Rediscover Your More Joyful Self Once Again!

 Whatever time of year you are listening to this Podcast, this show is all about joy! Please welcome today Joyful Living Teacher & Certified Laughter Leader Kim McIntyre. Over the past 20 years Kim has taught thousands of people how to crack themselves up and feel like happy dancing! She shows people how to laugh more and stress less, so they can enjoy life NOW — because life is too short to keep postponing joy!

After rediscovering her joyful self during a health challenge, she has shared her mission of joy and laughter with a wide variety of groups — She also offers programs through her online school, The Joyful Being®Academy Over and over she has seen the colossal power of laughter & joy —guiding people to make that beautiful shift from tense & worried, to overflowing with vibrant & jubilant life-force!

Kim also has many years of experience as a yoga instructor, meditation teacher, stress relief strategist and big kid at heart!

In Kim's words: 'Feeling more connected to your Joyful Self isn’t about adding more things to your already full to-do list.  It’s about coming home to your true essence, so you can give your joy as a gift to the world. Feeling joyful isn’t frivolous!  It lifts you up when you’re feeling down, it energizes you, and fills your life with moments worth living.'

 The Gentle Yoga Warrior's Words: 'Kim is a naturally happy and uplifting guest who I am sure is going to help my listeners find their joy.   Professional and fun to chat with. I really enjoyed speaking with her. Life is to be lived now but how can we rediscover what it means to be full of joy?  Thankfully we have laughter expect Kim to her inspire us all to smile a bit more!' 

Kim McIntyre's contact details and social media links:
Website https://joyfulbeing.com

Instagram https://www.facebook.com/JoyfulBeingStressRelief

 Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/JoyfulBeingwithKim

The gentle Yoga Warrior's social media links
https://linktr.ee/thegentleyogawarrior

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Transcript

Unknown Speaker  0:00  
I'm your host, the gentle yoga warrior. But today is going to be great. Whatever time of year you're listening to this podcast. This show is all about joy. Please welcome today joyful living teacher and certified laughter Leader Kim McIntyre. Over the past 20 years, Kim has taught 1000s of people how to crack themselves up and feel like happy dancing. She shows people how to laugh more and stress less so they can enjoy life now because life is too short to keep postponing joy. After rediscovering her joyful self during a health challenge. She has shared her mission of joy and laughter with a wide variety of groups. Kim also offers programmes for online school, the joyful being Academy. Over and over again. She has seen the colossal power of laughter and joy, guiding people to make their beautiful shift from tense and worried to overflowing with vibrance and jubilant lifeforce Kim also has many years of experience as a yoga instructor, meditation teacher, stress relief strategist and a big kid at heart. So without further ado, join us from Orlando, Florida. Please welcome Ken McIntyre. Kim, welcome to the show. Hi, there. Thank you so much for having me on your wonderful programme. Oh, no, I'm so pleased to have you on joining us today. I'm super excited about this show. Anything joyful, is good by me. So really pleased to speak to you. So today we're going to talk about rediscovering a more joyful self once again. My joy is something I feel we could all do with more of, yeah, sometimes we get so caught up in life, we forget to enjoy it. We put off fun for some time in the future. Once all our tasks are done. Life is beloved now, but how can we rediscover what it means to be full of giant? Thankfully, we have Kim as I just introduce a laughter expert to help us inspire a smile a bit more. So Kim, what does rediscovering your more joyful self once again, mean to you? And what inspired you to talk about it today? Well, thank you, like you said in the introduction, in the busyness and stress of the every day, we often forget that enjoying our life is even an option. Right? It's just not on the radar, you're just focusing on getting through the day doing what you got to do. And with everything that's been going on in the world the last couple of years, especially to give yourself the gift of refuelling your energy with some playful fun with some laughter was something that lifts you up. I think that is vital to well being. And so my passion is to show people that it is possible to choose to rediscover what brings you joy. Oh, I think that's brilliant. Absolutely fantastic. And as a species himself smiley and happy face that you you radiate joy and makes me mostly and it's been the last mile and happy. Yeah, we can get so caught up kami of thinking that laughter is kind of in some distant point in the future, rather than kind of now. So how did you get started teaching people how to find more joy and laughter? I'm very intrigued to know about this.

