 All right, hello everybody. We are live this afternoon with one of my dear friends, Dr. Joy Miller. I am just absolutely delighted to talk to her today because she is a wealth of information and she has done some absolutely amazing things which she'll tell you about today in the last, well, her whole lifetime, but there's been a few really significant things that I've been a part of this last year and we'll hear all about that today. Our keyword today is resiliency and both Joy and I have stories of our patients, our clients, our friends and ourselves and how we have hacked resiliency. And today I just know this is gonna be like listening into two friends with coffee about just stuff that we've learned and every time we get on the phone we can be thousands of miles apart and even like hours or months or years apart and just jump right back in just where we left off. I'm definitely gonna introduce her formally but I wanna tell you about this woman as a friend. I remember back in Pure Illinois when I was medical director of the Integrated Medical Center with Methodist, seems like lifetimes ago and we connected, I think at one of the events that we did and it was just an instant friendship, like an instant recognition of souls and you've heard me rave about friends on this show before but Joy is just a dear precious friend and like I said, it can be sometimes it's a year or two before we talk in between but we just pick right back up where we left off and one of the things recently we were talking about is just how do we take care of ourselves during these times and for two recovering perfectionists and people pleasers, you're gonna hear just a little bit about our stories today because we love to serve, we're healers and that's our gift to the world and we love what we do but our conversation was revolving around how do we actually really set good boundaries and make sure that we're doing the self-care stuff that we teach everybody else how to do so you're gonna hear us talk about that today and hopefully just get some pearls for yourself because it's not even really about us but I'm hoping that our conversation will spark in you just some ideas and things maybe where you've not been taking care of yourself or maybe where you've been worried too much about what other people think and again, this is just coming from a real place in our own hearts of as we walk through life and continue to try to achieve more but also just be better for the people that we serve so I hope you'll enjoy this today of course this will be recorded so if you miss it, you can re-listen to it I'll be sure in any links that we talk about I will add them to the chat box and then this will be on our YouTube channel which is under my name, Jill Carnahan, into infinity so if you wanna watch it we'll be sure and share it there as well so let me give just a little bit of a formal introduction Dr. Joy Miller has so many accolades so I could spend 20 minutes talking about her basic background she's an internationally known licensed psychotherapist professional trained author and she's a founder of a great center in Pure Illinois Joy Miller and Associates she is Illinois state licensed clinical professional counselor as well as certified master addictions counselor additionally she's been part-time instructor at Bradley University and with faculty and mentor at Walden University doctoral psychology program she's a leading authority in relationship issues and holocaust studies that's one of the reasons I love her just cause she's such a wealth of knowledge if you want more information her website is joymiller.com and I hope you'll go there because I am not even coming close to scratching the surface of all the stuff the published books that she's done the programs, the women's lifestyle show and most recently the resiliency 2020 in September so and I'll let her tell you a little bit about some of those things but welcome Dr. Joy Miller and friend it is wonderful to see you it is so good to see you you look wonderful thank you, you too and I know you've been staying safe during COVID and also trying to spend time with your precious son and grand baby is it two now? two so how old are your grand babies? four and one oh gosh and I bet they love grandma Joy they get away with whatever so they love it exactly well thanks so much for taking the time today and what we wanted to dive in today again we just kind of mentioned it on the phone and then I know we both thought that this would be helpful for people is both of us have really been touched by Edith Eager who's an incredible woman written two books recently The Choice and The Gift and I can include links to these and the reason I was introduced to her was actually on your resiliency 2020 tell us just a little bit of what you just did recently and how many people it touched I really wanted people to hear this and go back and sign up for the next one well it was just one of these events that was a miracle in my life I don't even know really where to start we were going to do a resiliency conference and then the pandemic came and we had to punt and I decided to do a streaming webinar and in the process we already had a couple of celebrities but we thought I wonder if we can get some more we already had Arianna Huffington and we had Alainis Morissette and we just started contacting more and more people I called Erin Brockovich because I knew her and she said of course I'll do this and we ended up getting 27 celebrities from all disciplines to talk about resilience and everyone spoke