We’re Back!
Some of you have known me for a really long time. You might even remember me as Julie Sarah Powell, writing books, running websites and holding retreats at the True Nature Centre, before stepping back from it all and moving to the UK in 2010.
At the time, it felt like the world wasn’t quite ready for what I wanted to share. If I’m honest, maybe I wasn’t ready to keep putting it out there either. So life became smaller and more ordinary. After only a few months of being in the UK, we found that my step father, Mick, had cancer and the next two years were devoted to being there and helping where we could through his final life transition.
In 2012 we moved back to New Zealand and I continued to work with older people. Often sitting beside them as life changed shape, listening to what really mattered to them when they didn’t care much for pretending anymore. And helping them through their final life transition too. It felt like Mick was with me through it all, and showing me more of what I needed to understand about life and death.
Those years were quieter, but they weren’t separate from this work. There was grief and laughter, getting older, relationships, cups of tea, the body doing whatever it wanted to do, and some wonderfully honest conversations about life and death. Real life really knows how to bring you back down to earth and help you to appreciate how lucky we are to be living in this amazing world.
Then, a couple of years ago, the writing started moving again.
I began writing Your Joy Handbook after a big inner shift in 2022. Then, over the Christmas holiday, something opened up even further. At 12:12 one night, I had one of those experiences that’s nearly impossible to wrap words around, and was absolutely buzzing to share it with you.
I Couldn’t Wait To Tell You
That excitement is really why this website came back to life. There was suddenly so much that wanted to be explored and shared again, especially with those of you who had been part of the earlier books, retreats and conversations. As well as saying hi to all the new people out there who are feeling like life could be that little bit easier to navigate.
At that time, I spoke about energy healing because that was the language closest to what I was experiencing. I had been working as a healer for twenty-five years, and everything felt stronger, clearer and wonderfully alive. I was also playing with a new practice that seemed to sit beautifully beside the Wet Dog Shake™.
Some of the language I used then feels a bit too grand now. But the delight beneath it hasn’t changed.
The simplest things are so fascinating. Simply close your eyes and rest your fingertips very gently over your eyelids. Colours and shapes might begin dancing in the darkness. What are we actually seeing? What is this living body that we move around in? What is here before the mind rushes in with an answer?
I didn’t want people to just believe my explanation of any of this. It’s about them looking for themselves.
The same curiosity was moving through my relationships. I remember saying that relationships are a little like muscles – they can develop gristly bits. You find a tender lump and, if both people are willing, you stay with it long enough to massage it out and for something to soften and ease up between you.
It isn’t the most elegant image, but it still makes me smile because we all know those gristly bits.
I was becoming more vocal too. More willing to say when something felt unkind or unconscious, while also wanting life to stay playful. There was no interest in everyone becoming terribly serious in the name of awareness. I just wanted everyone to be awake enough to love one another properly, and alive enough to have a good laugh about this human condition that we’re all living in.
Underneath All That Excitement Was Something Very Simple
The mind is extraordinary. It remembers, plans, imagines and keeps a running commentary on pretty much everything. But that commentary isn’t the whole of life, and it’s not the whole of who we are.
Sometimes the dog sighs under the table. Rain taps against the window. Someone we love walks into the room and gives us a smile. For a moment, the chattering mind loosens and life is simply here.
That is still the centre of All About Your Joy today.
The words have changed over the years. My understanding has become simpler and has pulled away from the spiritual jargon that I learned with. Spiritual is just talking about when you close your eyes, and physical is when you have them open. But the heart of it all is the same curiosity that brought us rushing back to sharing this work: what becomes possible when we aren’t completely caught inside the mind’s version of life?
You don’t need to take my word for any of it. Have a look in your own experience.
I’m so happy to be back, and am incredibly grateful that you’re here to play together.
Love you all, and we will talk soon.
Have the best day EVER! 😊
Come and Have a Look Around
The free All About Your Joy app is a simple place to begin. There’s nothing to keep up with and no belief required. So, come on in and listen to something, and see what feels useful in the middle of your own life.