What can give you Joy in the Midst of a Storm?

024: Join Vonda and Lori as they discuss how you can find joy in the craziness of what's happening with the Covid-19 challenges and answer the question, What influences our joy? Listen to find out what you can do to lead a more joyful life. 

At Flower Clique, members are very joyful and appreciative as they have passed off tasks and responsibilities that they found were zapping their joy.

Learn more at: https://www.thebusinessandpleasureofflowers.com/

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Transcript

Lori 0:00

I'm going to choose to have joy today. That doesn't mean I'm going to be happy, silly, stupid, goofy, all day long. It means I'm going to choose joy. I'm going to choose to look at things from an appreciation point of view.

Vonda 0:30

welcome to the business and pleasure of flowers. We're your hosts , Vonda LaFever.

Lori 0:34

and Lori Wilson . And we believe that business and fun are a perfect combination. Kind of like us Vonda

Vonda 0:48

We are so joyful to be here today. And our subject today is actually joy.

Lori 0:55

which, you know, the whole week, the only song that is in my head is I've got that joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart, down in my heart where you know this song, right? You have two sides to it. And somebody has to yell where, and you go down in my heart. So again, I've been singing that all morning, but I also like the more risque verse that we thought was a little risque when, If the devil doesn't like it, he can sit on a tack. And I remember thinking, Ooh, thats bad.

Vonda 1:38

I don't think we're saying that verse.

Lori 1:41

Depends on which denomination.

Vonda 1:44

I love that. Oh my gosh.

Lori 1:47

I was , I grew up Baptist.

Vonda 1:48

So I know we're supposed to be talking about joy today. And some reason this morning, I went out on my walk. I was not going to, it was like, it was like I got up early and I just was like, Nope, I have so many things to do in the office. I'm just going to go in here, start to work. And it was just beautiful outside. And I'm like, Hmm , get your shoes on. Let's go. So I went out on my walk and it was a little drizzly and I look up in there is a beautiful rainbow. It was just starting. And then as I walked further and face towards it, it got more and more intense from one end to the other. It was like one of the most beautiful rainbows. So I'm there just walking with my weights. And one of my walking persons, I see every morning she came out of her house and she always waves. And so I stopped her and I said, look, look at that. Look at that rainbow. And she's like, wow, I have never seen one go from one into the other. Thank you for sharing that with me because Lori, so many times when we're out and we're walking or we're doing something that is a task related or something we have to do, we tend to not even look up and look at our surroundings. So it was just , um , it was just a beautiful morning, just wow.

Lori 3:11

And I , I, I believe that happened to you because you knew we were going to be talking about joy today last week, you know, we talk about how things come to us in the shower or when we least expect it, or, you know, whatever, I don't think you were in the shower, but when we were talking, you knew we needed to talk about joy. And it's a hard concept to wrap our heads around right now with everything that's going on in our world. But we both know you can't have joy in the midst of sadness or grief or anger. Right.

Vonda 3:45

We definitely can in to me, rainbows have always been one of those things that it's like good things and beautiful things happen after the darkest storms.

Lori 3:57

Yeah. And what's funny, not funny, but it's so cool that you were the one that saw the rainbow this morning. To me, that is such affirmation that we are supposed to be talking about joy because rainbow are your thing, like , I don't mean I'm not angry about it, but you do send me a lot of pictures of rainbows, the whole staff. Anytime you get a rainbow and we're like , Oh yeah , there's another rainbow. But for you, like, that's your thing. And that brings me joy.

Vonda 4:27

It is. And I sometimes look at that and I'm like, why is that? And I know it went back to my childhood. My mother loved rainbows when we didn't see them often. And then you didn't see them when you lived in the city. Right. That was , it's hard to see those. Then when I lived in Dixon , um , and that's where I raised my family. We would see them because we lived on a couple acres. And so you would see them more often. I remember when my husband was so sick , um, Ellie's dad was, was dying and we would go out in the rain and there would be these beautiful rainbows. And he would just go, you know, it's going to be okay, it's going to be okay. It was God's sign that, you know, you're going to get through this and it's going to be better on the other side. Well , that's the personal story and the rainbow. And so every time Lori , that's why I'm like , yes , here's the rainbow. And with what's going on right now in the world.