with their own voice they donated their time their energy to the cause and our purpose was to just have different voices speak about resiliency their views of what helped them become resilient and it ended up being a four and a half hour streaming webinar which included 5,000 participants for 69 countries around the world and we also for a final speaker ended up getting Glenn Close which was a surprise to everyone but then we didn't tell who the final person was and we ended up getting Dr. Jill Biden to be our finale speaker it was an amazing event we have at this point we had 444 people that downloaded the webinar after the event and we have a constant kind of barrage of people saying can we watch this, can we see it again so we're making arrangements right now to make that possible oh good and can they where can they find more information about that event about potential future event well they would go to Resiliency20 well now it's Resiliency2021.com and we're hoping in the next two weeks that people will be able to sign up to re-play the webinar and to find out information about next year Jill you're one of the participants for next year I just found out that Ariana Huffington will be joining us Rhonda Ross will be joining us Edith Peter we have, I think at this point we have almost 15 different celebrities that are signed up already and it'll be September 9th of next year oh I am, Joey I am totally beyond honored to be part of it and was this year too I was joking because I'm like I don't belong in this crowd but it's just it's truly an honor that you've asked me and I really enjoyed it and I can't wait till next year I can't either, I can't either so well this is and this is how so I'm gonna tell you a little background I think I shared a little with you but for listeners so I grew up with stories of Holocaust survivors and I grew up with especially the right they call her the righteous Gentile Corrie Ten Boom who actually hid in her house some of the Jewish survivors and her and her sister were in Auschwitz and her sister died and I just, I have had such a heart I'm not Jewish but I love you and I love all my friends who have that heritage so much and I love just the resilience that you have shown and the voice that you bring and I have such, I don't know why but for some reason it touches my heart very deeply of the suffering that your generations have gone through and Edith especially I had not known about her but as I read her books I love them and I love her so much if you haven't read the gift and the choice the choice was the first version of the book of her life story and memoir and it is so impactful and then the gift is more recently and I highly recommend reading these books Edith Eager, E-G-E-R is her name and she is just the most beautiful soul you could ever and you can hear her I actually got the audible version which aren't, they aren't read by her but they're the beautiful voice and you can hear her words and of course I have the book copy I have the copy right here the gift right in front of me and I think this was part of our conversation in the sense of I just felt like what I love about that and she even mentions Cory Timboom in her book one of her books because the theme there is number one is how do we foster resilience in the most horrific things in life and I don't think any of us could come close to what she experienced so as much as you're going through right now which may be really difficult or horrible I don't think any of us could ever claim to come close to what she went through but each of us in our journey in the difficulties it doesn't really matter we can't really compare and even Edith says that but what I loved is the theme of love and forgiveness and how this impacts our life and ability to be resilient I would love would you comment a little bit about how she might have impacted you or how long you've known her or your relationship I'd love to hear more from you Joy well Edith is new to me as well my studies were on the Holocaust and I worked with the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington and I am on the board in Chicago with the Holocaust Museum and I originally worked with 15 different survivors who were all in Auschwitz all women and my study was looking at how women coped so this has been my journey for the last 20 years and as I was teaching a class one of my students said oh today I'm going to go here Edith Eager and I was like who's Edith Eager and he said how could you not know this and he said you know she is so well known and I started looking her up and she her book was recommended by Bill Gates and by Oprah and she said it was the most life-changing book she'd ever read now Edith is an Auschwitz survivor she went in at I think 16 and she came through the lines she came to Dr. Mengele who was at the front of the line and he determined if she was going to live or die what he asked of her was to dance in front of him and so she was an Olympic athlete at that time and the way she actually survived was to take herself to another place in her mind she believes that our freedom comes from our choice of what we do in our mind and that just touched me beyond belief it was something that in all of my research I had never heard anyone say it in that way I knew that somehow people had to take themselves away from the experience but the way she spoke about the choice and how it creates freedom it touched something in me and obviously it touched something in you yeah I feel I love that that's just a beautiful snippet of her beautiful