Unknown Speaker  3:54  
Yeah. So I was facing a health challenge back in 2001. And I was very stressed out it was a lot of stress piling up in my life at the time. And I found out about this mind body healing programme in Orlando. And I decided, You know what, let me just put a pause on all of this stress, and go take this two week programme. And so I went and we had all kinds of wonderful self care activities that they talk, one thing we did every day, that was my absolute favourite was therapeutic play. So we would play games, we wouldn't keep score, so there wasn't that competitive, tense energy to it. And we just enjoy each other's company and so much laughter just naturally flowed out of that. And in the middle of that, it was almost like coming home to the real me, you know, to the part of me that I had forgotten in the middle of all the stress and the strife and the struggle, and it just felt like I was vibrantly alive again, you know, and so the two week programme ended, and I'm like, where's my laughter today? And so, not long after that, I saw an ad for this training to go become a certified laughter leader on like, Oh, I gotta go find out what that is. And I was on a plane, I went to the training, and I haven't looked back. And I've been teaching other people since then. Not just laughter but also fun and joy and play and bringing all of that back into your life because of how important it is to your lifeforce energy to have all of those things. But it can be a bit too serious can't be like you said, what's going on in the world as well? And, and, and all that other problems that are kind of cascaded from that as well, we can sometimes feel a bit kind of down in the dumps or when you laugh, does it do something chemically to the body? Is there any kind of, yeah, it actually shifts out of stress hormones into uplifting. And now I can't tell you the exact hormones. But I can't tell you that. And you can feel it just intuitively, if you think about times, when you baby, we're feeling down in the dumps, and somebody comes along and surprises you and makes you laugh. It instantly lifts your energy, it instantly lifts your spirits and makes you feel better. And so honestly, if the drug companies could make a pill that did that for you, and make a fortune, but you know, lucky for us laughter is free. So we just need to find what brings us that laughter What brings us that joy? Yeah, that's his phrase. And that is, it's something that we should try and tap into a little bit more rather than frowning. Because I know that I've done that before. I've been walking around miserable. Like I've been thinking about similar investment, I was like, No, it sucks. And it we feel more visible where there's a smile, I do feel ultimately a lot more happier. Now, they've actually done studies on that, where, and if you've heard of this study is it did a long time ago, but they had, you know, a control group who was just, you know, doing putting a pencil in their mouth with a frown on and another group, or they had them frowning or something, I don't remember the exact details. But then there was another group that they put pencil in their mouth, which kind of simulates a smile. If you hold a pencil in your teeth, it kind of your, your lips kind of go up like you're smiling, even if you aren't smiling. And then they all show them like a funny video afterwards. And the people who had had the smile, simulated smile, just laugh more felt better, felt happier. And so it actually just even if you're not laughing, even if you're just smiling more, that can also lift you up. And that's also a connection of bonding with people. And you know, that's something that I have missed with wearing masks, so often. It's days. But you can tell by looking at someone's eyes, even if they've got the mask on, you can still see the shine and see the crinkle in the eye to realise that someone is smiling, even if you can't actually see the smile. Yes, kind of light isn't there, but people get in their eyes when they're smiling. Yeah, sometimes we don't feel guilty taking time for themselves to do enjoyable activities. How can people overcome that guilt and enjoy the joy of doing?

Unknown Speaker  8:20  
Well, it you know, there's all kinds of different reasons people could feel guilty, you know, they think they should be working, they should be doing something else, they, you know, it's maybe they've got an underlying belief of I don't deserve this or something like that. And so you just have to realise that it isn't just frivolous, it's actually a powerful tool, to re energise yourself, to refuel yourself, to give yourself what you need to be able to be there for other people in a way that is helpful. And giving the gift of your smile, your laughter to other people is a treasure. So it's not a selfish thing. It's not something to feel guilty about. It's a gift to the world. So it's just making that perspective shift. Because I know there are times when, you know, like, there's one programme I did a while back was I'll give yourself some fun and one of my one on one clients that I worked with, she was like, I have all this guilt. I love feeling fun, like, I don't deserve it, or I have to earn it, you know, I have to earn it. I have to like, work really hard and do all these things. And then I can you know, but what if you lace the fun the smiles into the work to you know, I mean, it's, it's just more possibilities that way that, you know, you'd have to, like suffer through your life to have these little tiny moments of smiling or joy where if you lace joy throughout your everyday life, it just makes everything feel richer and better. So, so basically, you want to tell yourself to let go of the guilt and just do it. Just enjoy savour that savour the joy and kindness up into that. Yes, very, very. What's the word? Honest, uninspiring kind of way to be is to find the job, my best friend, she says to me, she said, oh, you should always say that moments of joy in your day. And just the little things can help kind of evoke feelings of joy and all that like, to me, I love listening to birds sing, I just find that fascinating and never tired of that. And that gives me joy just to watch the little birds in the garden sing. Oh, I love that. Yeah, I love birds, too. We have birds all around us here in Florida. And I just it brings me such joy to watch the birds and watch little squirrels run around. And, you know, just being a nature is something that I so appreciate. And that just brings me a relaxed feeling of joy. You know? Can I think all the great tips that we can give our listeners on how to rediscover Joy, I feel a lot of people may not know what joy is, and then hence not really sure how to rediscover it within themselves.

