyful, but us in total. Let's see, let me go back here. I get what you mean with the labels of emotions. I always thought anger was wrong. Yes, Mimi, uh, we're told that we are love and joy, our core. The body is able to deal with all these emotions. When we suppress them, we suffer. Uh, Martina says— so let me address that in a sec, Martina. Um, some experiences are more fun than others, right? And I would say no, they're not. All experience is exciting because it's how we know we're alive. It's how we know we're alive. And the body is able to deal with all these emotions. Yes. So I, I really want to address that, Mimi, because another big piece of this conversation that you hear frequently is, you know, we, we hold things in the body and somehow unless we release them, we're not okay. I don't subscribe to that because I, I don't see how we could be designed any other way than perfectly. We're perfectly designed as we are, and we keep trying to fix something that isn't broken. People were trying to quote unquote help me and fix me. I wasn't broken. I've done a lot of talks on that topic. You can probably find me on YouTube on several videos I've done of the interviews where I'm saying I realized I wasn't broken. And if you walk away with nothing else from this talk, I hope that you can see that, that whatever emotions you have And even if you feel far away from quote-unquote joy, there is nothing wrong. You're not broken. There's nothing wrong with you. The joy to me is recognizing this gorgeous neutrality that we can experience, that we can have all of these feelings and we don't have to label them as up or down or any way at all. They simply are what they are. I'm sure you've had the experience of two conflicting emotions going on at the same time, right? Where— not to get too heavy, but like, if you've ever had the experience of losing someone or a pet or something And at the same time that you're experiencing that intense grief, that we might call that grief, you're also experiencing other things like love and gratitude, and all of those things are there too. Why can we not just accept that all emotions can coexist and that there is no line between a wanted emotion and a quote-unquote unwanted, that they're all wanted? Can we just embrace them all? Because that's how we're made. And to me, looking back on when I wrote the book and to see where I kind of have come to now, to me, that's what joy is about. It's not joy for the sake of joy or, or feeling and knowing that I am made of, of joy and love and all those things. I know that I'm made of all of it, as are you. And that's how we're supposed to be. Uh, Martina says, I get what you mean, sometimes worry what others think is the worst. Well, that's a big part of it too, because this is a whole different conversation, so I won't go into it in depth, but I will say I think that a lot of people who have also grown up seeing certain emotions as problematic, when they see us having those emotions, they don't like it. Because they think that there's something wrong, you know. And my point here is that when we start to just recognize that there— it's all fine, it's all meant to be there, that we don't have to even measure levels or anything like that, it's just all fine— things start to change. My relationship with my husband improved dramatically once this sort of became very evident to us. And so we don't have to go into judgmental mode about ourselves or anyone else under these conditions. There's no reason to do that. And I found that in my marriage, for example, you know, yes, we have moments where, you know, we might snap at the other person or whatever, but it's, it's over and done with so fast because we know that it's all okay. It's all fine. We don't— we're not made of the anger in that moment. It's just, it's just there and it's fine. It doesn't have to be seen as this big scary thing anymore. And again, I want to, you know, be clear, I'm not talking about, you know, physically hurting someone or whatever. That's totally different. But we are allowed to have all of these feelings and to not judge ourselves or anyone else for having them. And to me, that is now what I would classify as absolute freedom. I mean, freedom beyond belief. Wendy says, it is what it is, nothing to see here, folks, move along. How do you know what actions to take based on feelings? Do you use your feelings, emotions to determine how to proceed in life? Absolutely not. No, I don't, Wendy. I, I actually I don't believe that that's what feelings are for. To me, emotions are here to allow us to be human and to have a human experience. And to me, like, decisions or whatever, those are coming from somewhere that I don't really understand. It's beyond my capability to understand. If I ever get there, maybe I'll host another talk, but right now I don't know. It seems like they just appear and we, we do things. I, I know, I ever since I came across this all those years ago, I, I have really given up on, on all of that because what happens, Wendy, and in my work with people, this is what I've seen. And by the way, I should say before I continue that if you are interested in having a conversation with me personally about this, you can either click the button here that says schedule a chat with me and we can chat about it, or you can just email me mary@maryinparis.com. I'm happy to answer your questions. So too many people are waiting for a certain feeling to show up before they act. And as we've been talking about, we don't have any control over what appears in this person, this spatial whatever. It just happens. And that's another reason why I don't wait for motivation. I don't wait for quote-unquote courage. I don't wait for— I don't wait for fear to subside. Who cares? Who cares? It's part of the experience. That's