Reclaim Your Joy: The Favorite Things List That Brings You Back in Midlife and Beyond

You can name everyone else's favorites — your kid's, your husband's, your best

friend's. But when someone asks you? You go blank. This week we fix that.

If you've been feeling lost in midlife — foggy about who you even are anymore

after years of taking care of everyone else — this episode is the fastest,

most joyful map back to yourself I know. It starts with one question we

haven't been asked since we were kids: what do you love? And it ends with a

simple, do-it-on-a-receipt tool called the Favorite Things List.

Because your joys aren't fluff. They're breadcrumbs — the glittering

fingerprints of the woman you actually are, the one no amount of shoulds ever

fully erased.

IN THIS EPISODE:

- Why you can't reclaim a self you never bothered to notice

- The Favorite Things List: 3 little moves (Then / Now / the Through-Line)

- How to get specific enough that the list reintroduces you to yourself

- Why what delights you points straight at your God-given gifts

- Your pinkie-toe step: reclaim ONE favorite thing this week

Chapters

• 0:00 — The handshake: meeting the woman you've been too busy to know
• 0:23 — What today is about (and one embarrassing warning)
• 1:20 — My favorite things (yes, I sing)
• 2:17 — The one list I go back to more than any other
• 3:03 — Joy Nugget: you can't reclaim a self you never noticed
• 3:15 — Digging where the clues are buried: childhood
• 4:14 — Your factory settings + the Favorite Things List (3 moves)
• 5:40 — Then / Now / the Through-Line
• 6:21 — A peek at my present-day list (glimpses of heaven)
• 8:02 — Joy Nugget: what lights you up is your light
• 8:57 — Your Rebel Move this week
• 9:37 — The most honest prayer you've got
• 10:23 — Your pinkie-toe step
• 10:53 — Reclaim your JOY (free tools inside)

A LINE TO KEEP: "Your joy was never a distraction from your purpose.

Some days it's the most honest prayer you've got."

Welcome to the Rebellion. We've saved you a seat.

Resources:

- Free Play: REBEL JOY Card Deck — Romanticize your life and reclaim your light — one tiny rebellion at a time. Seven print-and-keep cards, each with one brave, joyful prompt. Pick a card, set a 60-second timer, and play. Start Playing Again! https://rachel-harris-online.kit.com/72c327f4a4 

- For the exact scripts for the next time you go blank or catch yourself saying an automatic yes, grab the Rebel Response Mini Kit here: https://rachelharrisonline.com/product-details/product/the-rebel-response-mini-kit

- FREE: Are YOU a Good Girl Ghost? Free Guide: 5 Moments You're Abandoning Yourself (Without Even Realizing It) https://rachel-harris-online.kit.com/e6b737ec08

- Work with me on the Good Girl Ghost Reset — a single Rebel Hour, or the full Reset Mentorship: https://rachelharrisonline.com/work-with-me