Unknown Speaker  10:58  
Yeah, well, first is to just understand that it's an inside job, you know, because sometimes people chase after joy in all the wrong ways. They think, you know, that cars gonna make me happy, or, you know, getting loaded with a lot of alcohol weekend's gonna make me happy or whatever. And those things maybe don't serve true joy within you in the long run, you know, not saying don't go buy a car if you need a car. But it's it's don't look for the outside, in look from the inside out in terms of rediscovering what feels good to you. And so it really is a rediscovery process that you're just open up to, to focus on because sort of, like, if you put it on the outside, it's like a little kid at Christmas, you know, it was like, oh, looking forward to that special toy, that special theme, you know, and then they get it, and they play with a little for a bit. And then they're bored with it. And then moving on to the next thing, you know. So joy is more in the moment, I think then looking from the outside in so and then the other thing around that we were talking earlier about guilt is just to be aware of any beliefs that could be blocking your way, you know, and I can't enjoy my life, because blank, fill in the blank, you know, what there, there's your belief of what's blocking, it could be because I'm too busy, or because of this, because of that. And I'm like, well, is that really really true, you know, you know, is it really, really true that that block is such a huge block. And honestly, if someone is severely depressed or something like that, then it maybe is a really huge block. But for the average person, it's just like, it's just you dismissing it out of hand without even considering the possibilities. And then another thing to do is to start small, like you were talking about, with the birds in the garden, you know, people sometimes think that joy has to be this big thing that comes from big events, you know, a birth of a child a marriage, or you know, a wedding or whatever. And it can be those small, sweet moments. And you're talking about birds. I remember recently, last time we went on vacation was a while ago now, but at the outdoor eating eating area where we had our meals, they had these hummingbird feeders set up. So while you're eating your meal, the little Hummingbirds are like going in and getting the sweetness out of the little bird feeder. And I was just so lovely to just watch them and it just made me so bought this big smile to my face and the different size hummingbirds and just you can kind of hear the little hum of the wings, you know, and it's those small things that can bring a smile to your face. So that if you're looking for a big huge thing and you think oh joy so far away, right? But if you're looking for the small little thing, joy can be right here right now. Oh, absolutely fantastic advice. Yeah, it's kind of I guess it builds momentum doesn't it if you start with something that something tiny, even quite unique, maybe there's the smile of your child any something that I enjoy and then kind of build from that I do think we do think hasn't been as great fantastic, like life changing positive events, but it's not it's everywhere that they're not that often really so we need to find exactly. I was watching Kim, your your videos on YouTube about gratitude and he did a bit of laughter therapy and then I just stopped joining join in with that and it did make me feel pretty great. So could you explain a bit about the laughter therapy and and how that works? Yeah, it's sort of a fake it till you make it kind of laughter and it helps if you're doing it. Like with my YouTube videos, the sound of my laughter probably helped you to be able to find that within yourself. And when I do it with big groups of people like the sound of everybody's laughter gets you going. And once you start to hear the fake laughter very often what happens is your natural laughter starts to come out. Because the sound of laughter is contagious. And when you hear it like something in us, like, you want to laugh, too, you know.

