715. Give Yourself Permission To Follow Your Joy

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Are you waiting around for happiness to just appear, or are you actively hitting the "joy gym"? In this episode of Be It Till You See It, host Lesley Logan sits down with Amy, author of 101 Ways to Spread Joy, to unpack why joy is a practice, not a coincidence. Amy shares how she came through severe mental health challenges and social anxiety by learning to choose joy on purpose, take bold risks, and send a positive ripple out into the world.

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In this episode you will learn about:

  • Why spreading your own joy sends an invisible ripple outward.
  • How to purposefully train yourself to learn to be joyful.
  • Why your relationships are the top predictor of happiness.
  • What it looks like to schedule the moments that fill your cup.
  • Simple joys and the miracle walks Amy takes each morning.


Episode References/Links:


Guest Bio:

Amy Dickens is a leading voice in the power of joy and play as tools for transformation and nervous system regulation. As the creator of Joyfully You, author of 101 Ways to Spread Joy, and host of the Joyfully You Podcast, Amy helps people reconnect to their aliveness through laughter, movement, and community. Whether she’s leading parades of people dancing through the streets or speaking on stage about the ripple effect of joy, Amy’s mission is to remind us that joy isn’t a distraction from growth—it’s the doorway to it.

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Episode Transcript:

Amy Dickens 0:00  

Give yourself permission to follow your joy, whatever big or little ways that might be, and to let yourself just kind of be brutally honest. Like, if I had no fear, what would that look like?


Lesley Logan 0:10  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast, where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousandss of people around the world, and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity, and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring bold, executable, intrinsic, and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and be it till you see it. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.


Lesley Logan 0:52  

All right, B e It babe. Get ready to smile. Get ready to... First of all, I'm just gonna tell you right now, I'm a fast talker. She's an excited talker. So if you normally listen on 2.0 speed, it might be a 1.5 episode. I'm just saying, but we're talking about joy today. Amy Dickens is the author of the best-selling book 101 Ways to Spread Joy, and I think we really need this right now. I think we need to one, understand how do we even feel joy in our own selves, and then two, how does that allow us to spread joy with others? And it's a really great story. I mean, I could have talked to Amy for hours. I'll be really, really honest. We kept it short, and I think there's at least three takeaways, maybe different ones for one person, another thing that made more sense to you. But I really do think that there's three awesome things that you can take away from this episode, if not more, and it might be one of those ones that you kind of hit rewind and go, "Wait, what did she do?" and add it to your list of things to try out because you got to feel all of our feelings. But one thing I think we really need to spend a little bit more time feeling as joy in our lives definitely helps you be it till you see it, and you're going to hear all of that in this episode. So here's Amy Dickens.


Lesley Logan 2:00  

All right, Be It babe, this is going to be... I'm just gonna say it. It's gonna be a joyful conversation. Every part of my being says it's going to be that way because we have Amy Dickens here, the author of 101 Ways to Spread Joy. So, Amy, can you tell everyone who you are and why you rock at joy spreading? Because I think that this is interesting. I've never met anyone who says this is what I do for a living.


Amy Dickens 2:23  

Yeah, yeah. It's funny you say that because I literally just met somebody else that does it this past weekend at a Joy Maker Bootcamp, and I'm like, whoa, other people do this? I thought I was the only one, but yeah. So I grew up with a ton of mental health problems until my mid to late 20s, probably, and it was joy, really, that helped respark me into this person that I am, to rediscovering the joy of living, kind of thing, in all the big and the little ways, and the true power of who I am as a person and that authenticity. And the more that I lean into it, the more I was like, "Whoa, this is who I really am." So I'm on a mission to really help reconnect people to their joy, so that they can become who they really truly are in this life, and then also it's turned into how can we create the world to be a better place? Because when we show up as the joy that we wish to see in the world, that creates this invisible ripple effect that, in turn, is kind of creating a new world, basically, for us to live in and co-create.


