Count It All Joy!

Happy New Year! In this episode of Hello Intention, Shivon M., licensed psychotherapist, kicks off the year with a conversation about the transformative power of JOY. But this isn’t your average New Year pep talk—it's a real, grounded exploration of how to find joy even in life’s imperfect moments.

Tune in as Shivon breaks down what joy really is (hint: it’s more than happiness)  and discover actionable ways to step into a brand-new chapter. Whether you’re feeling hopeful, uncertain, or somewhere in between, this episode will leave you empowered to create a life rooted in intention and joy.

Episode Description and Body Text:

Welcome to a brand-new year and a fresh chapter of Hello Intention!

In this episode we dive into:

• The true meaning of joy: Why it’s deeper than happiness and how it can sustain us through life’s ups and downs.
• Reflecting on the past year: Lessons learned, moments of gratitude, and how even challenges can shape us for the better.
• Cultivating joy in the year ahead: Practical ways to build daily habits that anchor you in gratitude, mindfulness, and self-celebration.

Here’s what you’ll take away from this episode:

• A mindset shift that will help you see light even in the darkest moments.
• Tools to reflect on the past with gratitude and step into the future with intention.
• A step-by-step guide to creating daily and weekly practices that nurture joy.

This isn’t about resolutions or quick fixes—it’s about showing up for yourself in real, meaningful ways that align with your intentions.

Ready to cultivate more joy in your life? We’ve created a free, downloadable “Count It All Joy” Worksheet to help you reflect, plan, and embrace joy every day.

💌 Download Your Free Worksheet Here: Click Here >>>  I'm Ready!!

Don’t keep this journey to yourself! Join our growing Intentional Community! 

1. Subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode.
2. Share this episode with a friend who’s ready to step into the new year with intention.
3. Sign up for our email list for exclusive resources, updates, and tips to keep thriving all year long. Click Here >>> LET'S GROW TOGETHER!

✨ Together, we’re turning Intention into Action!

Let’s connect! Tag @IAm.Shivon on Instagram and use #HelloIntention to share your insights and joy-filled moments. We can’t wait to celebrate your journey with you!

Transcript

Count It All Joy

[00:00:00] And this is how you start to, allow yourself to say, I'm going to do different as I move forward, because I want this to look different. I want this to feel different. and I want it to be consistent I'm your host Shivon.. Licensed psychotherapist Change expert in life strategist. Thanks for tuning in and welcome to our intentional community. Before we get started just a quick note. Hello. Intention is not intended to be a substitute for obtaining and or building a personal relationship with a licensed mental health professional. 

Happy New Year and a welcome to the podcast. It feels so good to be with you today. At the start of a brand new year. It's a clean slate, a fresh chapter, if you will. Almost the chance to reset in some [00:01:00] ways. I am pretty excited to reconnect with all of you, especially on today. This episode, let me just give you a disclaimer, is not about resolutions or massive goals.

Instead, it's going to be about something deeper. Joy. Not just your fleeting happiness, but a profound sense of joy that can sustain us, right? Like even in the face of challenges, especially actually in those moments, when it feels like joy is the last thing on our minds. I don't even know if many of us have thought about joy or compared the element of joy to happiness, but That's what we're going to talk about today.

I know that for many of us, the past year was definitely full of twists and turns. And [00:02:00] while you're listening right now, I just want to take a moment to say thank you. That's how I want to start. I want to start with a thank you. Thank you for showing up, for investing in yourself, for choosing to start this new year with intention.

Even when all of this might be difficult to do right now, honestly. And really quick while we're here, I also want to thank you for being a part of this community. I thank you for listening. I appreciate the messages that I received asking, Hey, when are the episodes going to return? The grace that was extended.

And of course the continued support. I truly find joy in being here with you. The truth is life is a journey. You'll hear me say that all the time. And sometimes this journey takes us on unexpected detours. And that's simply the reality. It's not [00:03:00] something that we can control. But sometimes we have to remind ourselves of this and also allow ourselves the opportunity to experience this journey the way we may uniquely require.

Sometimes we need to step back. to recharge, refocus, even realign with our purpose. Sometimes that looks like finding joy and purpose in unexpected pauses. Honestly, I have so much I can't wait to share with you as we intentionally move forward, not just in this episode, but in like all the episodes that are to come.

But I just want to say if you've been going through your own challenges, or if you've found yourself on an unexpected break of your own in some way, know that you're not alone. Know that you haven't been alone. We all need time [00:04:00] sometimes to just pause and reflect. And that's okay. So before I get started on a whole nother topic, let's dive in.

 why count it all joy? Count it all joy for me has been a phrase that resonated with me deeply over the last few months and it just sat with me. I thought about it. I reflected on it and I started to think it's easy to be joyful or happy when things are going well. But what about when life gets hard?

