The path­ways through our life…there are many. 

Choices.

What will it be?  Today.  What are you choos­ing?  Do you feel that joy in your heart?

“Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.” ~ Mother Teresa

I’d like to intro­duce a very spe­cial friend today.  Megan “Joy­Girl!” Bord! 

I’ve known Megan for about a year, and in that time I’ve wit­nessed her open her heart up to what is right and good in her life.  Through all of this, what Megan has given me is a deeper appre­ci­a­tion for life and love and heart-connections.

What does all of this really mean, though? 

Please join me, as Megan and I sit down for a con­ver­sa­tion on life…

1.  When I think of you, I am drawn to the “Joy­Girl!” moniker.  Explain that to us, how it came about, and what it really means to you. 
First of all, “moniker” is such an awe­some word. (smile)

The nick­name “Joy­Girl!” came about through my friend, Steve. He started call­ing me that from the first day we met. I rather liked it and decided to make it stick.  To me, it’s aspi­ra­tional, descrip­tive of who I am at my core, and bet­ter yet, it’s mem­o­rable! I mean, who walks around call­ing them­selves Joy­Girl?!! It’s FUN!

As for what it means, in my mind joygirls:

• Laugh a lot.
• Draw chalk mes­sages on their friends’ dri­ve­ways as birth­day surprises.
• Fly across the coun­try to spend a long week­end with soul sis­ters they met online.
• Smile eas­ily; com­pli­ment peo­ple; encour­age oth­ers; live from their heart; want the best for the world; feel at peace most of the time… The list goes on.
• Ulti­mately joy­girls just want to have fun (thank you, Cyndi Lauper!).

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Aspi­ra­tional!  Now, there’s an awe­some word!!  And those side­walk chalk creations…Megan…YOU are a chalk Picasso! 

2.  There’s a say­ing “A jour­ney of a thou­sand miles begins with a sin­gle step”.  Would you share one of those steps you would like to take, yet maybe hold back from doing?
I love this ques­tion, but I’m going to answer it back­wards. (smile)

I just recently became involved in help­ing to build what will become Upstate New York’s largest spir­i­tual heal­ing and retreat cen­ter. I’m work­ing with two other incred­i­ble women on it, and we’re feel­ing our way through each step since none of us have done any­thing like this before. The amaz­ing thing is, resources are show­ing up exactly as we need them to!

A year ago, though, I never could have imag­ined myself in this role – I would have pushed it off on some­one more qual­i­fied and moti­vated. That one step idea would have been lost on me, but now I know I can do this!

And my phi­los­o­phy, in gen­eral, is “If it feels good, do it. If it doesn’t, then don’t.” So I mea­sure the steps taken by how good they feel in my heart. My jour­ney, as you can imag­ine, has NOT been a straight lines!

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  The Uni­verse pro­vides!  And I also just think Robert Frost as I read this…“I shall be telling this with a sigh. Some­where ages and ages hence: two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less trav­eled by, and that has made all the dif­fer­ence.” 

Megan, I think this is such a won­der­ful project for you — build­ing a spir­i­tual heal­ing and retreat cen­ter.  It really just feels so fit­ting for what I feel is the essence of who you are.  You con­nect at such a deep level, and in that your heart shines!

3.  I draw a whole lot of joy from your presence…so the “Joy­girl” name is very fit­ting.  How about those moments, though, when you are not feel­ing all that joy­ful?
Another great ques­tion; thank you, Lance. I come from a legacy of “not always joy­ful.” I was a sullen girl for a sig­nif­i­cant part of my life, and I’m no stranger to dark moods. I still have days when I fall flat.  There are times when all I want to do is stay in bed! The dif­fer­ence now, though, is that those not-so-joyful moments don’t last very long, and they’re not nearly as sticky. I don’t get sucked into them the way I used to.

Now I can let myself have a down day, feel how­ever I’m feel­ing, and then rebound the next day wiser from what­ever it taught me.

What’s more, I’ve learned to embrace the idea that every­thing in life ebbs & flows, and it’s all so very good!

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Megan, I love how you both acknowl­edge these moments AND see them as such a part of you.  Such is life…for all of us.  That you so openly artic­u­late that here…what a true bless­ing.

4.  Tell us one unex­pected thing that has hap­pened to you, from going down this path of start­ing It’s All About Joy?
(note: All About Joy is Megan’s for­mer blog, which she has cur­rently set aside as she works on other projects)
Hon­estly, I never expected to meet such incred­i­ble peo­ple, many of whom have become friends. It’s like a beau­ti­ful extended fam­ily, with tremen­dous sup­port, encour­age­ment and love flow­ing to and from one another constantly.

