Welcome. I'm Connor Beaton, and today we're going to talk about reclaiming joy.

Now, most of the, most of the podcasts and personal development events that I've been to

talk about joy as being one of the top experiences of the human experience. and so many people really base their their sort of

happiness on how much joy they experience when you really drill down and start to talk to people

and you get inside of their minds especially people that struggle with depression or sadness or anxiety, you start to realize

that one of the major challenges that they are experiencing is that they are cut off from their

ability to feel joy, that their sense of joy, their ability to touch, taste, feel,

and sort of bathe in the warmth of joy has somehow

escaped them. It's somehow gone away. And I want to read you a poem that really sort of typifies

or is like the quintessential version of this. And it's by a guy named Charles Bukowski. You

may have heard me read off,

read off one of his poems before. But this poem is one of my favorite poems. And it used to be

something that I would look to when I had lost a deep sense of joy in my life. And there were times

where I had really lost connection with my own happiness, my own direction and authenticity.

And I realized looking back, in hindsight, that I had become disconnected from my joy

because I had let pain and sadness replace the space where joy could enter. And I had lost the ability,

maybe not lost the ability. It might not be the right way to say it. I had lost the strength

and the willingness to lean into and let out the sort of quote unquote bluebird, as Charles Bikowski calls it.

And we're going to talk about why this happens.

But first, let me just read you the poem because it's so powerful.

Here we go.

There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out.

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