KIM CARSON INTERVIEWS VANESSA JOY WALKER, AUTHOR OF
MAKE ROOM FOR
JOY
My conversation today is with Vanessa Joy Walker. She is the author of “Make Room For Joy: Choose Hope, Discover Purpose, and Cultivate Joy in the Middle of Life’s Most Complicated Seasons.”
KC: Yeah, I have a problem with the word happiness. I mean,
KIM CARSON: Thanks so much for talking with me today.
VJW: Yeah, happiness is fleeting and, you know, I’m careful in
You have had some journey; I’d love for you to share a little bit with me.
VANESSA JOY WALKER: Yeah, I have had a journey. The
snapshot would be that I was abandoned when I was born, adopted; I’ve experienced a lot of crisis and betrayal, betrayal by men, betrayal by my own body. I’ve had cancer twice, dealt with infertility, surrogacy and divorce. And, you know, I always say that my life is a little bit, like a Monday night Lifetime movie. Thankfully it hasn’t ended yet, so you know that’s a good thing. KC: Yes, as long as you have breath, right! The title of your book is
“Make Room For Joy,” so what do you mean by making room for joy? How do you go through all of that and find joy?
VJW: Yeah, that’s a really great question, and it’s a question my mom
actually asked me. “Make Room For Joy.” What does that mean? And the point of it is not to think about how you have joy after the crisis, right? It’s about how you make room for joy in the middle of the crisis, whatever is going on in your life right now? And when I was in the middle of my own crises, whatever it was, what I realized was there wasn’t that much to be happy about. I was searching to be happy, but it is pretty hard to be happy when your husband has left you, and you’ve been diagnosed with cancer, and your career is in the toilet. It’s hard to wake up and be like, I’m really happy today. That was a shift for me. For me, it was a moment in time where I realized that I had to find something else and joy was the answer for me. And what I realized through my own journey is that joy is something that we can make room for in the middle of any circumstance. And sometimes that means we have to pause to notice it, and sometimes that means we need to empty ourselves out of fear or bitterness so that we can fill ourselves up with joy. Joy is complicated.
30
November 2021
happiness, for me it’s so elusive. You choose the word “joy;” for me, I just want to have peace. I want to have peace wherever I’m at. Happiness? Forget happiness. You even say our world is kind of fixated on it, but happiness is fleeting. the book too, because I do get a little bit down on happiness in the book, but I’m also careful to say there’s nothing wrong with happiness. I think it’s great. I love hamburgers. Sorry for the vegetarians out there. But I love a hamburger, and hamburgers make me really happy when they’re juicy and dripping down my face. But I finish the hamburger, and the happiness has an expiration date; joy is ongoing. The more you get it, the more you have of it. The more you give joy away, the more you have of it. Joy is something that comes from within, and happiness is an external stimulus. And so I agree with you. I think the idea of peace is so important that I talk about that in the book as well? Because when I describe joy, it’s different every day. Sometimes joy is quiet. Sometimes it’s loud, and sometimes joy is finding that pocket of peace in the middle of a difficult situation. Joy is complicated.
KC: I think happiness comes with an expectation. Like you’re
looking for something that’s going to make you happy, there’s an expectation; where joy comes from, the pure essence of being complete and at peace wherever you are at this time in life. What do you think the difference is between happiness and joy?
VJW: Yeah, you know that’s a really great point that you just made.
That idea of seeking happiness because what it does is it puts us in the future. Thinking about the next moment doesn’t allow us to be in the present. If you think of every moment as a destination, you’re not in the present, and it’s hard to enjoy peace. And so, for me, the difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is something that has an expiration date. Happiness is something that happens to us. Joy is something that is all around us and in us, and we can access it at any time if we are willing and open to finding it.
KC: I’ve heard you say there’s a connection between joy and pain. Really? How can that be?
VJW: 100%. I think that it’s hard to understand joy if you haven’t moxiemediagroup.com
