What a pleasure it is to kick off the New Year around the topic of joy with author, Sonya Mack. My only regret is that our time together was limited. It felt like we had just started when it came to a close.
Sonya’s book, “This Changes Everything: When Death No Longer Has the Final Say,” is a true story of hope for those who grieve. As I’ve shared before, there are many types of grief because when we are separated from that which we hold near and dear to our heart we need to grieve that loss.
This book and the beauty that it shares was born from Sonya’s deep heartache of loosing her closest confident and friend when her mother passed in 2010 due to ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease). In today’s episode Sonya shares the various ways that she keeps her mother’s memory alive with her two young daughters who never had a chance to meet their grandmother.
I definitely benefited from what Sonya shared today because when I think about my husband only meeting two of our 6 grandchildren, I want to keep him alive in our family too. Of the 2 grandchildren that met him, my then four year old grand daughter is the only one who can barely remember him. So I’m going to introduce them to their grandfather and keep his memory alive adding in some of the practices Sonya uses with her daughters.
Finding joy in the midst of grief may sound like an oxymoron but Sonya says it doesn’t have to be. In her book she talks about the various ways she found joy again after her profound loss. If experiencing joy despite the presence of grief still sounds a little out of touch with reality or too good to be true, take heart, it wasn’t an overnight discovery for Sonya. It wasn’t without a genuine struggle in deep pain and with even deeper questions.
My personal experience is that when you’re grieving you must be purposeful to step out from under the weight of that type of pain because it can paralyze you. So it’s important to change your focus or your surroundings and discover what else is going on around you. Sonya’s book tells us of the various ways that we can take that much needed break from the overwhelm of grief and find, even a small, short reprieve.
Sonya is also the CEO of The Live Joy Life and she shared that it’s an organization that empowers women through community, mindset, and the LIVE JOY principles, to live in the joy God intended.
Any book is a great book when it shares all the information you’re looking for on any given topic and in this case the topic is joy but Sonya didn’t stop at telling you why you need to find joy, hoping that you find ways to discover it in your own efforts. She went a step further and developed the ACE Method which lays out actions steps so that we can find the joy of life even in the midst of grief. The A C E Method is the acronym for Access, Contemplate and Execute and she gives a brief explanation on what they are and how to apply them to our life.
This is a brief but encouraging conversation so let’s listen in to hear all that Sonya has to share because death does not have the final say.
Live Loved and Thrive!
Connect with Sonya:
https://sonyajoymack.com/book
https://sonyajoymack.com/live-joy-life
https://sonya-joy-mack.ck.page/816a66eb5a – download 2 free chapters of, This Changes Everything: When Death No Longer has the Final Say
Bio: Sonya Joy Mack has treated grief and illness since 2006 as a Physician Assistant. In the grief of her mother’s passing, Sonya created The LIVE JOY LIFE, an organization that empowers women through community, mindset, and the LIVE JOY principles, to live in the joy God intended.
Her debut book, “This Changes Everything: When Death No Longer Has the Final Say,” a true story of hope for those who grieve, is available for pre-order wherever books are sold.
Sonya lives in Des Moines, Iowa with her husband and two spunky daughters, where she enjoys red wine, dark chocolate, big hugs and living room dance parties. Sonya continues to advocate for a treatment and cure for ALS, the disease that took her mother’s life.
Transcript: https://www.happyscribe.com/transcriptions/716b2f9a2fca4872a7b15a894cda40f2/edit_v2