Lesley Logan 3:24  

Oh, 100% Amy. I mean, like they always say, your vibe attracts your tribe, right? So if you 're not joyful and you're going in like an Eeyore, of course, the only people who are actually going to talk to you are the Eeyores. It was really funny at my wedding, t hese two women who didn't know each other, I saw them talking and hugging the only air conditioning vent, and I was like, of course those two would be talking. Of course, that's just the cynic nature in them finding the cynic nature in each other, and they're just going to be cynics covering up the AC and stealing it from everybody. And no wonder the y're turning everyone into them. So it's just kind of funny how, I do agree. The more joyful we are living our life, it invites other people to be joyful too, but it does make the world a little bit better place, and it's really hard saying that. We're actually recording this during a time that the world does not feel very joyful, Amy, doesn't feel very joyful, and I feel like it's really easy for people to even think that this is a toxic positivity conversation, that it's not even thoughtful and considering what is going on. But I'll just tell you a little background that you don't know about me. In my spaces, there are places where you can complain. It's c a lled an "I need a moment" channel, and you're allowed to need a moment and bitch. But I have a rule that you have to have a win. You h a ve to share a win at the same time. You don't get to come back later and do it. You got to do it at the same time because there's always something good going on too, and there is a balance, and we can't just throw up on people and then come back and do joy later. So tell me, knowing what we know, what's going on right now.


Amy Dickens 4:41  

Yeah.


Lesley Logan 4:43  

Is seeking joy like a waste of time, not thoughtful? How can we do that in a way that doesn't feel privileged? Do you know what I mean? I made this a huge question. I'm sorry, I just laid it on you.


Amy Dickens 5:00  

Lay the huge questions on me. I'm here for it. I am all about it. Yeah, I personally have a really deep belief, deep in my bones, that we need our joy now more than ever. And then also, little caveat is that when I say this, I don't mean that we have to live at this peak state of bliss and joy 100% of the time.


Lesley Logan 5:00  

Like, don't fuck my joy up. Take your bad news over there. Yeah, it's not like that.


Amy Dickens 5:22  

Right. It's like, okay, we get to be a human that has the full spectrum of human emotions, and we aren't repressing stuff because that also doesn't work. We've seen that, we've been there, we've done that. We know that that's not the way, just shove it and ignore stuff. We can feel the whole thing, but I feel like where I'm looking at the world, and I've been the past 12 years on this whole self-help journey, it feels like joy often was a missing component in a lot of things that I was seeing. I truly do believe that our joy... I lead these joy parades, so my joy parades, I get people singing and dancing in the street. The whole point is to basically uplift yourself and to be this little uplifting moment, this breath of fresh air, this glitch in the matrix, kind of like whoa, people are looking up from their phones and suddenly they're dancing and singing "Who Let the Dogs Out" with us or something on a random Saturday, and it uplifts them. The response I get is otherworldly, and at the same place where we start this, oftentimes there happens to be a protest for something on the other side of the street or something, and it's a little bit edgy. And sometimes people feel a little angry at us for like, what are you doing? 


Amy Dickens 6:33  

And to me, I feel like we are just taking two different paths of you know like trying to use yes, right? It's like the same coin, like kind of thing. But it's just like, oh, you can either do this way or that way. I'm not saying your way is wrong or right. This is just the way that feels like my part to play. And it feels like if we can show up in a joyful way, because I know myself personally, I make different choices when I'm in an angry state, when I'm in a fearful state, when I'm in a joyful state. And I truly believe that if we can start to be more joyful and connective with each other, that we will start to create different decisions. That we will show up and like create little micro pockets of a new world, rather than create. There's so much fear. There's so much divisiveness right now, and we're just. It feels like we're getting more and more separate, and to me that feels scary. To me, that feels not like not creating the world we wish to be in. When we're like, you're different, we can't talk. You think different things, we can't talk. I really would love to create a world of like, can we even dance together in the street for a second? I don't even need to know. And then from that space, there can be a level of safety almost because we all laugh and like we all want belonging.


Lesley Logan 7:47  

Yeah, it also makes me think like which party you want to be at, right? Like, like at the Portland protest, talk about joy, like that you were seeing with the frog guy and all the things, and like the you're not that our whole thing is about protesting, but I do think that like it's important that we talk about how joy can exist in a place where you are where you are still wanting to to support causes that you care about or rights that you care about. And like one of our first protests that we went to while living in Vegas, there was drummers and there was music and performers who were singing, and it just made everyone flipping us off look so weird because it's like we're having a great time. Like you look so strange, and so part of me is like, I want to be at the joy protest. You know, that's what I want to be at. 


Amy Dickens 8:25  

 Absolutely, yeah. And I mean, like I've heard someone else say she was like, "There's a war on happiness, and like there kind of is sometimes. Well, certain people they get mad at like joyful, happy people. 