Lori 5:22

I agree. And I love, I love that. You got to see it . And I will say the last rainbow I ever saw was I was at your house. I don't see him here. We live in the Woodlands wood land, full of trees everywhere. I don't even see the moon half the time, which drives me nuts. So the handful of times that I've been able to see rainbows from your back door, I get why they're so powerful to you because they , they evoke such meaning and good memories, which is kind of what, one of the things we're going to talk about, how do we maintain joy through out not only everything we're dealing with right now, but from here, the rest of our lives. Right? You and I agree on one thing, you can have joy in the midst of grief or sadness. Right. We both experienced that as I'm sure everyone can think of a time. The most obvious for me is being near my mom in her last few days when she had hemorrhaged and she wasn't coming out of it, but she was still breathing. I think that's what we call bittersweet. The joy of being able to be next to her and hold her hand and just lay with her. But knowing the intense grief and sadness that is happening within me, and then you, you have a similar story.

Vonda 6:50

Yeah. And then the joy you're joyful still because we've been blessed to be able to experience that. Right. We'll never have that experience. But I think what we have to be careful of is we need to allow ourselves to feel that joy many times we start to feel joy in a situation like that and why I should be joyful right now. I shouldn't feel that way. And even with the rainbow this morning, right? Like this is so much joy. And it's like, can I be joyful with everything else that's going on, right. Yes, yes. we have to find that joy.

Lori 7:28

And even to relate that to a lot of small business owners right now, the COVID-19 thing I would see in some of the Facebook groups, not really our flower clique group, but in some of the other floral groups and even having conversations, people almost feeling guilty. If they received the PPP or feeling guilty, if their state allowed them to be open, guilt is not healthy. Right . Because you're joyful that you are allowed to be open. Doesn't mean you're making fun of the shops that can't, it's just so it's it's perspective. Right?

Vonda 8:10

That is definitely perspective. So what is it that helps us find joy? I mean, it's not happiness. It's it's joy.

Lori 8:19

No. Right. We've talked about happiness. Happiness is a feeling it's like, yay. I'm happy. I can't really be happy. And joyous for me is something that's deep down in my soul. It's part of who I am. It is a choice I make when my feet hit the ground every morning, you know, we've been transferred around with my husband's company. And when we were living in Ohio like this third winter, which winter is there lasted nine months long, but I can remember getting, just feeling like I can't here anymore. I can't live here anymore. And then it hit me. I have a choice in how I see this. You know, I can look at my kids who see the snow as opportunity to go sledding or snowboarding or all of these things. Or I can look at myself goin I'm cold. I like beaches. I'm miserable. I'm going to make everyone's life . So for me, making that choice during that time, every day , I put my feet down saying, I'm going to choose to have a joy today. That doesn't mean I'm going to be happy, silly, stupid, goofy, all day long. It means I'm going to choose joy. I'm going to choose to look at things from an appreciation point of view. Kind of like how you see rainbows. So that leads me, like how I'm segueing in. It segues , but I need, I gotta get better at those. Um, I was reading a study. It was back in, I dunno , 2005, 2006. It was from university of California. If people want to know the exact study , shoot me an email and I can send it to you. Anyway, they found the key to holding joy. They intertwined happiness with joy. But for this, we're talking about joy because you and I both agree. We feel like those are different. So joy is twofold. It is about appreciation. It's about variety. These are things we can do to help ourselves be joyful. Okay . So the first one, appreciation paying more attention to the root cause of your happiness in a given moment that gives you more staying power. The example you gave this morning is perfect in this. You saw the rainbow and all of a sudden, not only do you have appreciation, but you stood there in the moment and you realized this is just for me because I'm not even supposed to be on my walk this morning. And I'm also getting ready to share it with somebody else. Like that is huge. That should be able to sustain you for quite a while because it's like, God's gift to you this morning.

Vonda 11:18

It was a gift, definitely a gift. You're right. It's that appreciation. It's appreciating all of the things that bring us happiness. Right?

Lori 11:27

right. But it's not the first rainbow you've seen. That's brought you happiness. And that's what this is when you saw that, not only did you appreciate it at the moment, it also, whether you realize it or not brought up 500 other memories, beautiful memories of the rainbow and what it means to you.

Vonda 11:49

Absolutely. No, you're right. It does.

Lori 11:51

Just talking about when Bud was dying, you've seen rainbows after you've visited your mom who you knew might be the last time, just so many. And I only know probably this many that you've shared with me. I think that's really cool. You have taught yourself to appreciate and be very aware of the rainbow. Here's my examples. They're not nearly as deep and as cool as yours, but they're mine. I'm going to use spring breaks. As an example, back in the day when I taught school again, we were in Ohio freezing to death. So we always had to go to Florida. We always had to go somewhere to get out of the cold. I never took my spring breaks for granted. I appreciated every moment and I can remember every spring break I went on with my children. When we were at the beach the very last day, I would literally stay on that beach until my husband dragged me in the house because I just was savoring every moment because I knew I needed to fill myself up, to get through two , maybe three more months of winter in the snowbelt, where I lived. So I would have an appreciation. Every time I went to the beach, I don't care where we stayed. It was never anything fancy. It was just a condo. I would have to go, you know , spend the first day at Walmart buying groceries, but I didn't care.

