Introduction to Podcast
Hello Friends,
I’m glad you are here. This is The Joyful Life podcast and I am your host Elizabeth Wallis.
This is a place where we will be exploring how to find joy in every nook and cranny of our lives. My goal is to help reduce anxiety in the world and help people find the success, confidence, peace and joy they are seeking.
Every episode will offer something practical and valuable to help you and your family increase your joy and manage anxiety, stress and overwhelm.
When I was a little girl, on a beautiful summer day, I remember my parents receiving a desperate phone call from a neighbor. This neighbor was at the emergency room of the local hospital. Our neighbor had just frantically driven my older sister and helped get her admitted. Noone was home at my house and my sister was alone. She had been in our front yard where we had two big apricot trees. It was a warm summer day and the apricots were heavy and ripe. Each branch of the tree was burdened with the added weight of the fruit. She had plucked an apricot from the limb of the tree. The apricot was perfectly ripened and full of juice. My sister was sucking the delicious nectar out of the plump fruit when the pit suddenly shot down her throat. The pit became lodged in her throat in a way that she could barely breathe. She ran to the neighbor’s house and banged on their front door praying for help. Fortunately, our neighbor was home and quickly rushed her to the hospital. She was eventually okay.
Joy is like a beautiful fuzzy, ripe apricot dangling from a tree in June or July. It is there to be picked from the limb for our pleasure. It does require us to reach and put forth effort to pull it off the branch. Sometimes it’s messy when we take a bite and we get apricot juice smeared on our lips, cheeks and hands. Other times we want to take the apricot inside, wash it and peel it and slice it into bite size pieces in order to take a nice clean bite. And our appetite is then quenched in an easier, cleaner way.
The pit lodged in the throat of my sister didn’t take anything away from the deliciousness of the apricot. The juice was still flavorful, the fleshy part of the fruit was succulent and mouthwatering. The apricot just came with an obstacle. It came with a pit. The same way joy often comes with obstacles.
Joy often requires effort on our part. Other times we experience it with ease.
Joy may require us to look at situations differently. The apricot my sister ate was still yummy, it just came with a challenge. Life is full of challenges.
We are going to focus on looking at the full part of the donut, instead of what is missing, the hole. Life is all about perspective.
This podcast is designed to help you and your family find ways to live more abundantly in joy using practical faith based tips that can change your life for the better.
Elder Uchtdorf in his General Conference talk “A Higher Joy,” said: (General Conference, April 2024).
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2024/04/35uchtdorf?lang=eng
quote
“Jesus taught, “Seek, and ye shall find.”
I believe this simple phrase is not only a spiritual promise; it is a statement of fact.
If we seek reasons to be angry, to doubt, to be bitter or alone, we will find them.
However, if we seek joy—if we look for reasons to rejoice and to happily follow the Savior, we will find them.
We rarely find something we are not looking for.
(Then he asks a question)
Are you looking for joy?
Seek, and ye shall find.”
End quote
Dale Carnegie also knew that we find what we are looking for. His short stanza beautifully embodies this concept.
And I quote:
“Two men looked out from prison bars, one saw the mud, the other saw the stars.” Dale Carnegie
We even have a prophet who clearly understands that what we focus on is where we will find joy.
President Nelson said:
“The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.” President Russell M. Nelson
My family has had the opportunity to visit many 3rd world countries. One thing that is always present in these countries is happy children. Children with big, beautiful smiles. The children may be wearing rags, be barefoot and even covered in dirt. In spite of their impoverished lives, they have smiles that reflect joy in their hearts.
We can have joy, even with the pits of life. Joy is waiting for us, it is there for the taking.
Let’s make it happen!