Lesley Logan 8:27  

Well, I want to go back to a little bit how you said something about growing up, and I don't remember a time of actual pure celebration. Look, my parents listen to this, and they're gonna be like, "Excuse me, we did celebrate on April 13th at this time." I'm sure there was, but Im' thinking about, the way I interpreted things is like, "Oh, I won, but the team won, but I dropped the ball. We did this, but I could have done..." Every achievement of celebration was also really that the thing that I took away, just the personality type that I have, was all the things I could have done better. And so it's very rare that you're just in the joyful moment. And not that you shouldn't reflect back about what's going on, but I do think that we too often, because we're busy and we are doing too many things, we are not taking the time to celebrate what we did do, and then on a separate time sit down and go, okay, so what is the postmortem on that? Because otherwise we ruin the joy part by talking about the things we could have done better, which we could do the next day, right?


Amy Dickens 9:39  

Absolutely, yeah. There is such a focus on what didn't work and complaining, and we have a negativity bias already, biologically as humans. So we're just wired for that. So it's challenging to unlearn our old programming and say, how can... Because I think most of us could probably agree, I think most people can say: do you want to be more joyful? I think most people would probably check "yeah" on that box.


Amy Dickens 10:05  

I don't think many people be like, no,


Lesley Logan 10:07  

I have enough July.


Amy Dickens 10:08  

I would like to be miserable. Honestly, I have I have had a lot of people like on the streets be like, I'm already joyful. Like, all right, cool. That's all good. Like, more power to you, man. But I I think that it's a hard pill to swallow to say it's kind of hard to retrain ourselves to learn to be joyful. Like it's I call it the joy gym. You know, you have to go to the gym or you know some workout class to build muscle. And if you don't go, like your muscle fatigues and you lose that. And it's the same thing with joy. Like you don't always want to go to the gym. You don't always want to make a choice to choose to be a different person, to choose to like move your body or think in ways that a joyful person would. There's like a slight discipline, and also I think a a need for that why that pulls you to oh this is why I am making this choice to be a joyful person because I know that if I'm showing up in like this joyful way, I get to create a ripple of impact around me. I can make someone's day. I can be the person with the energy in the room that is impacting everyone to kind of have that whole like, whoa! I feel like so much more myself. I feel so much more empowered after talking to her, inspired, or just like I just feel good, like we all know those people, and we can be that person. And it's not like if you're not that person, because I wasn't that person. I straight up was not even close to that person.


Amy Dickens 11:31  

And it was over the years choosing again and again things that filled my cup and were joyful to me, and living a joyful life and a life of purpose and all of these things. And it's a big old bumpy road, right? But also saying, okay, how do I practice and also mess up a bazillion different times at trying to be her? What does that version of you look like? And it's trial and error. And sometimes it feels uncomfortable when you're not used to doing it because you've never done it before, and it doesn't really make it wrong. You can just say, hey, not that way, but let me try this way this time.


Lesley Logan 12:02  

Well, that's just Amy, and you just mentioned "be her" with, obviously, the Be It Till You See It podcast. I think it's this interesting thing. A lot of us are waiting until when we get somewhere, right? Oh, when I get this, and when this happens. And we actually do have to be it till we see it. So to be a joyful person, you actually cannot wait for a joyful moment. You have to be the joy that you want to see. Like that's what they say, right? So, can we talk a little bit about that? You weren't always this joyful person, and you were trying to be a joyful person. What did being a joyful person before you were a joyful person look like? What did going to the joy gym look like? What was the first rep?


Amy Dickens 12:43  

Yeah. I mean, for me, I wouldn't say I'm the most normal cookie of all time. I'm kind of an all-or-nothing kind of girly sometimes. So for me, it really looked like I had this huge breakup moment with a person I was with for 11 years, and it was this whole restructuring of my life. And I said, "Whoa, I'm gonna follow my joy." What does that even look like? I don't even really know. Like, what is it that only me, as an adult woman, wants to do? And I realized it was these big things that were often really joyful and really scary to another part of me, and that was the reason why I hadn't done any of these things. I've always wanted to do a yoga teacher training for like eight years, and I was like, why have I not done that? Because I was like, "Well, I'm not a yoga teacher," was the story that I had. And I said, oh, well, you're never going to become a yoga teacher unless you do the training. That's literally the only way to do it. No one walks into that door and is like, "Yeah, I'm already a yoga teacher."


Lesley Logan 13:41  

Right, no one's born with the certification. You have to go do it.