life and same thing what touched me so much is I've not had anything close to her difficulties or trauma in my life but I've had little traumas and I do believe that there's this the resilience core is the belief that and of course Victor Frankel's written extensively about this and then a hero of ours as well that will no one can take away number one Edith talks about what's in her minds and number two that will to survive like you can be physically beaten mentally tortured all kinds of things but that will inside of you the soul level no one can touch that no one can take that and no one can damage that and that should give us all hope because despite the outside world we have that ability to transcend difficulties and I mean again in some of my small difficulties relative I do remember this idea that I could trans I could go to other places I could kind of we call it dissociation right I mean but you know what we think of that as bad I was like oh it's so bad that I dissociate honestly it's a brilliant skill in the right circumstances and you're the expert here not me but my simple way to look at it is I realize wow that served me well I can go to happy Disneyland when I want to and I saw the other day this is a silly example I was getting an MRI MRIs are incredibly noisy and loud and they're claustrophobic for most of us I don't even have claustrophobia but I knew going into there I would have to mentally have strength to endure this like really really loud noise around my head it was a brain MRI while I was there and so I took it as an opportunity to dissociate consciously and I did I literally had a lucid dream and went to a whole different land had a whole different almost like a dream of being awake and I came out of there and thought wow I can do this like I can dissociate consciously from a difficult situation and have this incredible experience like I literally had probably what average you know person on drugs would have as a high but I can do that naturally and if we can tap in if we can teach people to tap into that level of consciousness and I think it comes from practices like prayer meditation I would love your take on this like how would we teach we think of dissociation as negative but there's this piece here where we can harness energy to to go somewhere and be creative and what do you think of that or what's your thoughts on this you know part of my study was looking at coping strategies and one of those was dissociation or being numb yes to say it in a different way right think about someone who let's say has been raped or let's say there's incest within the family the way they survive many of them is to do exactly what you've said in that circumstance that coping mechanism is very positive and just like with you and the MRI something only becomes destructive when we use it too much or we use it to the point that it no longer is beneficial so let's say we use eating as a coping strategy for stress when you do it too much of course then it becomes negative but the coping strategies are there for a purpose and I think people that practice meditation learn to take themselves to what you use the word transcend to take themselves to another place to whether it's your favorite place by the ocean or flying in the sky over whatever you learn and you practice to become better at it and to get to that location faster or that environment or that feeling or seeing that light and it's a very powerful technique and if you're in a place like Auschwitz you need to find a way to transcend Edith spoke about having hope and she dreamed of going back and being with her boyfriend and some of my other survivors their hope was around going back and being with their family so relational things are always very powerful especially for women because it relates to resiliency oh i love that yeah tell us let's dive in because you really are an expert in your field and um I would like if you were talking to all of us as your clients and we were looking for like say there's you know we've lost a job or we're struggling with the stress of the children at home schooling or all the things are the uncertainty of our our world with whether it's politics which we won't talk about or other things um there's just a lot of things that create stress and we are at an all-time high with stressors I've said this before but from celliers work there's four predictors of stress they're nuts novelty unpredictability threat to ego and sense of control and of course someone like Edith had all of those every day we have them off and on and I think especially in the pandemic we have a lot of them most days what would you advise your clients or your listeners here of ways that they could deal with the stresses right now um you know that's a question that I think we're all asking ourselves and people around us because the the normal things that we used to use are not working right now because we've never been in a situation like this so in the past for me being around other people would have brought me some sense of resilience that connection that that just energy made me alive now I don't have it I I can't connect I can't hug I can't be near someone so if I'm speaking to my client or more importantly speaking to myself I need to look at new ways to find that connection and to speak very personally that would be finding the connection with myself which is the hardest thing for me so I would be talking obviously to my clients about right now let's look at what you've tried in the past what's helped you get through stress