Vonda 13:17

So did you feel like you were trying to take in all the joy you could sustain you and to help you next month when it was really hard to get out of bed or you're like, I'm filling myself with joy for now.

Lori 13:34

I'm feeling myself up. And I go back to that memory a lot, especially when I lived in Ohio, when the sun would come out, I would have such an appreciation because I could close my eyes and feel the sun on my face and almost go back to visualize memory . So, so I think it's, I don't know. I look at it as almost recycling in my head, mentally recycling on a daily basis to reignite the joy that we can have. Um , another example is in 1992, I got married and I was driving a little two door stick shift car that I had all through college. It was a used car. I never got a brand new car and it was a Nissan pulsar, which I'm sure it's vintage now. Cause I don't make them. But my husband always called it the Nissan pole start because it , it broke down all the time. Anyway, we were going to get a new car for me. He had a company car, so I cleaned my car up, sold it. Anyway, we found a used white Honda accord. And it was only, I don't know, two or three years old now, now Vonda, you know, I am a fairly simple person, but back then, it did not take much to make me happy. I thought it was better than a Maserati to me. I mean, this was the fanciest car. It was an automatic. I'd never had an automatic. I thought rich people had automatics. Which now I wish I had a stick shift. Anyway, every time I've been married, what? 29 years now, every time, it's time to buy a car. And again, I'd probably upgraded my taste in cars. Now nothing brings me more joy than that particular car purchase. That was like, I was so excited because I thought, I don't know it's it sounds strange. But I go back to that memory every time. And we've purchased lots of different cars now.

Vonda 15:44

probably because the difference of what you had and what you went to say . Now, when you get a new car, you're just getting , um , a newer year or maybe a few more bells and whistles, but you went from one extreme to another.

Lori 16:00

I went from a pull start to do an automatic. It was fancy, but it helps me to keep those memories and recycle those memories because it makes me joyful. It makes me appreciate what I have.

Vonda 16:20

And some people have a lot and there's not an appreciation. Or sometimes that makes people feel jealous or guilty.

Lori 16:27

Right? And speaking of jealousy and those types of things, that's where the study, they said not only is it about appreciation. It's about variety. Try new things, give yourself new experiences. Look at things differently. Look at opportunities differently. What this reminded me of was 15 years ago, one of my friends, they bought a beach house. So we lived here in Texas at the time it was before we moved to Ohio. And now we're back in Texas. But a lot of our friends weren't, I mean, it was, I guess I would call it maybe jealousy because they were very negative about it for me. I was like, Oh my gosh, I love beaches. I love beaches. If I come help you paint, can I, you know, I looked at it as opportunity and I was so appreciative. She bought it and she's like, I want to share it with everybody. And so looking at that and being able to have joy for someone else, it's so much easier than spending time being negative know , again, going back to someone, getting mad that somebody else gets to be open and because they're in a different state or whatever, that's the biggest thing I can equate it to right now. It takes a lot of energy, so much more energy to be negative for those kinds of things. And right now I feel like we have to savor our energy because with everything going on, there are times that I feel like I don't have much left .

Vonda 17:56

Yeah . And what happens in cases like you being joyful for your friend, if you're joyful for yourself, you can rejoice in the joys of others. It's hard for people to find joy in others right now because they can't find the joy in themselves. So what we'll have to do first is look inside and go, okay, where can I find that joy? Like you're saying appreciation, number one, yes, you were able to be open on mother's day. It was a great mother's day to look at that joy and say, wow, let's take that in. And let's repeat that. What else can we do to give us joy? And to , to bring that back to us

Lori 18:30

I do believe this is a mother's day, 10 years from now. They will still look back with a heart of gratefulness and it will be forever etched in their brain of, wow, I did that so many, they were open, but maybe they didn't have any employees. So they were freaking out. They didn't know how they were going to do it. And then they did it and they were so proud of themselves as they should be.

Vonda 18:59

and joyful.

Lori 19:00

and joyful. So I do believe that is having an appreciation for man. You guys knocked it out of the park on a mother's day that most people would say, let's just scratch this one this year, you did it. You did it.