Amy Dickens 13:44  

Right! But I had to really let myself take risks, not think very much, and let myself fail and learn that fail in quotes, you know, and just do stuff and flop. So I think I was like, what if I do this and it doesn't work, or I can't be her? And I just would take bold leaps and book one-way tickets to places. I was pretty wild and extreme. And it doesn't have to look like that, but I do think that the nugget of wisdom within that was allowing myself to say: what is it that really would spark joy inside of me, make me feel alive? What would that look like on a big scale or a micro scale to follow that, to empower myself to make a move towards becoming that, and knowing that I do it scared, and knowing that at first it was uncomfortable and that didn't make it wrong, but the more you gain the confidence by doing it... You don't get confidence by just thinking about it or prepping for it. You get the confidence by doing the reps, and you're like, oh, suddenly my comfort zone's bigger because I've been doing this. And now there's a new edge for me to walk into.


Lesley Logan 14:54  

It's the craziest thing. Everyone is like, "I'm just waiting to... When I'm more confident, I'll do this." And it's something that I have struggled with in supporting people and coaching people: wait, do you think that some people were just born confident and others were not? Because that's not what I think. I think that somewhere along the way, some people's confidence bucket was upheld and supported, and some people's confidence buckets were kicked down the street. But we all have one, and the only way to keep confidence or get it back is to do the thing you said you'd do scared, and be willing to fail and flop and try again. And I think some people have a really hard time with either rejection or the failure of it all. There's a perfectionist problem that affects people from experiencing joy. I don't think you can be a perfectionist and a joy-filled person. I don't know, I could be wrong. Have you met a perfectionist who's joyful?


Amy Dickens 15:57  

You know, I would say there's a lot of recovering perfectionists that I've met, they're like, hey I have joy. I'm definitely raising my hand here.


Lesley Logan 16:05  

Like all addicts I've ever heard on TV, constantly, they're forever going to AA, saying, "Hi, that's me. Hello, I am Lesley. I'm a recovering perfectionist, yes."


Amy Dickens 16:14  

Recovering perfectionist, and you know, I have some days that are great and some days that could be better.


Lesley Logan 16:21  

Yeah.


Amy Dickens 16:21  

Yeah, and I think that a huge part, in retrospect and just reflecting on how many people that I've talked to... and this wasn't really a conscious choice at the time... was because I used to have horrible social anxiety, like very, very intense, like could not really talk to anybody that I didn't know extremely well without feeling like my whole body was flushed and tense, and like I needed to run (inaudible).


Lesley Logan 16:44  

That's so hard because how do you get to know people if you don't talk to them? That's really difficult. Oh, this is so hard to get over.


Amy Dickens 16:53  

Yeah, and it was really just throwing myself into the deep end of: okay, you gotta sit with this and learn that people aren't scary by being with people. And now we know that the number one predictor of joy and happiness is the quality of your relationships in your life, both the deep, intimate relationships and just the number of random strangers. Apparently, that's really good for our joy and our mental health. Just be like, "Ah, hi, bud! Get the mail today?" Apparently, they say that that's great for you.


Lesley Logan 17:22  

That is hilarious. I didn't know that, and no wonder. In L.A. in an apartment, I lived near people for... how long did I live there? Seven years in the apartment. I didn't know anyone's name. We would just walk past each other. My neighbors , I've lived here almost six years, and we know every neighbor's name. We know them all.


Amy Dickens 17:41  

It's not even like you need to hang out all the time, but there's... for some reason.


Lesley Logan 17:44  

I'm definitely more joyful. Yeah.


Amy Dickens 17:45  

...communalness to it. And I think that that was also a part of my journey to becoming more joyful was learning, because I think so many of us are like, how do we make friends as adults? How do I...? And there's this loneliness epidemic, you know, it's just all over. I think learning how to heal that and really value... okay, I need to learn how to make community, to make friendships, to be bold and brave and put myself in situations where I feel really scared and I'm doing it anyways. I'd have questions on my phone in case my brain would go blank at first, because I was like, oh my god, what if I don't know what to say? And I'm like, oh yeah, I'll have some juicy questions on my phone so that I can learn how to have this conversation, or give myself training wheels, or I do fun things with people. I'd be like, I love dancing, and dancing's so regulating. So that's a great way to try and meet people. 


Lesley Logan 18:37  

And now you can go to a silent disco, so you can be someone who's introverted and who loves to dance, and you can go be amongst a ton of people, but by yourself, so you can build up the confidence to being in a group of people. There's just so many different ways you can do things now. And I just read that the World Health Organization says that being lonely, loneliness is terribly bad for both your physical and your mental health. We are designed to be amongst people. So I just want to take a step back because you mentioned having mental health issues growing up, terrible anxiety. When did you get a resume together for a joy job? I'm gonna be really honest, Amy. If I was your parent, I'd be like, "Can she make money spreading joy?" I don't understand. So, can we talk a little about the journey to going... that you went on that made you not only an expert, but someone who wrote a best-selling book? It seems a little odd.