what are some other techniques that we could use this humor help you this journaling maybe looking for things to be grateful for every day for me this this whole pandemic the last nine months has been about facing my my worst fear but my greatest fear I guess is being alone and this has been the opportunity and it's been the most amazing journey ever Joy I couldn't agree more and what I was just thinking as you're speaking is I think the thing that's different here is it's really laid bare most people have medicators I just use that term I heard it somewhere for whether it's obviously addictions like alcohol drugs but there's socially acceptable addictions like work which has been my past or like even you might I mean overeating under eating work even relationships or sex or other things can be medicators and of course they can be healthy or unhealthy but anything we use to escape feeling or being in the reality of what's happening to us and what I've found for most people and I will include myself is during this time we either have more time or more emotional space because we don't have so many options for medicators like if we were with people or we were busy or we were doing we might still be busy or doing or or you know on Zoom but there's more space emotionally to actually have to deal with and process the stuff that maybe we've been able to keep buried up until now do you feel like that's accurate? I do and I really think that's an amazing kind of overview of this whole concept it's this space that we've never been used to and I can only speak for myself but I would fill it with doing something else or achieving or writing another book or starting another company or who knows what or taking care of someone at this particular point I've been able to use these nine months to see that that's my way my choice to to not really connect with myself or love myself and once again it was my biggest fear that if I didn't do these things that I wouldn't be loved so it comes back to that whole relational aspect and I think for many people that's what they're discovering right now a relationship with some people their families that they hadn't been close to or this relationship with themselves hopefully without the medicators yes oh gosh and this is where our conversation led we were both in chapter three of the gifts with Edith Eager that we mentioned earlier it's called all other relationships will end and I remember us almost on tears in the phone going oh my gosh can you believe this this is so relevant to us and I wanted to read just a couple little clips and then we'll talk about how it's affected us she talks about just all relationships will end and in the end we have ourselves and we can't abandon ourselves and just like you Joy I have some deep rooted fears around being alone and even more so because of my history I was very dissociated during my cancer at 25 and then Crohn's at 26 I think I had to survive and talk about caring for the people I went into the mode of like making sure everybody was okay because that's what I did up until then and so I never really allowed myself to grieve or feel like the trauma of being diagnosed with an aggressive life life-threatening illness at 25 and so I was taken care of other people but that fear still is in me that I'm working through of like not only being alone but being alone and sick like that's a big fear of mine that I'm grappling with but she talks about this I love it because we can't abandon ourselves we always have ourselves and we start to really understand and integrate this we can't really be alone and for me I have you know my faith in God and that presence in my life and she talks about so how can you be the best loving unconditional no-nonsense caregiver to yourself and then she goes on to say it's difficult to relinquish our old ways of earning A's and discover a new way to build love and connection so for people who are overachievers and use work as a medicator again amen and then also use like like we love to serve and take care of other people and that's a that's a gift that's a beautiful thing but sometimes we can do that instead of either taking care of ourselves or instead of going to the deep roots of why we're doing that and some of the things that you and I talked about were how to no fault of there's our family somehow fostered this idea that achievement and taking care of other people was the way that we got love or we just integrated it wasn't anyone's fault but our own but we did that and so this is kind of breaking that habit and then she says and I love this because my family is very like you know we don't be selfish take care of others first although those kinds of rules and she said it's good to be selfish to practice self love and self care and I'm relearning that it's not selfish to take care of yourself and she goes on one more thing I'll read and then we'll talk when you're free you take responsibility for being who you really are you recognize the coping mechanisms or behavior patterns you've adopted in the past to get your needs met you reconnect with the parts of yourself you had to give up and reclaim the whole person you weren't allowed to be you break the habit of abandoning yourself remember you have something no one else will ever have you have you you have a lifetime and then she says that's why I talk to myself Edie you're one of a kind you're beautiful I just love her may you be more and more Edie every day so joy and Jill may you be more and more joy and Jill every day and then I'm no longer in the