Why JOY?
Our mission is to provide, “peace and restoration, a space for bereaved parents to rediscover JOY in life after the death of a child”
Our logo includes the tagline, “Empowering bereaved parents to live a life of JOY and purpose”
We just wrapped up our Finding Hope and JOY fundraising campaign.
We will be hosting three Rediscovering JOY retreats in 2023.
(If you live within driving distance of Buck’s County, PA, St. George, UT, or the Oregon Coast let me know you’re interested! Heidi@ohanaoasis.org)
Why JOY? JOY is something internal - it's a soulful feeling of wonder and connection with ourselves, something bigger than ourselves, with nature. It
"expands our thinking and attention, and it fills us with a sense of freedom and abandon...As researcher Matthew Kuan Johnson puts it, while experiencing JOY, we don't lose ourselves, we become more truly ourselves."
(Brene Brown - Atlas of the Heart)
After losing a child, feeling a sense of freedom and abandon can seem to be forever lost in the abyss of grief. I don’t know about you, but after Alison died the thought of truly inhabiting myself felt like a very scary place to reside. My grief was a mixed bag of among other things fear, sadness, guilt, and hopeless, all of which all seemed contradictory to JOY. But…
Bear with me as I get a little heady/researchy for a moment, chairo - the Greek word for joy is the "culmination of being" and the "good mood of the soul". Furthermore, Anne Robertson explains the ancient Greeks saw it as not a beginner's virtue..."it comes as the culmination. They say its opposite is not sadness, but fear."
Through my own journey I recognized the need to honor the robustness of grief, including sadness in order to find the culmination - JOY. When I tackled the grief, I no longer feared it. And it was a choice, a product of moving through the mixed bag of emotions. It’s having the courage to look forward to something beyond that tunnel, to hope for and finally see the light. It was a commitment to making a renewed sense of freedom and abandon available in my life.
And that’s no small task. In my experience it took years – years of hard work, introspection, trying things, and un-trying things. Eight years later, I wanted to offer other parents the things I found worked for me. Because here on the other side, where I can access JOY is worth the work.
The Rediscovering JOY Retreat program moves through Honoring the Past, Living in the Moment, and finally Embracing the Future. And they all are crafted with the intention of bringing you one step closer to accessing the possibility of true JOY again in life.
Over time, JOY IS possible. Not only is it possible, it's a rich culmination that doesn't negate sadness, but it leads us into becoming more truly ourselves.