Unknown Speaker  15:19  
But even if you're fake laughing it the whole time, it does make an energy shift within you, because your body kind of can't tell a difference between the fake laugh and the real thing. You know. And if you've heard it, like with visualisation, people will say, you know, the images in your mind, your mind can't tell the difference between the fake and the real. And it's the same with your body and laughter. So it's really just kind of jumpstarting it. And if it gets to, to a genuine laugh, great, but even if it doesn't, it just feels good, you know, and there's a platform out there now called clubhouse that I'm a member of, and they have one, one group does laughter every day on it for like, 10 minutes every day. And you know, 10 minutes is a long time to laugh, it actually, it's actually very relaxing. If you try to laugh for longer, it's like it tires you out. But if you want to boost to energy, just a short little bit of a laugh can kind of boost your energy. So it depends on what kind of effect that you want to have. Yeah, I find it fascinating. And I felt when I did when I did your YouTube video. I felt like it was really some tension in my face as well, if it kind of my whole face kind of like released and the joy and brilliant. It's brilliant. So yes, how do we know if we're in a so came a family a really difficult time with elders, a lot of people like a strange financially or processing grief. And life is kind of a massive learning ground, in my opinion. But sometimes those lessons are harder than others. And is there anything you'd offer through job planning jobs, within situations that aren't necessarily the most comfortable? Right? Well, there are times in life where joy may be too far of a stretch. So like, like the title of your show, gentle yoga warrior, right? So you want to be gentle with yourself in it. And if, if Joy feels too far away, because of what's going on your life, that's totally okay. You could instead look for what would bring me comfort right now? What would be soothing, right now? What would How could I get some extra support right now? Those are the kind of questions you could ask yourself. That leads you in a better direction that might lead to joy eventually, but you know, to if you like, Okay, so one of my clients, she was wanting to have more joy, more upbeat, more positivity, whatever, but she was really having, she couldn't get herself there, you know, and then she was adding on top of that, she was beating herself up for not being able to get to that joyful, positive mind space. And so instead to have compassion for yourself in that and what I told her was what I just told you, you know, aim for something smaller, something like a soft blanket or something that's comforting, light a candle or have a cup of tea, do something that just is soothing for yourself. And that counts to, you know, and it might not be jump up and down for joy, joy, but it's a sense of, I'm taking care of myself now. And that's, that's a good thing for my well being. To really connected with that. Find something soothing is yeah, just yeah, just find the simple thing that can serve you and help you have that sense of well being a beautiful word subindex. Yeah. Yeah, and the other thing, though, is if, if it's not a major depression, or major grief, or a major life issue, maybe seek out the DOI, you know, be a little more proactive, to go look for something that might make you laugh, or something that might you know, or can pick up the phone and call somebody who you know, lifts your spirits or makes you laugh. So to actively seek it out, is good as well. But also to know that there are times where it might be too much. So you just kind of have to know yourself, and know what's right for you in any given moment. And that kind of awareness is, you know, it's something of course, you know, from teaching yoga all those years, that's that awareness is you know, what yoga is, to me, it's like building that awareness of your, your inner workings and your inner self to know what you need at any given moment, you know, absolutely, absolutely. I find that my mind starts to drift off into kind of negative stories, a little little stories, I just had to run to myself and to say, Oh, I'm thinking, I say to myself, I'm thinking so that reminds me that it's actually your fault, and it doesn't, I don't necessarily have to get attached to them. motions are down with that fault. And it kind of helps bring bring bring me back between to hear a bit more about your academy. And if you could explain a bit more about your laughter Academy?

Unknown Speaker  20:12  
Well, it's a joyful being Academy. It's it's, it's right now there's three programmes in there. And they're all like little mini programmes that somebody could do on their own. One is a joyful self Jumpstart. So if you don't really remember what brings you joy, like, well, first, there's a freebie on my website that offers questions to help you get into that mind space of what is joy for me, you know, to even ask the question, you know, and there's like 10 powerful questions on there to help you in that rediscovery process. But then the next step is you really want to embody that joy is the joyful self jumpstart programme. And then there's a couple other programmes on their common a crisis and give yourself some fun, and I'll be adding more programmes as time goes on. And then occasionally, you won't see it on the site, because it only you only, I only let people know through my email list is that I do teach live things on zoom from time to time. So on the last World laughter day, I did a laughter workshop for people on Zoom. And, you know, sometimes I teach a meditation class on Zoom and things like that. So there are other things that are more courses and programmes, and I'm adding over time, that will be available as well. So if they, if they get the freebie and they're on my email list, then I let them know when different activities are happening. So And since a lot of it is online, and on Zoom, or like Academy ones, you can just do at your own pace at your own way. It's all stuff that's accessible for people and affordable. So I look at it looks, it looks really good. And I just I like the fact that we've talked about them, the ones that are on recorded, which I think is really helpful, like you said, in this day and age at the world's completely changed, I think that is a positive thing about COVID. And everything is that there's there's more ways to connect online and talk for people in countries that we wouldn't necessarily always be able to do. And it is a beautiful beauty in that. And also internationally because people are different time zones, we can use your courses, and things like that. I really do believe that being happy and being finding joy in the now is living and sort of pulling off to the future. Or looking to the past and, and being creative with ways to find joy, how most of the world is feels a bit restricted at the moments and things to do. But Kim, what do you do to find jogging my meals, I try to get outside as much as I can, especially during the last couple years when there's you know, an inside so much, right. So like this weekend, my husband and I are going to go to a park that's about 30 minutes north of here where Manatees are these big sea cow creatures in the ocean. And they come in from the ocean and go up into these streams at this park to stay warm during the really cold parts of the winter. So it's going to be like under freezing this weekend and night. And so they will congregate and there'd be so many manatees. So we're going to go and do that. And we're just always looking for fun things to do together. Big theatre just opened in our in Orlando this past week, like there's a performing arts centre, and there's like three theatres, and then the third theatre just opened. And so we sat way a pie in the rafters because that's what we could afford. But we went to see Jennifer Hudson saying, you know, and it was just like, Oh, she's wailing in the mic. I was like, amazing. So we just look for actively seeking things, you know, and, and for me, just touching base with my best friend and the phone is always she makes me laugh, I make her laugh. It just feels good to do that as well. Even though she lives an hour away from me, we we stay in touch and support each other in that way. So and then the laughter and the joy naturally flows out of that. And the truth is, we're 30 times more likely to laugh when we're with other people than when we're by yourself. So we're looking for those connections with people. That's actually a study done in the University of Maryland, that that that's true. And so. So we need to seek out those connections even and especially in a time where we're maybe feeling a little more isolated. But we're in a really strict lockdown, and I wasn't actually seeing some of my friends that were close by but when I did connect to them, it felt really, really kind of nice to have that connection again and to just just kind of laugh at the little things in life, you know, like, maybe not necessarily deep conversations, but we'll try to find in fact competitions lighter and become Joy rather than kind of debating the one