Amy Dickens 19:32  

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. It certainly was not the trajectory that I ever had in mind of, "Yes, I'm going to graduate college, and this is what I will do with my degree."


Lesley Logan 19:44  

Is there...? I mean, there are happiness coaching degrees that I know because I've interviewed people who are certified in happiness coaching, but I don't know if that's what you did. So tell me more.


Amy Dickens 19:55  

No, that certainly was not the plan. Because of all of my mental health and all this kind of stuff, I was obsessed with self-help, reading all of the books, doing all of the courses for the past 12 years, and then got really into teaching yoga. That was where I started all of my joyful experience. And then from teaching yoga, I started learning to make people dance on the mat, and then it turned into: ooh, what if we played games together instead of doing yoga at all? And then suddenly I'm leading workshops in how do we get people to authentically connect and use play to regulate their nervous system? And emceeing events started happening, and it was just all of these happenstance things start, I wasn't planning on doing this. Somebody just kind of asked me if I would do something, and I said, "Sure, I'll try and do that. I've never emceeed an event before. Why not? Let's see." And it was fun. And then through that, you're uplifting people. And before I know it, I'm leading parades of people dancing through the streets, just on a mission of spreading joy around. It's been such a journey. In there, there's a whole coaching certification and business that I had started at the time, and a million other things. I think there was just this part of me that was like, I am on a mission, and I know that because deep in my bones this mission chose me. I didn't say, "I want to be the joy lady." It just felt like: I need a purpose. What is my purpose? And it just kept coming to me. I was like, okay, because it chose me, this is inevitable that it will work. There is no chance that it doesn't. And if it's not working yet, I just gotta keep going. And I gotta have fun with it too. That's the huge part of it.


Lesley Logan 21:40  

Amy, if you're having the least amount of fun becoming a joy coach, I'm just...


Amy Dickens 21:48  

I'm gonna be real honest. There was definitely that moment where I had a whole shame spiral because I was so perfectionist in this one moment. I literally burnt myself out, and I was like, oh my god, I am so stressed about being this joy coach and making this business work, I'm an imposter. Oh my god! 


Lesley Logan 22:07  

Right


Amy Dickens 22:09  

Yeah, absolutely. And I was like, okay, I gotta learn to enjoy the journey because the journey is 98% of it. The destination is this tiny little, "Okay, reached that goal, onto the next part of your journey." And it's fine and great to have goals, but to just be solely focused on the destination... Learning to enjoy life itself is a skill. Learning to just be like, "Wow, I'm freaking joyful for no freaking good reason," that is a skill, and I see it as a gift to this world. If you can feel the blessings of this day that you're like, "Wow! I can walk, I can breathe, I can move my body," all of these incredible things that we take for granted each and every day, rather than focusing on the negative, we can create really incredible things from that space. Each and every one of us, when we're in that connected space to our true gifts, our power, our gratitude, there's infinite abundance that we can create from that.


Lesley Logan 23:08  

I'm kind of wondering... You just mentioned a few things, like "I can breathe" and "I can walk" and I do these things. I think we do forget that there is joy in those things because it's certainly not joyful when your leg falls asleep or you're sick in bed. You're not feeling joy then, and you're like, "I miss being well," but you weren't enjoying how well you were before you were sick. Do you have any tools for people who are like, "Okay, I'm gonna practice feeling the joy feeling"? How did you practice being her, being the joy?


Amy Dickens 23:40  

Yeah, I mean, if we're gonna take the joy, there's almost two different camps, and one I would say is simple joys. To me, my number one way that I personally practice this is I get outside when I'm feeling really stressed, and I look up, I look up at the sky, I look up at the trees, I change my perspective, and I take a deep breath. It's a very simple, one-second thing that you can do. You can do it between a Zoom call in one minute if your door is close enough. It's something about changing your perspective. You're looking up at the sky and the trees, and it's like, whoa, I'm a human being. I'm not just this robot that needs to be hyper-productive. There's something about it that just instantly brings me back into: whoa, I am not just here to do, do, do. I am here to be a human being and just enjoying the little simple things. How much can I romanticize and enjoy this moment in my life? Can I put a sweet playlist on in the background and change the way in which I'm working? Can I slow down and eat a meal? That's constantly what I'm still working on to this day.