How do we find joy in the midst of pain, joy in the midst of uncertainty or even loss? This phrase challenges us to shift our perspective, to see every experience, even the difficult ones as an opportunity in some way. shape or form. [00:05:00] It's really about recognizing that joy isn't just a feeling, it's a choice.

It's about counting our blessings even when they're hard to see. And so for me, I felt like that would be a perfect way to start the new year. We often start with all these great grand goals and, and missions if you will. And then oftentimes, We don't really get to see them through or something happens or we do, and we still don't find the joy in accomplishment.

So that's why I felt like joy is often misunderstood. I felt like sometimes we even ignore it. Many of us equate it with happiness, but they're not the same because happiness is often tied to external circumstances. It's what we feel when things are going well. While joy on [00:06:00] the other hand, is deeper.

It's a state of being. It's a mindset and again, it's a choice we make to find light even in the darkest moments. Joy isn't about pretending that everything is perfect. That's not the expectation. So I don't want you to misunderstand because that's not what I'm asking you to do. But it is about embracing life with, with like all its imperfections and still choosing to move forward with hope and gratitude.

You see the intentional part there because I'm going to intentionally make that decision. So before we step fully into planning and building for this new year, I want us to take a moment to reflect real quick. The past year may have brought its share of highs and lows, wins and losses, joys and heartbreaks.

And [00:07:00] that's all right because you're still here. We are still here, which means we've made it. In some way, whatever that may be, we've still made it. So I want you to take a moment to reflect on this question. What lessons did the past year teach us? Another one could be what moments of joy, even small ones, stood out to me.

It's easy to focus on what didn't go as planned. But today I want to encourage us to flip the script. I want us to think about, through all those circumstances. What is the resilience that was built within us? Right? The relationships that grew deeper. Even if we found ourselves, shifting out of other relationships, have we thought about [00:08:00] those that we were able to nurture and those that helped us get to the other side?

What about the challenges that helped to shape us? When we look for the good we can start to count it all joy Now when we look at the new year and This being the beginning of that new year and us embracing that position Let's talk about how we can intentionally choose joy as we move forward again This isn't about ignoring the hard stuff or putting on a fake smile.

It's about cultivating a mindset that allows us to see the beauty even in the messiness of life. I don't know about you, but I know every day I see messy, whether that's in whatever role that may be in, right? Like even if you're an entrepreneur, there's a [00:09:00] lot of things and it's not always perfectly aligned no matter how much we try.

As a mom, like it's not always perfectly aligned. No matter how much I try. There are so many different elements of life that will bring about messiness. But who says that there's no joy in the messy? It's one of those things, right? Like when you think about, Like what's messy you can be I don't know why baking is on the top of my mind I guess holiday times a lot of baking going on but When you're baking or cooking period there there could be a ton of ingredients and a lot of things that are out at one time and as you're going along, you might be cleaning, but there's still the dishes and all the things that were used to get to the end result.

But when you sit down and when you, take a bite of whatever it is that you were looking [00:10:00] forward to as you made all those things come together, that's the part that brings the joy. So I want us to look beyond the mess. and find the joy, right? I want to give us some ways to anchor ourselves in joy as we move forward in this year The first way to do that I want to mention is to practice gratitude every day.

Even on the tough days, there's always something to be thankful for. If you have not, Caught that message just yet. There it is again. I want us to look at what, what was maybe a kind word, um, a warm meal sometimes, right? Sometimes it's me getting up and I have my hot cup of whatever it is that I might be, um, making that morning.

It might be just the simple act of breathing and sometimes it's sitting and, Really just being [00:11:00] in tune with that breath in that moment and allowing ourselves to focus solely on that, right? Gratitude trains our mind to focus on abundance rather than lack. Let me say it again. Gratitude trains our mind to focus on abundance rather than lack. 

I want us to understand what that means because It's not saying that because I don't have this I'm not going to attend to it That's not it. But it is saying because I do have this I have the ability or I have the options or the space even to create a way to, to work towards fulfilling the lack, if you will.

So number one, practice gratitude daily. Number two, embrace the present moment. Joy is often [00:12:00] found in the here and now, right? I don't want us to continue to get caught up in only our future plans or our past regrets. So much that we miss the small, beautiful moments that are happening right now. And I think oftentimes it's easy to do that.