Unknown Speaker  25:06  
that's most helpful. So Can any extra tips that you could give our listeners on, on how to find more joy in their everyday life, just something small that they can do daily. This is sort of a tip, but it follows up on something, you said that people tend to have the mindset that I will enjoy my life after such. And such happens. Like they think, oh, I need to get this job first, or oh, I need to have a child first, or I need to get married first, or whatever it is that you think you need to have in your life. And to make it a daily thing is different. Now I can't say a specific thing, because everybody is different. And what brings them joy, right? So for me, it would be maybe put on some music that I love and dance around a little bit, you know? And so that would be like something that I would do that takes almost no time. You know, people say, Oh, I don't have time for that. Do you have five minutes to listen to a piece of music and you know, that lifts you up a little bit? I mean, so you can find ways to do it in that small, daily way to fit it into your life. If you really don't know what that is for yourself. That's what those questions on my website are for to like, really help you go. Okay. You spend time with the questions and you'll start to rediscover what is uplifting what is joyful, what isn't enjoyable for you. So it's, it's, it's good to spend time with that what what is joy for me, because we a lot of people don't know, they've forgotten what joy what fun, what makes them laugh, they just don't know, you know, because it's, it's been so put to the side. And so you just need to bring it back front and centres slow. But you know, it doesn't have to be 24/7. But you just need to have make a conscious choice is basically the tip make that conscious choice, again and again to reconnect with that. I absolutely agree. And I was always attracted by some of your courses. I'm going to sign up for some of them after after this. For our listeners, could you share it? I will leave details obviously in the show notes. But could you share with our listeners, how they can connect you how they can find your websites, etc? Yeah, yeah, my website is joyful bing.com. And I'm actually going to be redoing the homepage. There, I'm gonna rewrite the whole thing. But um, if they want to go straight to the freebie, it's joyful bing.com/questions And that'll take them right to where they can get that freebie download. Sign up for that. And yeah, and then my YouTube channel is joyful being with Kim. So they can also check me out there. And you know, like and subscribe. Very good, dear listeners are very good videos. I've watched a few before I was talking to Kim and it just watching your videos made me smile is you've got such a vibrant, happy, joyful face. I do have a bookstore, Kim on my website, online bookstore and I'm a little bit of a book nerd. And I always like to ask recommendations. I think I don't want to just be all the books that I like. I think there's more to add. It's all peoples are many books that you recommend total pieces of music or podcasts. Yeah, there's so many books and so many pieces is one of the things I love to do to lift myself up is I have all these books that I've read. And then I'll just open up to a page, you know, and see what the message is for me in that moment. And so often is just what I needed to hear. Like some ideas of ones that I love, the Untethered Soul by Michael singer books by Eckhart Tolle a for sure. One it's not as known is frequency by penny Pierce. It's a lovely book about your inner energy frequency and recognising what your home frequency is within you, that feels like you that feels authentic. Right. And there's another one called quantum success by Sandra and Taylor. That's sort of like taking all that woowoo Law of Attraction stuff and then combining it with practical action. You know, so I really love that one as well. So I could probably come up with some more. You said music too, right? Yes, with C Well, of course there's happy with furl and then there's there's a couple of old songs that I love mornin by algae row. It's a upbeat jazz song. It's about, you know, just the beauty of the morning and letting the morning come to you. Then conviction of the heart Kenny Loggins, you know. So yeah, don't worry, be happy. You know? I have I actually have playlists of that on my phone that when I need a boost, I just pop on a playlist, you know? So,

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