Lesley Logan 24:49  

I keep saying I'm going to. I do have an hour-long lunch break, and it's so easy to be like, "Oh, I'm just gonna do one more thing," and now the lunch break is only 20 minutes, and "I'll just do this while I'm doing that." It's definitely a bad habit. That is one I would like to try to find the joy in slowing down. But I couldn't agree more. The simple joys. I love that you brought it in two camps so far because sometimes when I'm stressed out, I just take a walk around my one block. You're stressed out, and then somehow around a corner, all of a sudden you're like, "Oh, okay, I'm ready to go back in." It's a really weird thing how quickly our brain will shift if we give it the opportunity to experience a simple joy.


Amy Dickens 25:32  

Yeah, it just needs that little simple moment. And I've been taking these miracle walks in the morning where I leave my front door and I say, "All right, I'm not going to come back until I find three miracles." And I'm like, okay, I know I only have time for a walk around the block, so it's about 10 minutes. And it expands your definition of what a miracle is. It's a little piece of dew at the end of a leaf, or some birds singing and flying in front of your face, or whatever it might be that you notice on that same block you've walked a million times. But that, in and of itself, is training yourself to look for the joy, the beauty, the good in the world in a place that you've been a million times.


Lesley Logan 26:06  

Oh my god, Amy, what a great idea! That is so great.


Amy Dickens 26:08  

It's so fun. I love it. I've been having so much fun with it. And then the other camp is, I'd say, those bigger joy moments. Like I love to look at my calendar before I fill it with as many calls and all of the things as I can, and say, okay, how can I plan moments of connection of things that fill my cup? Like I love singing and dancing, and if I were to fill my calendar with everything else, there's no time at the end for the things that really fill my cup that I love to do. So I started a few years ago just thinking, okay, a lot of them are just recurring, so they're just in my Google Calendar. It's like I know I go to choir at this time. I know I have dinner with my friends this day of the week right here, and you don't really move things unless it's absolutely necessary, and that keeps my cup consistently filled because I'm making sure, hey, there is time for me to have connection with other people, because I spend a lot of my time not with humans face to face right now. So it's important to build that human connection to the things that we love to do or exploring new things too. That's also something that I try to schedule in at least once a week. It's like, okay, a new networking thing, or can I have coffee with someone that I've never met before? Just kind of those little serendipity moments of let the magic in. Let's plan to be open to life surprising us rather than it just being like...


Lesley Logan 27:29  

I love... I'm a big fan. I have this whole way of having your ideal dream schedule, and to me, dreams do come true. And ideal, obviously, not perfect. It just is the ideal thing. And I always talk about how your sleep and your workouts have to go in the calendar before anything else. And the things that bring you joy, they have to be in there because you're right. If we put everything else in first, there's no room. You can't squeeze joy in. So I think your big joy camps, the things that truly fill your cup, whether it is going to choir or going... Like some people want to go to the library. They love the smell of books. That you might have to schedule in and make sure it's there, so you're not going, "Oh my god, it's been three months since I went to a library." No, if it brings you joy, it should be happening so regularly so that you can actually get through all the shit, because there's gonna be shit.


Amy Dickens 28:15  

Yeah, absolutely. Because I think that we don't realize that being joyful, it's like rocket fuel in our tank. I think we all know that, or I can call on an experience when you were feeling so joyful, so lit up, so radiant, and it was effortless to create and be inspired. And not that we have to be at that peak state all the time, you know. We still ebb and we flow. But if we consistently are filling our cup, then it's going to actually help us be more efficient, really, in the rest of our life.


Lesley Logan 28:46  

I think so. I think so. You know, I think a lot of people, though... I interviewed Gay Hendricks on this pod, and his whole thing is that people have, you know, you're in your genius zone, and when getting in your genius zone, your zone of genius, you end up often upper-limiting because you're uncomfortable. Like you have a joyful moment, and then you kind of self-sabotage. How do we handle that pendulum swinging back and forth? Because we have to feel our feelings and we got to go through there. But how did you kind of allow yourself to just be in the joy, or did you ever self-sabotage out of the joy? I feel that's what a lot of our listeners struggle with, is they'll experience seeing something joyful and then they'll get a call that their friend got fired, or this bill came in, and it just sucks them right back down. And so it's how do you feel the feelings, but not lose the joy?