habit of denying myself emotionally or physically I'm proud to be a high maintenance woman and I love I'm going to end there and then we'll talk but I love this because I remember when I traveled back in the day I would go for a weekend and take two suitcases because often I took a blender and an air filter and whatever and extra shoes and I got in the habit and I decided you know what I would say in the elevator when someone said are you going to Europe and I'd be like no I'm going for the weekend and I said it's okay to be high maintenance if you're high performance and they would shut up so I'm learning this because I realized you know what to take care of myself it's okay I'm not going to apologize anymore that's a lot but I love comments joy on on that chapter and how it impacted you because it was profound it was a profound chapter and I I keep going back to she has always these little quips I hang on to and she is formally trained as a logo therapist so she's always looking for meaning or purpose but she she has this way of saying things and the the last thing that she that I actually I spoke to her this afternoon and she has something where she says you're depressed because you're not expressed expressing and I think that's so true that when we are taught whether it's a pandemic or in our stress we pull inward we become depressed we we go inside ourselves and the last nine months all of us have a choice we have the freedom to go into that depression and to just become a little ball or we can take it start to express look as we are today or just like everybody that was on the webinar to look at this as what can we be grateful for what have we learned where are we finding freedom I'm finding freedom for the first time to just feel okay with me and I know there's a lot of people out there that are probably oh what is wrong with this woman I can do that all the time I'm not I can't do that because I'm used to taking care of everyone being a therapist and checking on my patients my clients doing 10 other things and I got the love that way but I found that if I this is really maybe stepping too far over but I felt like if I didn't do that I wouldn't have the love I wouldn't get what I needed and so I it was like this constantly being on this performance treadmill with no way out yeah oh thank you for expressing what we're all feeling because that's I couldn't agree more it's just my whole journey same exact parallel that's what we we were just like I so understand you on the phone recently the same thing is like I feel this responsibility to respond to every inquiry every text every phone call every need and I'm realizing in the last nine months that I humanly can't do it like that amount of response even if I want to I can't and a few months ago it took me to a really kind of a down I've really never been depressed but I was as close as to that as I ever could have been because I was just like the joy was not as bright it was like my light instead of being bright shining was just more of a flicker and it was this depletion because I was responding to everybody's needs about my own and again there's no selfishness in making sure you get sleep and food and rest and even quiet time and I wasn't able to take care of all the needs of the world that were demanding on me and then also take care of myself and so for a while I chose the world and then I realized oh my gosh I'm not going to be I'm not going to be okay my light is going to dim if I don't really go back to the foundation and turn off the phone and stop answering every request that comes my way and again I loved we both love to help people it's not a obligation it's not something that we don't enjoy like to me and I know for you too it brings great joy to our lives but there's a limit to our capacity and I realized I had hit my limit like I couldn't go on like this and so this whole reformatting of this time for me has been what is the priority where do I want to pour out my energies and what's going to happen is as I say yes to some things that means I have to say no to others and that's hard wow that's a really big question I know you know I think first of all it's the exploration of just finding out how far you're stretching yourself and to really look at that and we do a you know one of the things that I do a lot for people that are always over responsible for other people is to have them become aware of how often they're doing that so it sounds silly but I have them put a rubber band on their wrist and every time they find themselves feeling like they have to take care of someone or they have to take care of something else aside from themselves they have to snap their wrist with the rubber band and most people come back and say oh my gosh after two days my wrist was going to be sore I had to take this off and I think it's just so unconscious for many of us that we forget ourselves and it's so easy especially as women to care for everyone else you know like you I was taught that I should not be selfish that my job my purpose my role and especially as a therapist is to take care of everyone else that's as you said it's not bad yeah unless I'm not caring for my own health but at this point in my life my purpose and my meaning has changed it's now about giving giving back in a different way with my heart and more honesty and and trying to do it not as a way to achieve love or achievement but to just be with someone in a different way and to be with life in a different way where I'm part of it not not a vehicle for fixing things for