My Substack Page, Goodbye, Good Girl: https://joyfulrebel.substack.com/

Are YOU A Joyful Rebel? https://rachelharrisonline.com/joyful-rebel

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

And this is the quiet magic of this simple little list. You can't love a woman that you've never met, and you don't meet her by thinking really, really hard about her. You meet her by noticing what delights her. This list is a handshake. Warning. This is an episode about reclaiming the joys we've abandoned. And one of mine, making up silly songs. Now my children continue to be blessed by them over the years, but no one else. And rightly so, since I can't carry a tune in a bucket. But silliness and laughter makes me happy. And a huge part of the work that I do is helping women discover and hold tight to those exact types of things. Becoming the woman who, yes, can rattle off everyone else's favorite snacks and movies and toys and orders and who can also name her own. Not what you're supposed to like, but what you actually like. And that's what today is all about: making the fastest, most joyful map back to you that I know. And it all starts with a question that most of us haven't really thought of or asked ourselves since we were kids. What do you love? So, with apologies to the fabulous Julie Andrews. And to all of you who do not have your volumes set on mute, I have to begin like this: Daisies in reading and chocolate chip cookies, long soaks in bathtubs with candlelight glowing, writing and dancing and dragonfly wings. These are a few of my favorite things. There you go. I feel better. And honestly, that ridiculous little song is the whole episode. Because those breadcrumbs, they're the map. A few years ago, when I decided to give myself a sabbatical, a reclamation, really, I sat down and I tried to write myself back into existence. A whole notebook of it. Vision statement, mantra, my core values, my credo, my personal commandments, the works, and of everything that I wrote in that book that month, there's one list that I go back to more than any other. Not the lofty vision statement, which is impressive. Not the credo, but my list of favorite things. And here's why that silly little list is secretly the most powerful page in the whole notebook. Joy Nugget number one. You can't reclaim a self you've never bothered to notice. And nothing reintroduces you to you faster than what delights you. Your joys aren't fluff. They're breadcrumbs, they're glittering fingerprints of the woman you actually are, the ones that no amount of shoulds ever fully erased. So I want you to start digging where the truest clues are buried. Childhood. Before the world got its opinions, before too much and too silly an actor age ever got into the equation. Little me, every single photo in a dress. Twirling, skipping, swinging as high as the chains would allow, fully believing that they could break and somehow send me on a magical adventure to England. Why England? I don't know. Singing made-up songs about anything and everything, eating Kit Kats, watching Rainbow Bright, Strawberry Shortcake, Rose Petal, and pretend. Hours and hours of pretend. And somewhere along the way, most of that quietly got filed under childish and set down. Joy nugget number two. The things that you loved before the world told you to grow up aren't childish. They're your factory settings. And here's the tool. And it's the good kind, the easy kind, the kind you could do on the back of a target receipt with your kid's marker. I call it your favorite things list. And it's three little moves. Move one, then write down what little you loved. Not what was impressive, but what made her light up. The treat, the show, the game, the feeling. Move two. Now, what lights grown up you up today? And get specific. Don't say reading. Say the exact book, the author, the genre, the nook that you love to read in, the whole vibe around it. Is it a cozy chair, a soft blanket? Do you like to have a bath? Do you like to drink something really yummy? Don't say nature, but the one bird whose song steals your breath in the driveway. The sound that the trees make when the wind blows through. The crunch under your shoes when you walk in the forest or on a trail. Move three, the through line. Circle the ones that show up in both columns. Young you and today you. Or the ones that maybe aren't on both lists, but also never really fully left. Even after you stopped making time for them. Things that you now remember loving and wish you still did. Those, my friends, are your factory settings. Your sacred fingerprints. That's her. Let me show you a piece of mine, present day, so you can hear how specific we're getting. Dancing in the kitchen. Bogan via, I think that's how you say it. Pink. A color that my young self would have absolutely lost her mind over. And I finally came back around to once I moved here to Phoenix. Listening to birds sing. Being completely, unreasonably delighted by deer. Daisies and sunflowers. Boat rides on the lake, especially at sunset. Long warm baths and hot showers. Quaint little bridges. I don't know why. They just skip me. Collecting inspiring quotes like some people collect shells, sun rays peeking behind the clouds. I call them glimpses of heaven. And making my husband laugh by being just a little too excited about something or anything. That last one might be my favorite, favorite thing. Now here's where this goes from cute to holy. Joy nugget number three. What lights you up is your light. We treat delight like a little break from the real stuff. It's not. Your joys are pointing straight at your gifts, the specific way that you were made to shine. The woman who lights up, making people laugh, that's not a hobby or a personality trait. That's a fingerprint of her design. So when you reclaim what you love, you're not being self-indulgent. You're reclaiming your light. You're reclaiming joy. And this is the quiet magic of this simple little list. You can't love a woman that you've never met. And you don't meet her by thinking really, really hard about her. You meet her by noticing what delights her. This list is a handshake. It's you finally sitting down across from the woman that you've been far too busy to know and getting to know her. Maybe even in time, falling a little in love. So here is your rebel move to clean this week. Reclaim one favorite thing that you set down. Not someday, this week. Wear the color. Twirl in the kitchen. Yep, actually twirl. Find a park with a swing and go for it. Make a mud pie again. Buy the good chocolate and eat it slowly on an ordinary random day. And don't share any with the kids. For no reason except that you love it. You don't need anyone's permission, but if you want it, you have it. Rachel said so. It's all good. And if it helps you at all, I happen to believe that the God who made you delighted in that little girl twirling in her dress or getting it all completely covered in mud along with her mud pies. He wasn't up there tapping his foot, waiting for her to become useful. Your joy was never a distraction from your purpose. Some days it's the most honest prayer that you've got. So here's your rebel minute to keep. And joy nugget number four. Your joy is a breadcrumb, not a luxury. Follow it home. And here is your pinky toe step. Because you don't have to reclaim your whole list by Friday. Just start the list. Five things, childhood or now, or a mix of both, it doesn't matter. Write five things down, five favorites, and reclaim one this week. Just one. Put a single favorite thing back in the actual rotation of your life. And notice how it feels to be a woman who still knows what she likes, what she loves. And if that's fun, take up a second and a third one for next week and beyond. And listen, you can absolutely do all of this on your own, but doing it with someone who gets how exciting this is is a different kind of joyful. That's exactly the work that I do, both one-on-one and in the Good Girl Ghosting Reset. You can find a link to my website in the show notes, along with my favorite, favorite free tool, the Rebel Joy card deck. 60-second prompts to help you romanticize life and start playing again. Because grown women need to play too. Am I right? I'm right. I know I'm right. Friend, your favorite things aren't frivolous. They're a map. So this week, make the list. Reclaim one and go be delighted on purpose. I'll meet you back here.