all it is. So waiting for a certain feeling or trying to create a certain feeling before doing something seems— I can't even relate to that anymore. It seems ridiculous because it's all part of the experience, and we can act and do things, you know, maybe even more consequential once we realize that it's all meant to be happening. It's all meant to be happening. Everything is working perfectly all the time. That's a big piece of the joy formula for me now too, is knowing everything is working exactly as it's supposed to. I never have to question that ever again. Never. As a person who follows their gut, I'm now wondering if my gut is not spitting out emotions Yeah, I, I can't really relate to that, um, Wendy, because I don't really know what that means in this context. I know the phrase, obviously, go with your instinct or your guts or gut or whatever, and to me it feels more like you come to a decision and you act. You know, a decision comes to you, I should say, and you act on it, and that's, that's all it is. Hi, Mimi. It sounds like we are puppets on strings and that the strings are cut and emotions don't control us anymore. I don't know if I would go that far. I would just say that it's, it's more like, it's more like the emotions have not been controlling us. We've been, we've been thinking that they do, but they actually don't. We're experiencing them. But they're not in control. That's how I used to think, and that's what all of those people were telling me, that my emotions were controlling me, and because I couldn't do anything about the emotions, that I would never have any sense of control. That's completely false. I was having all those emotions, and the reason I was able to create things, even though they told me, wow, that's amazing, you were able to create things and get 2 degrees and have a happy family in life now, and The reason was because my emotions had nothing to do with that. Do you see what I'm saying? They were just there. That's how I was able to do those things, because my emotions didn't matter at all. So now if I have a day where I'm experiencing a lot of emotions, it doesn't matter to me. I move forward. I just do what I want to do anyway. And I also embrace the experience that is being created at the same time. I'm not trying to manage it or make something go away or, or stop it or anything. So just to sum this up, and then I'll just open it up to questions for a few minutes, what has evolved for me since I wrote The Joy Formula is more this sense of no judgment around any emotions that come to us, and feeling this kind of— I call it, wrote in my notes, delicious neutrality about the whole thing— and being able to just experience all of it without worrying about it, without judging it, without saying, oh, I don't want those feelings and I want those feelings. I don't engage in any of that. Instead, My life is about living fully, experiencing all of it fully. I want to have all the rainbow emotions. I want them all a million times over before I'm not here to have them anymore. I want them all to the highest level. And it's also freed me to create more, to live a different life, to you know, just create more of the things that I like to do and the interactions that I like to have with people. And so it felt right for me to, you know, share this with you today in this context. And maybe I will update the book. I've actually thought about doing a second edition with more of this in there. All very counter to what I learned in my time. Yes, Wendy. My friend Cynthia was on this call. Her wife— oh, okay. Um, no, that's too bad. I'm sorry, Wendy. Yeah, don't worry, it's being recorded. Mimi says, I wonder, don't the emotions we label as bad drain our energy more? I think that what actually happens is that— that's a good question. I'm trying to think back. I was just so— I was more concerned about trying to make the quote-unquote bad emotions go away. And that was a lot of work and a lot of energy. When I just said, oh, forget it, I don't need to do that anymore, I felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off. I didn't have to do any of that anymore. I could just live and experience all of it. And if I had a powerful feeling go through me, it was like, wow, that's a powerful feeling. And I didn't need to label it as whatever I would have labeled it before. And so if people are feeling, for example, if you're feeling tired or all of that, my recommendation would be to just stop worrying about whatever emotions you're having because it doesn't matter. You're meant to have them all. You're made of them all. You're made of them all, just like the rainbow is made the way it's made. You are made to have that full spectrum of human feeling and to enjoy, yes, all of it. We don't have to label anything anymore as something we want or don't want, or something that is bad or good, positive, negative. I am totally out of that whole positive thing. Oh, think positive. No, I don't care. It's, it's neutral. It doesn't matter. It's a waste of time. All of that is a waste of time. We could be getting on with things instead of being so concerned about our emotional state from moment to moment. Why don't we just accept the truth, which is that we are meant to have all of that, and we at the same time can go do and create and, and explore what we are capable of achieving in this life. So changing your mindset absolutely doesn't make you happier. We can't, we can't really do that. We can't change our quote-unquote mindset because it's not possible. You know, a lot of people talk about changing your story around something. Well, why don't we just not have a story at all? Because that's what these labels are. These labels are a story. What if we just don't have them? I I don't have time. I don't have time for any of that. I