people I don't know if that needs sense but that totally makes sense I love how you how you explain this because again so relevant and the thing that came to mind that I know I've struggled with in the past is like having needs right like expressing needs and having needs I think I had somewhere learned along the line where it's better to not have needs and you definitely don't express them so like this idea that I might actually need something from somebody else but what you realize is like say you call a friend and like I'm really struggling can you go on a walk with me or I would love some time with you would you have time for coffee or I am in such a bind is there any way you could pick up the dog for me I would never try to ask those things of other people right but the truth is that's a that's a ability to allow them to love you back and so you're actually denying them of some of the love that a friendship or relationship could have but that's a struggle I've had is actually expressing or or acknowledging that I actually have needs absolutely and that I can't do it all myself and I think to be resilient you have to be able to to see that you can you need other people or to allow people to be part of your life and as you said sharing whether we're miles apart years apart we can ask of each other and it feels safe I think it's also important that we mention that to do this you have to be with safe people yes yeah yeah and that really is a disclaimer that needs to be said to be resilient you have to find safe people in your life if you keep going back to the people that have harmed you you're probably going to get harmed again yeah and so it's important as a part of resiliency to really kind of and I know this is hard for so many people but to just let some relationships go by the side yeah joey I again I love your words of wisdom because I feel like I've learned that the last several years and I have so many beautiful friendships and relationships and I've had a very few that have been pretty toxic and what I realized is for someone who's an empath and an energetic being and the extreme level I really feel other people it's this gift because it helps me to feel patience and understand where they're coming from and understand what they need from diagnostic perspective but on the other side of it I realized more than ever especially recently I really have to protect that inner circle like I can't have any negativity I just can't I would love to but I I my body won't allow it it won't function because energetically I feel it it takes me down so I've been really working on that as well and setting good boundaries not that they can't be you know connections or relationships in some capacity but the inner circle I'm really specific about who I allow there because my body and my mind and my spirit don't do negativity well and and I think it's relational and also environmental because you wouldn't put bad food into your body at this time but you have things surrounding you I look at I look at your room and it's so Jill because I see the things around you that you love and when you choose to be more yourself you you put more things around you that that illustrate the real you and and I see it there I think as we clear out our lives we do bring things around us that are more nurturing and loving versus things that we feel like we have to have oh I love that and I have to tell you a funny story about this room because you'll get this and I'm sure the people listening might too but it's a it's a funny story so I used to love the color red I bought a red BMW motorcycle I like bright red I'd wear red like bright you know in your face red and I recently redecorated got some new things in the kitchen and probably in the last year so all of a sudden I look around my house and I have a lot of this beautiful teal and I joke like this is a metaphor for my transformation in the last several years because red is very very masculine very in your face very very vibrant and loud and I think it was compensation for the fear of like either not being protected or not that being in touch with that feminine side and lots of things I won't go into this is a whole psychological discussion but all of that to say you get the idea red is a little different than this very gentle teal color like I come in here and I literally I'm like I love this room it so feels like my soul feels refreshed and calm and then now in my kitchen everything has it was accidental I had no plan but I looked around subconsciously everything's now teal so I joked with a friend I'm going to have to repaint my BMW motorcycle to a beautiful teal color but this like it's a metaphor for the transformation from accepting all parts of ourselves and I've talked to another fellow medical doctor who's a woman in this masculine world and we talked about the years 10 years ago you remember this I would wear a black pants suit when I'd speak that's not me like I but I did because I had to fit into this masculine world I'm actually this delicate flower I hate saying that I'm actually really tough too but I'm really sensitive and I never acknowledged that half of me for most of my life I felt like I had to be tough I had to be masculine I had to be red and all of a sudden in this transformation I'm embracing this delicate tender sensitive side I'm sitting and meditating instead of running out and doing orange theory these transformations are very very real and so most of us have a bent towards one side or the other but when we acknowledge the full spectrum of ourselves