It's easy to say, these are the things that I'm working towards and this is what I want to do. And this is how I'm going to do it. And it's also sometimes, unfortunately easy to say, these are all the things that I didn't do or all the things that happened. and all the ways in which it affected this, that, or the other.

And now we find ourselves in a place where we don't even See joy. and we definitely don't feel happy. So embrace the present moment. Number three, seek meaning, not perfection. In case you're writing it down, I'm, I'm trying to go a little slower when I say them. So seek [00:13:00] meaning, not perfection. This goes back to that messiness, right?

Life does not have to be flawless to be beautiful. And I'm not sure who can ever tell me a story of an entire life that was flawless, honestly. When you really think about it, there's such beauty in imperfections. and so many things that, that give us those examples. that we really should try more to focus on the meaning and on what truly matters to us because that's where joy follows naturally.

And then the fourth one I want to give you, cause I don't want to make it a long list, but I'll give you one more is celebrate small wins. Even the smallest victories are worth celebrating. We have to remember that those small victories are stepping stones to bigger successes. [00:14:00] And I think that we're so hard on ourselves that we, we often look at life and say, if we didn't make it all the way to the line that we set for ourselves, or maybe even a line that wasn't set by us, but it was set by someone else.

 if we don't make it there, then we've not made it. Right. And so case in point, a lot of people, you know, maybe fitness might be the goal tends to be the goal, um, at this time of the year. And oftentimes it's one of those things that if we don't get to this amount of a number or, you know, this amount, then it's kind of like there's no win, but yet might've got 50 percent 

And you're 50 percent further than you were when you started. So celebrate those small wins, which that wouldn't be a small win to me. Cause 50 percent is a lot, but even if it was 10 percent or 20%, whatever it is, you are further along than when you started. And that is 

[00:15:00] Something to truly be proud of. so there we go. So that's, that's that part. Those are the four tools. I hope you caught them. If not, please go back, get a pen, get a paper, write them down and try to navigate through that, each day. But now I want to look at us moving through into this new year. And as we do that, I want us to remember that joy is not a destination.

It's a practice. Joy is something you can cultivate. It's something you nurture, and it's something you carry with you no matter what the year holds. You don't have to wait for the perfect moment or the perfect circumstances to experience joy. I think sometimes we don't even realize that we punish ourselves and we say to ourselves, Oh, we cannot be, and maybe the word that's more often used is happy.

Right? But we know [00:16:00] that happy is like, Oh, I might want to go treat myself in whatever way it is that you want to treat yourself. and in that moment, You might be happy, but then internally, deep down, there's not a lot of joy that is connected to that moment or found following that moment.

Right? And it's one of those things where I think we often look at ourselves and say, well, do we deserve it? And here's why we don't deserve to be in a state of joy. And that's just not true. Again, there are so many circumstances that, can bring about joy. If we truly allow ourselves the opportunity, and place ourselves in the position to, to seek out those pieces of joy, you [00:17:00] truly can start right now, right where you are.

In the circumstances, whatever they may be, this is how you start to be more intentional. And this is how you start to, allow yourself to say, I'm going to do different as I move forward, because I want this to look different. I want this to feel different. and I want it to be consistent. And so the way that you do that is to Not wait for the perfect moment or the perfect circumstances because again, they just don't exist They don't exist, but it doesn't mean it's not beautiful And it doesn't mean that it can't get you to your goal so Not gonna make this super long.

I know that there's so many things that When we roll into the new year, we want to do and that we have on our list and that we're [00:18:00] thinking about. and so for me, this was just something that again, I thought, what better way to start a new year, a new day. And honestly, this is a message that can be, repeated no matter what season we're in.

But as we start this new year, it's a message that reminds us what it's all about, what we're doing it all for. it's harder to do life when we are when we feel beaten down, when we feel like we're doing all the things and there's nothing internally that gives us a spark. And so this is that, this is saying I'm going to find my spark every day and here's how.

That's it. That's all. I want to say thank you for spending part of your New Year's Day with me or whatever day it is that you're listening. [00:19:00] But as we journey through this year together, I want us to commit to counting it all joy. Again, not because life is easy, but because we are going to commit to being able to find light even in the shadows.

If today's episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear your thoughts or reflections. I invite you to reach out, share your journey. Let's walk through this path together. I'll be sharing a worksheet in the description to help you continue the work in counting it all joy. If you found this episode helpful, you found any part of it, that gave you some nuggets to, get your year started, I also invite you to share it.

Don't keep it to yourself, share it with someone else, so that we can all begin the journey of counting it all joy. Until next time, I want you to keep finding your joy [00:20:00] in each day. And remember, you're stronger than you know. Talk to you soon.