Vonda 19:15

I want to go up to a book that I was looking through and it's called happiness is a choice you make lessons from a year among the oldest old and it's by a John Leland. And what I found was interesting when I was researching joy, it was saying, you know, we always think, Oh, the youngest people are the most joyful or the middle age because they have the most boats and cars and beautiful houses. And you know, everything that we think bring us happiness and joy. And when this person spent the time with the elderly, you know, here they are, they can, some of them could hardly walk their aches and pains and medical things. And maybe they're living in really bad situations, but they still had joy, Lori, I read through to say, what was it? And he had four things to find joy. Those things that make you happy, do them. That's number one.

Lori 20:09

Oh, amen.

Vonda 20:10

Two express gratitude. Like you just said, appreciation three, find purpose and number four double down on good relationships.

Lori 20:23

Oh, that number four, I think is huge right now. Because again, some of us are still quarantined. And so we really are reaching out to quote unquote our people, right? What I want everyone to know is your people you don't have to be in 100% alignment. As far as everything, they believe everything it has to match. I don't have anyone in my life that if I put down 500 things that are important to me, there are 500 going to be exactly alike. If I have those people, I need to get them out of my friendship because I'm not growing. Right. I love that. Number four. I love all of them. I would say number three, find a purpose for me. That might be the hardest one. I think maybe we're always looking or at least I'm always looking.

Vonda 21:14

interesting because I think flower shop owners have a purpose. And I think you do too. You have the purpose of helping others. You're a helper, you're a fixer. Right. And people who own a flower shop, their purpose is to make other people happy with flowers. So I look at these and I'm like, Hmm , do the things that make you happy. A lot of our cliquers are, yeah. What makes me happy is doing flowers or, you know, serving the people. Their purpose is to make flowers and to share the joy with flowers and then double down with good relationships. That's sometimes the struggle because they don't have time. Time is a time for the relationships. But now maybe that's now taken over a little bit too.

Lori 22:04

Yeah, no, that's a very good point. And going back to the things that make you happy, do them , um , you and I have said this a hundred different times and hopefully some people hear it and some people will hear it today. Look at your business. What is it you love? What gives you joy? The things that don't bring you joy. And by that, I mean really drain you like these certain tasks just drain you. They make you unhappy. Not that you just don't like to do them, but they truly make you unhappy delegate those. Yeah. It is for your own good, delegate .

Vonda 22:49

Absolutely. Let's go back to what influences our joy. We're like, why is she more joyful than I am? I don't feel like I can find joy.

Lori 22:59

people in my life because I'm typically happy. Right? You're a perfect example. Here's the hard part of being a happy or joyful person. Sometimes you're not allowed to have moments when I am sad. People get uncomfortable. They don't like it. And I can talk about my family, my friends . They're like, no. And I think maybe it's scares them sometimes because they're like, wow, if she's sad, then we are going to all die. You know, whatever. I don't, I don't know. But what I am learning in my adult life is it's okay. I feel things I can feel sadness, but that doesn't mean I'm not joyful. I need to be able to feel sadness because I appreciate joy that much more. There's a lot of people like me and they have that expectation of, Oh, she's always happy. She always sees things on the bright side, blah, blah. Yeah I do. But that doesn't mean I don't get sad or don't get mad. You just ask my kids. They can tell you.

Vonda 24:08

I do know that when you are sad, it does concern all of us because you rarely get that. And you explain that to us once before it's like, it's okay.

Lori 24:20

People, I love like my flower clique people and my friends and people that truly know me are much more okay with seeing when I'm sad and by sad it's not that they don't get upset if I'm crying. It's if I have days, I just need to be silent for a while , which is very rare. There are kinds that I feel like you need that. Hey, shut up a minute. Just be still awhile . People are like , what , what, why is she not talking? Is she mad? What did you do? And um , so anyway, this article I read about what influenced your joy. It's called what determines happiness. And again, we're changing out the word happiness with joy. So take that for what it is. 50% genetics and personality. That makes sense. That's my mother, who was a kindergarten teacher, that was the sweetest, happiest, most joyful person in the world. I am her DNA. It makes sense.

Vonda 25:20

Makes sense on mine too, mother and father both.

Lori 25:24

10% are circumstances. Now this one kind of shocked me. Only 10% of our circumstances.

Vonda 25:31

I've always said, and you've heard it. 10% of what's life has given you and 90% how you react. So that's the 10% circumstances, right?