all of a sudden we redecorate so interesting and I never really considered the red part of you you remember right like you probably I do you know me you know but didn't wouldn't you say the years ago when you I was much more masculine and I feel like I've really transformed and tried to embrace that other side of me well I feel like you or me I mean you'll people behind me I've got the red my world is in red here and then very Asian but I feel that tranquility from the environment and the color allows me to be expressive for the first time for myself I love it it's like we have these both sides again the red is there's nothing wrong with I love red and I love my red BMW and I love the teal but it's almost like how do we find these and I think the environment the color can actually help us be more of who we were meant to be because I love your decor I'm I've seen other parts of your home and other places and I think it's absolutely stunning and I can see how it would encourage you to have more of a voice absolutely and you know we're talking about this and it's funny because I've been talking to two people who are actually decorators and designers about being part of the resiliency conference because I really believe that our environment and shaping it and creating a design around us in all ways is a very very powerful tool to kind of express not only ourselves but to find some peace and some tranquility I mean it's kind of like if you go to a hospital you'd never paint the the room red yeah there's a reason why they paint it yellow or blue I want you to be calm exactly I love that and I love how this is because it really is an expression this transformed when I painted this room and who knew and now everything's teal instead of red one thing as we were talking before it reminded me of one of the last summaries of this chapter and just a practical tip we could give to listeners is Edith talks about writing for a day or a week in your journal what percentage of time do you spend on work love and play and sometimes like say you're in the clinic say either one of us are seeing clients we might be loving and working at the same time and I just thought about that I haven't really done the exercise yet like over a 24 hour period but I'm guessing I might be like 80% work and 10% play well the love I think would be in there so maybe 50 to 60% love or yeah love 80% work and then like 10% play I'm not very good at playing but I was encouraged by that because I think like that's an area of growth and one thing I've done three years ago I had some friends who loved to color and I was like oh brother I never I don't have time for that like who would sit down and color it's a waste of time well now Joy I literally drive around in my car and I have a bag of coloring books colored pencils and pens because if I happen to stop at a coffee shop and meet a friend we will often now color and I love it and it's plain and it's playful it's interesting because it also connects you back to your inner child and part of your inner child that you didn't get to have yeah and I think that's for many people one way to really not only express themselves in a new way but also to connect to parts of themselves that many times as children we find ways to protect ourselves we find ways to be more resilient and then we lose those techniques and those capabilities because it's not cool or we think it's stupid but you know I find myself coloring all the time it's great to have a granddaughter because oh I love it all the time and do crafts I love it and I've seen some of your darling videos and they just make me smile oh I love it gosh there's so much else we could say you know one thing else that might be practical to leave with people I remember this I wrote this this is in my journal from Edel's book that it was she was talking about when she sees clients she's a psychotherapist and she would always ask these four questions and so this might be practical for you guys listening she'd say and this would be to liberate yourself from victimhood so kind of part of that chapter she said what do you want like for yourself not for anybody else and the second question is who wants it because often we're like oh well my dad wants me to go to school to be a doctor well what do you want you know what do you want so it's just like separating that out from not just what you want or think people want you to want but what you actually want so the second question is who wants it is it you or somebody else the third question is well what are you going to do about it because often we have these dreams these ideas these things to free us to be the person who was meant to really be but the last question is when like when are you going to do it so making a plan and I just I wrote this down because I thought what a great thing for me to really check in with myself every bit about what do we really want and how do we get there and I'd love to hear joy you've done so many amazing things and I can't even begin to name them all you've written at least seven books and you've you've done the women's lifestyle show in Puria that's been super successful for decades because it was when I was back there now the resiliency and many many many other things what's next for Joy Miller what where are you what would you like to see yourself it's an interesting question because someone said to me once we we spend half a year in Florida and there's a our dear friends one of them is a physician and he knows me and he's saying joy why do you keep doing these things