Amy Dickens 29:29  

Yeah, absolutely. I definitely have a PhD in penduluming from one side to the other. They didn't even know they made up the degree for me. They were like, "Ah, yes, Amy, you got the Amy Dickens Award for penduluming between the two extremes so much." And I think that that was also a gift to learn how to stop penduluming and continuously pendulum back towards the joy to a balanced state in the middle, and life still gets lifey. That's not the whole thing with joy, is that it's like, yes, nothing ever happens to me. But when it does, I personally have a really deep belief now that I think really helps me, is like: don't take things personally. Life is happening for me, not to me. All of these things that have been so ingrained into who I am at this point that when life starts to get lifey... And I've also seen life fall apart so many times that I know it always works out. If it hasn't worked out yet, I just keep going, and eventually things will come back together. So I've noticed I've become a lot less dramatic. I was a very dramatic human. You know, like, "Oh my god, I lost a friend," and whatever it might be was just always felt like the end of the world to me, and it would suck all of the joy out of me. And I think I'm realizing, wow, those things are real and I do feel them deeply. And I'm a big crier, and I feel the things and I process, and I'm like: what is this here to teach me? How do I move through this? How do I regulate my nervous system through this? And realizing, wow, I have this one wild and precious life, and I'm gonna continue to choose the joy when it feels time. And I think a big part of that is also discernment. It's like gaining that wisdom of discernment that only we can have for ourselves. Only we can say, "I know that I'm done feeling this grief," or whatever it might be, anger, fear, "and it's time to shift myself into a different state." No one else can really tell you when it's time for that. I think that that's also just a trial and error thing, and learning to listen to the wisdom of our body and our intuition and ourself, and to trust ourselves to say, "Actually, I need to be sad right now, and that's okay, because I trust myself in that." And I also say not days like "I'm having a bad day," but "I'm having a bad moment," because then that leaves the next moment to be open to being something different. Because if we have the whole label on this day, then you've kind of already pre-decided, and it's okay to not have a joyful moment. It's a human experience.


Lesley Logan 32:04  

Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, you're gonna have a loved one pass away, or a breakup's gonna happen, or you are gonna be disappointed on how a project went. But I do like that you get to label the moment, but not the whole day, or giving yourself that permission to feel that moment, but not let it take away from the little miracles you could see or feeling the feelings around it. You said not being so dramatic, and I think as someone with ADHD, and I attract a lot of people with that, what I've discovered is I think that drama that some of us kind of go to, that swinging back and forth... My team is like, "You're swinging back and forth from your microphone, stay there." But that swinging back and forth is a dopamine hit, right? We go dramatic and high because it kind of feels the thing that our brain survives off of. But if we can actually get our dopamine hits from some other places, then we don't have to go such a deep swing. It could be like, "Whoa, this moment really sucks. It's a good thing that's not personal, it's not about me. And somehow this is going to work towards my favor." I'm disappointed in this moment. We go walk around the block and feel that disappointment, and then hopefully... You just gave me some great ideas, and I learned so much about myself. Thanks, Amy.


Amy Dickens 33:20  

I also had that. I'm seeing that as well. And there's a big part of the titration, you know, like when you're like, "Oh, it's a bad moment," and just having that moment of, oh... even if most of the day was bad, but you had like, oh, they were all just a bunch of bad moments, and then I had this one moment with a friend where I laughed for five minutes, and then I kind of sunk back down into it. But that little uplifting moment does so much for your capacity in your nervous system to continue to hold whatever it is that you're holding, that I don't think we really recognize to the fullness of it sometimes.


Lesley Logan 33:54  

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. All right, I could talk to you forever about joy because this is just the most contagious thing. Thanks for spreading it here, but we're gonna take a brief break. I want to find out where we can get your book, and I think you've got some good Be It Action Items for us. I just have a feeling.


Amy Dickens 34:06  

I'm so excited.


Lesley Logan 34:08  

All right, Amy, where can people buy your book, 101 Ways to Spread Joy, and where do you hang out? Where are your joy parties? Tell us everything. How can we stalk you in a joyful place?


Amy Dickens 34:18  

Absolutely, you can get the book, 101 Ways to Spread Joy. It's on Amazon. Amy Dickens. You can see all the rainbow color on it.


Lesley Logan 34:25  

O h my god, it has a disco ball on it. I'm already in.


Amy Dickens 34:27  

Everything I make has a disco ball. Always. I did it on accident.


Lesley Logan 34:31  

Amy, are we friends that have never met? Like, we must be friends. I'm so into disco balls, it's unbelievable.


Amy Dickens 34:43  

They're great. When the light hits a disco ball... I mean, biggest light hack.