Lori 25:42

I hear that. And I believe you, but I think that's really hard for somebody that's living differently than me to see that. And then 40% is in our control, which is cool. That to me, it gives me power. Um, the circumstance, the super, super quick story. I want to tell you is, as you know, my son does a lot of mission work does a lot of mission trips. He goes to Ethiopia when he can, he's been there three or four times the same place. They work with an orphanage and just people and just help teach skills so that these people can have skills. He went to visit a family, they got to the family's house. There had been a lot of rain and sewer was everywhere because they don't have plumbing. And he was feeling almost bad that he was going to go in to talk to this family because he's like, they're going to be embarrassed because their floors literally sewer and by house really was like a hut. Um , but he said he got there. He and this other guy, and then man was so excited and his wife and all of their kids were there. They were embracing them, telling them to come in. They had just like a little old , whatever the snack was that they could, you know, they were trying to share their food. They were just so joyful and grateful even in their circumstances, right . Said it was at that moment that he was like, crap. I get mad when my wifi is slow. Like the world ends when he gets knocked out of a zoom meeting. And so it's so true. This man's circumstance. Now granted this man, this is the only life he's ever known, but he's still grateful. And so I think about that a lot. And I'm grateful that my son saw that because it did change him and his perspective too, going, wow. If he can be content and joyful, surely I can be. And not surely I can be, anyway. So yeah. I like to think through that 50% start genetics. The problem is if people have the genetics of kind of the glass half empty, the more skeptical people you gotta work a little harder.

Vonda 28:01

cause you're still 50% your circumstances and that other 40%, that's the opportunity.

Lori 28:08

Yes. I love your language of opportunity. So, okay. We gotta wrap up Vonda.

Vonda 28:15

what are our takeaways.

Lori 28:17

and my number one takeaway in my whole life though, my life lesson, what I try to live by is you can have joy in the midst of sadness. You can have joy in the midst of fear. Joy can live among all the other feelings. Yeah . And I think that's pretty cool.

Vonda 28:34

Yeah. That's a great one. That's a , that's a perfect number one.

Lori 28:37

And then number two, ratiate what we have you, your example with the rainbow, for people listening, we always kind of talk through quickly what we're going to talk about. And then we go live and this one, this one was really hard because we all are kind of living on that edge of emotion. And when you were sharing the story, we both were at tears, but it was beautiful tears. It was joyful tears because we know how appreciative we are. You were appreciative of what was in front of you because , because it meant something to you.

Vonda 29:13

Absolutely. Yeah. Finding appreciation then mine, Lori, the third one would be those things that make you happy, do them in business one in life. Like you said, keep what you like and do the things that make you happy, but delegate the parts of your business and even your life that like you, you don't like to clean your house, delegate that, right ? The things that bring you down, get them out of your life.

Lori 29:39

Yeah. Cause you're never gonna do them well, you won't that's that just hit me when I heard you say my example , I'm never going to do it. Well , um , I would like to say eventually I will, but no , I'm already 51 years old. I'm not going to change anyway. Okay. So Vonda, you know what I'm going to say? And maybe I know the answer, I don't know,

Vonda 30:08

I think, you know the answer, Lori ,

Lori 30:11

what is giving you life right now? And when I say that, I also like to use the word, what is sustaining you right now?

Vonda 30:19

That rainbow. I mean, that's just the beauty and I'll have that vision and that hope , I think that's the hope. So what is giving you life, Lori?

Lori 30:30

Well, you already talked about it getting rid of what I don't like to do since COVID-19 started. And we have been quarantined. We just, this week had our housekeeper come back. She had made the choice to be quarantined also. And you know, our daughter, we have to always look for her, make sure nobody comes into the house and all these things. Anyway, I not only me, my entire family, my husband now that works at home. He's never been here when she's been here, but I heard him talking to her, thanking her because it's a lot of work, a lot of work, my whole family, my two kids that are still living at home . We all have a whole new appreciation for her job and we not take it for granted. So I'm very grateful.

Vonda 31:19

That's a great thing to be appreciative of and to be giving you life right now.

Lori 31:23

Yes. Yes.

Vonda 31:24

So I just want to leave everyone with the rainbow and take it also as a promise that everything's going to be okay .

Lori 31:32

We have certainly enjoyed our time together today and we look forward to being with you guys again, if you have any questions, concerns, comments, anything we would love to hear from you. You can always email Lori@flowerclique.com. Also, if you enjoy our little podcast, go ahead and click that subscribe button. That's very helpful for us. And you can even leave a review and we hope you join us next week. Yes. Please come back and join us and discover how a bit of knowledge and one small change in your mindset can take you to new levels in your life and business.

Speaker 1 32:39

[inaudible] .