you know you've done it all you you see something you do it whatever why can't it just be enough and the point for me and I've heard either say the same thing because it was when I was sorry is that time is limited I want to be able to experience and feel everything that I possibly can so whether it's spending time with my grandchildren or walking on the beach or whatever I I really think that what I want at this point the when is now for me and it's really to allow myself to not necessarily get awards achievements whatever but to really be with the universe and breath and life and to watch the ocean and to really be with people right now I can't tell you how wonderful it is to just meet someone and to say tell me how you got where you got I want to hear about you I don't want to hear your achievements I mean all that stuff is just different clothes yes I've done a lot of things yes I've had achievements but I really want people to know the real inside of me and if they're not willing or they have no interest then I need to move on and so right now the when is for me is now and it's to be the the most real I can possibly be gosh we are so aligned I feel the same way just like what does this really look like because am I on I always joke about the dancing bear which is like a performer and a lot of times in my life I felt like I had to perform to achieve love or achieve compensation whatever and I'm moving away from that model I want to just be myself and not be dancing for accolades any longer and like you said just be seen and loved for me now I love what I do in medicine don't worry I'm not going to stop seeing patients that's such a joy for me it gives me such a joy and I love to do that but the other thing is maybe that I traveled a lot before March of this year and it was really hard on my body I don't think I acknowledged it and so I think things are going to be different and then writing is this creative kind of solo endeavor and it takes a lot of time alone I love it it's still very difficult but that's a whole different thing so who knows but I'm doing the same thing is reevaluating where are you know where does the most joy come from and the relationships that we have and the connections and even like our conversations spending time with you I have such great joy with with our conversations joy can I just add that I think it's really important that people that are listening take time and look at what have they learned during these last nine months what what can you be grateful for what have you I guess there's so many there's terrible parts of it I've lost one of my dearest friends during this time and I'm fearful that I'm going to lose my husband who has cancer but there are so many wonderful things here and I'm hoping that people can see that part of resiliency is about looking at those things and celebrating the successes that you've made you've made it through nine months you've done whatever you need to do you're taking steps and I think sometimes we forget what we're accomplishing and no one has ever done what we have done in these last nine months we are really amazing if you have made it through this this is something that no one else has ever done and you deserve to get a lot of credit because we've been through something pretty dramatic and we hopefully are coming out the other end soon yes yes I love that you say that because it is it's just that building that confidence that we are going to make it and and yeah if you need some encouragement go get Edith's books they're both so good I can't recommend one of the other final words Joy what would you say to leave people you've just given us some great tidbits of hope anything else you want to leave people with as far as just hope or resilience or tools to get through I think I'd like to leave people with I guess the hope that you take time to look at what is your purpose to try and to discover that but more importantly to look at right now who you are and what you can be grateful for within yourself and it's not about where we're going it's about what we're discovering within ourselves wow I love that because that means anything outside can be changing and and uncertain and you still have this groundedness here that transcends all of that so I love it and it's also you know I've always heard what we focus on grows and so we can focus on the good the grateful the relationships the people we love the people we have in our inner circle our patients our clients all those things or we can focus on the negative and I choose to focus on the good and that definitely gets me through a lot of days and I have the choice to find wonderful people in my life and you are one of them and everyone that's listening to you right now they are so lucky to have you in their life you are really amazing thank you joy I feel the same about you you have touched so many lives and I just I'm grateful you ever set a definite plan for us to connect and who knows what the future holds um well where can people what we gave your website is it joymiller.com your your main website and then resiliency2021.com is there anywhere else you want to give for people to find you or no I think they can find me at one of those two places I don't find too well and be sure and join next year I'm sure the information is already on the site for 2021 it's a great event and joy just did an amazing work putting that on well thank you all for listening joy thank you for coming on today I have so enjoyed talking to you as always I hope you have a great evening thank you so much