got some living to do. I spent 30 years trying to make up new stories and trying to do all of that. And once I realized there was nothing wrong, I didn't need to fix anything, and I could have all the feelings I was having, I was like, okay, now I can get on with what I want to do. I can be more direct and more creative. And I think that's part of the reason why I've been able to change things in my circumstances so dramatically since then. Because I'm not— I don't care about any of that anymore. So, uh, Martina says it's bottling up. Can you explain what you mean? I'm happy to address that. So nothing makes us happier because we don't need to be happier. We don't need to be happier. What happier can actually mean is recognizing that any feeling we have is fine. We don't have to fear it. We don't have to worry about it. We don't have to place any labels on it. We don't have to say it's good or bad, positive, negative, wanted, unwanted. We don't have to do any of that. We can simply embrace and appreciate the fact that we are beings that are meant to experience all of this to their fullest, and we never have to concern ourselves with any of that ever again. Oh yes, to not be allowed to have feelings. Yeah, so you don't— when, you know, when you— yeah, when you do try to sort of cap things, it's, it's not allowing that full experience to come through. And that's what I want for you. That's a relief, uh, Mimi says. Yeah, it is a relief. We don't have to try to manage anything ever again. Not that we even could. I don't think in the beginning. I think that's an illusion too. So after this talk, I'd like you to do a couple of things. I'd like you to pay attention to how much people talk about managing their feelings. Okay, you'll be shocked when you have this perspective at how much that comes through everywhere. People talking about their problems with a feeling. And then I want you to also experience relief from never having to do that again, from never having to worry about any emotion that you have, no matter how intense it is. And believe me, I understand intensity. When you have an intense feeling, feel it and acknowledge the fact that that is an incredibly powerful experience you're having. That only humans that we know of have in that way. I mean, what a gift is that? Talk about joy. What a gift that is. I mean, you're so cute. Can I answer any other questions before I sign off? And again, if you'd like to potentially work with me, I would love to do that. If you want to just chat with me personally to see if that's right for you, you can schedule a talk with me on Zoom. It's free. Or you can just email me to connect, mary@marianparis.com. I want more and more people to feel that sense of relief that I experienced and to know that they don't have to waste their time anymore on trying to get rid of a certain set of emotions and trying to create another set when it all coexists beautifully in perfect quantities, in the perfect measure, that's literally immeasurable and infinite and limitless. We have it all. We are it all. Any other questions or comments? Thank you so much for this wonderful conversation. And if you are enjoying this on the replay, I appreciate your time very much, and, um, it just means everything that you took the time to listen and watch today. Anything else before we sign off? If you're here live— oh, thank you, Martina. I would love to know more about how disease and illness fall into this, Mimi. Yeah, that's not something that I've personally investigated. I tend to think that whatever— I don't know how to say this— that whatever is going to happen is going to happen. I don't want to sound like a doomsday person, but I, I don't know. The, the one thing I can say though is that I used to have a chronic problem. I had it for ever since I was 18, a chronic problem that came up frequently. And since I have come across this, I've only had one episode of it and it was over very quickly. So there may be some correlation, I don't know. I just know that my experience of joy and peace and all of that has been amplified by knowing that I don't need to seek those anymore, that they're already me, and all of it is me, and all of it equals peace, and all of it equals joy. And I don't have to try to be so discerning about what I feel and don't feel anymore. It's all good. All right, has this been helpful? It sounds like it has. If you want to let me know really quick what one big thing you took away— oh, you're welcome, Mimi. If there was one big thing that you took away from this talk, I would love to know what it is, and then we will sign off. Or if there were a few things, you can share them. I'll look at rainbows differently now. Yeah, uh, Martina, the person that I coached earlier this year said that that really was helpful to them, that analogy. And yeah, so that's cool. I don't have to chase after joy anymore. Exactly, Mimi, you don't, because it's here along with everything else, and it doesn't need to be labeled and put on sort of a pedestal. It's all It's all the same. It's all part of this amazing human experience that we can now really appreciate in all of its glory. All right, everybody, thank you so, so much for being here. And let me know if I can do anything for you. I'm always available. Just send me an email or message me on Instagram, for example. And I'm just so thrilled to be connected to you, and I'm so happy to be able to bring these types of talks to you. And if you would like more of them, let me know, because I'm happy to do that as well. All right, thanks everyone. It's been fun. I hope— oh, thanks, Mimi. I hope that you're having an amazing day or a week, or, or excuse me, an amazing day wherever you may be in this world. So I'm going to sign off for now, and I will talk to you again soon. Bye, thank you.