I feel close­ness with peo­ple who live all over the world; that’s noth­ing I expected when I started writ­ing my lit­tle 500-word posts a few times a week!

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  That close­ness with peo­ple from all over, from all walks of life…such an amaz­ing and won­der­ful thing!  And that all leads me to thoughts I have about our world — and how, when we come from a place of deep con­nec­tion with self, we also find peo­ple that lift us up, help us, guide us, walk with us…all in such amaz­ing and car­ing ways.  Megan, know that you have been all of this and more, to me. 

5.  Deep-down, Megan, what makes you, “you”?  And what does a typ­i­cal day for you involve?
Deep down I have a love for, and curios­ity about, life. I also believe every­thing is pos­si­ble, and that our beliefs are the only things keep­ing us from all that we desire. I’m also a pleasure-seeking indi­vid­ual. Even my addic­tive ten­den­cies hang off of that (avoid pain, seek com­fort). All of those things make me “me.”

As for what a typ­i­cal day involves, I start each day giv­ing thanks. I bow down to the Uni­verse for all the glo­ri­ous­ness in my life, and then I inter­nal­ize the notion that “I Am God.” Once I can feel that in my cells, I fire up the lap­top and get crack­ing: email­ing, writ­ing, read­ing, cre­at­ing, con­nect­ing, loving…

I run three to six miles just about every day, too, which is made eas­ier by a dream job I recently man­i­fested as a per­sonal assis­tant to a great guy who’s done well for him­self. So through­out the day, I field requests from him, his clients, etc. and help him man­age his busi­ness and per­sonal lives, all from the com­forts of my home — some­times in my work­out clothes, some­times in my paja­mas. Such joy and flex­i­bil­ity!
 

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Life is glo­ri­ous!  Start­ing your day that way…and I have an even bet­ter under­stand­ing why that “Joy­Girl!” moniker is so fit­ting!

6.  What are you “let­ting go” of today, to move toward the deeper voice in your heart?
For starters, I let go of my blog. I kept get­ting the prompt that it was time to take a break, so I did. Doing so meant fac­ing the fear­ful “what ifs?”, espe­cially since my blog shaped how peo­ple came to know me in our com­mu­nity. When the fear – those “what ifs” – arose, I had clar­ity: I wasn’t blog­ging because it soothed my heart any­more as much as I blogged to feed some part of my iden­tity. That’s when I knew it had to go.

I also started let­ting go of other per­sonal goals that were cen­tered around strength­en­ing “Megan Bord,” the brand. Things like pub­lish­ing a book, being “well known” for some­thing (any­thing!), accom­plish­ments, val­i­da­tion, etc. It’s less about me these days – or at least, the “me” that I’ve always known. There’s a big­ger sense of com­mu­nity – of one­ness – that I’m align­ing myself with. I don’t quite know what that means yet, but it’s okay!

In this let­ting go, I feel clearer and free. And that, along with being here today, feels good.

Thank you for shar­ing your space with me, Lance, and for demon­strat­ing love in every­thing you do.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  Megan, this is all beau­ti­fully okay…as you align more deeply with what your heart speaks.  As I read what you’ve writ­ten here, I KNOW that you are trav­el­ing on your own path…and a path that is such a right place for you to be.

7.  What does LOVE mean to you?
In my eyes, love is the ulti­mate wis­dom, and it’s an energy that can be felt in the body: as warmth, as pul­sa­tion, as heal­ing, as assured­ness, as the orig­i­nal source of joy. Love is all-knowing, and it con­nects every­one and every­thing on this planet.

Love is the uni­ver­sal currency:

With­out it, we are poor.

But if we have love and noth­ing else, we have every­thing we need.

Lance’s Com­men­tary:  This is truly YOU.  And I really believe this, just by the way you “care”.  I’ve felt that in every con­ver­sa­tion we’ve had.  I always believe that what I’m say­ing to you…it mat­ters.  And in that, I feel deep love.  You ARE cur­rency for the world!

Clos­ing Thoughts:  Megan, you embody what is right in our world…embracing all of life…and wrap­ping it in love.  And in doing that, I feel this deeper con­nec­tion with you, and even more — a deeper sense of how amaz­ing and beau­ti­ful our world is when we embrace that oneness…the col­lec­tive heart…the whole of human­ity. 

Megan, it is such an honor to call you friend, to have you here in this space, and to know that your beauty goes deep and wide.