Lesley Logan 34:46  

Okay, Amy, I have a sequined kimono. You'll have to Google one. And just so you know, I bought it... I'm like, this is kind of ridiculous. It is so ridiculous. I did a whole photo shoot with it. But at any rate, I got it in my car, like I bought it at the store, and put it on to drive home because I'm like, I'm gonna wear it right now. I was my own disco ball in the car because the sun was shining so much, I was blinding my own self. I was like, "Oh my god, this is (inaudible). 


Amy Dickens 35:09  

All the cars next to you, they're like, "I can't see."


Lesley Logan 35:12  

Yeah. So, anyways, I cut you off. Everything you create is a disco ball. So your book is where again, just in case I distracted people with my, Amazon, okay. 


Amy Dickens 35:19  

Amazon, easy peasy. Just go to Amazon, you can find it there.


Lesley Logan 35:22  

Perfect. And then where do you hang out on socials? Where like where can they get a little joy boost?


Amy Dickens 35:26  

Yeah, absolutely. You can find me on all the socials @theamydickens. If you want the first 10 pages to my book, you can get it for free on my website, livejoyfullyyou.com, and get a nice little taste of it. And if you're like, "Ooh, I like that, I'll do a little bit more," then you're totally welcome to do that. Yeah.


Lesley Logan 35:44  

I mean, my goodness, you guys. I'm sure there's at least 101 days left in the year, but maybe more by the time you hear this. You could do one joyful spreading thing a day and see how you end up feeling. I imagine you'll feel more joy after spreading joy.


Amy Dickens 35:55  

Oh, that's one of the secrets to life, is spreading joy and just being of service to making the world a better place, it's a huge life hack.


Lesley Logan 36:04  

Yeah, I love that. Okay, you've given us some great tips already, and honestly, your book probably has some great bold, executable intrinsic or targeted steps that people can take. But what else do you have for us?


Amy Dickens 36:13  

Yeah, I would say to give yourself permission to follow your joy, whatever big or little ways that might be, and to let yourself just kind of be brutally honest. Like, if I had no fear, what would that look like? And just journal it out, take a deep breath, be honest with yourself, write it all down, and then maybe say, "Okay, today, what would I feel like if I was 5% more alive right now? What would I do? What could that be?" And allow yourself to do that. It doesn't have to be like, I rewrite my whole story and I throw away all the things that are not working right now. But allow yourself to just take that little reframe of: Can I put five more percent of my time and energy into my joy? What would that look like? Because it's different for every single one of us. Something that brings joy to one person might not be the same thing for me or you or somebody else, and it's just so important because it's not something that you need to earn. It's something that you practice, and it continues to give back to you. I think some of us are waiting for joy to knock on our door, and it's a choice. We have to cultivate it and learn that. Yes, sometimes it does surprise us and say like, "Hey, I'm here," but it's a practice. It's a skill that we can learn to cultivate. And this is here to be your full permission slip to live this inspired, alive life that you're so worthy and deserving of, and to follow your joy and know that it's a way to creating the world to be a better place.


Lesley Logan 37:41  

I love that. You are right. A lot of people are waiting for joy to hit them on the head, as opposed to... actually, no, joy is waiting for you to come to where it's at. You gotta come to it. You gotta go seek it out. You gotta go find the joyful moments. Oh, you're so good. This is so great. I'm really excited we had this conversation, Amy. Thank you so much for being you. Thank you for these wonderful Be It Action Items . Thank you for helping not just spread joy, but also you have such an amazing aura with your joy that this is like a fun conversation. I'm sure people are smiling, and they're going to have a more joyful day because they listened to this episode. So y'all have to go share this episode with a friend, probably the Eeyore one, so that they have joy, and this could be your point one to the 100 W ays to Spread Joy. Yeah, this is your pre-homework. All right, Amy, thanks so much for being you. And everyone else, until next time, Be It Till You See It.


Lesley Logan 38:33  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review, and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others be it till you see it. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of the Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @beitpod.


Brad Crowell 39:16  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your hosts Lesley Logan and me, Brad Crowell.


Lesley Logan 39:20  

It is transcribed, produced, and edited by the Epic team at Decennio Co.


Brad Crowell 39:25  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music, and our branding by designer and artist Gianfranco Chofi.


Lesley Logan 39:32  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.


Brad Crowell 39:35  

Also to Angelina Herrico for adding all of our content to our website, and finally to Meredith Route for keeping us all on point and on time.



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