Nine women. 21 days. Fifteen minutes a day. That’s all it took to start rewiring the relationship they had with joy.

Joy Reclaimed wrapped at the end of May, and then I headed off to Italy and Seattle, so I’m just now getting around to sharing the results, and I have a lot of feelings about it. I’m going to tell you what actually happened inside that container, because I think it might change how you think about joy altogether.

We’re so conditioned to believe that joy has to be earned. That it has to look like a vacation or a promotion or a milestone worth posting about. We’ve been told, in a thousand subtle ways, that joy is the reward at the end of a very long to-do list. So we wait. And we keep waiting. And somewhere in the waiting, we forget what joy even feels like in our bodies.

Joy Reclaimed was my attempt to interrupt that pattern. And, after all, joy is the core of my work. It’s the reason for the EASE Pathway™. Why do we put so much effort into shifting and changing ourselves and our lives if not to experience more joy along the way?

“Joy is what builds your capacity to hold everything that isn’t fine without being destroyed by it.”

What Joy Reclaimed Actually Was

For 21 days in May, nine women from the US and Canada said yes to something simple: 15 minutes a day of subconscious reprogramming, a private Telegram group for accountability, and a willingness to let their subconscious minds get on board with joy.

The program was built around my EASE Pathway™ — four phases moving from Explore to Align to Shift to Embody — and each phase came with audio options they could choose from depending on the day and their interests: subliminal audio, EFT tapping meditation, or self-guided hypnosis. Because the subconscious mind loves repetition, the invitation was to return to the audios daily and let the reprogramming deepen over time.

I designed it intentionally small and intimate. A container where every single person was visible and could be seen. Not a course you purchase and forget about, because those don’t work for me and I know they don’t work for most people.

And I designed it so I could show up fully without burning out. Strong boundaries, a clear structure, and the freedom to be genuinely present when I was there. Because I don’t believe in modeling depletion. If I’m going to teach joy, I need to be in it too.

Nobody Had a Perfect Routine (And That Was the Point)

Nobody had the same routine. One person listened to the subliminal audio while packing lunches in the morning. Another closed her office door at lunch and actually ate her food without working at the same time (which was its own kind of radical act). Someone listened while running errands and found herself standing in the sunshine, feeling overwhelmed with gratitude that she gets to live this life. Another fell asleep during the hypnosis and woke up 15 minutes after it ended, having slept harder than she had in ages.

And then there was the woman who posted her joy moment for the day, and it was this: wrapping herself in a blanket straight out of the dryer. Two words in our group chat: “The. Best.” That’s when I knew something real was happening, because this work is in the small details. It’s about training yourself to stop and be aware of each small moment of joy and gratitude so that you can expand on it. What you focus on grows, so choose wisely.

(For the record: falling asleep during the hypnosis is completely fine. Your subconscious is still receiving. Your nervous system still gets the rest. It is not a bug. It is the whole point.)

The thread running through all of it was this: you don’t need a perfect block of time. You need 15 minutes and a willingness to show up. That’s it. Joy doesn’t require a retreat or a sabbatical. It fits in the margins of the life you already have.

The Shifts That Showed Up

The shifts that showed up surprised even me, and I built this program.

One participant runs a charity card-making group. She told us she’s normally a wreck for a full week before each meeting — scrambling, stressed, convinced she’s forgotten something. This month, there was none of that. No stress. She just… showed up. Her group made 830 cards. And at the end of the meeting, they surprised her with gift baskets full of books to read to her new grandson. When we loosen up a little and stop letting stress lead, really wonderful things start to appear.

She said she felt so very special.

Another participant realized mid-program that she’d been shrinking her joy so other people wouldn’t feel bad. She’d been filtering her good news, softening her excitement, making herself smaller so she wouldn’t seem like too much. And then one day, out of nowhere, her own brain said: you deserve joy and happiness.

She said: Oh. Right. I deserve this.

That’s subconscious reprogramming doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.

Others noticed they were less interested in complaining. That they were letting annoying things go more quickly. That they were pausing before reacting instead of just reacting. Their emotional baseline felt calmer. Their nervous systems felt like they had a joy frequency running through them — and that from that place, the hard things were still hard, but they had more capacity for them.

What Joy Actually Is (And What It Isn’t)

This is what I want you to understand about joy. It’s not the absence of difficulty. It’s not toxic positivity. It’s not pretending everything is fine. Joy is what builds your capacity to hold everything that isn’t fine without being destroyed by it.

Not every moment needs to be joyful. You’re a whole human having a full human experience. But what you focus on grows. And when you train your attention toward joy — even the micro version, even the blanket-from-the-dryer version — you start to find it everywhere.

“Joy doesn’t require a retreat or a sabbatical. It fits in the margins of the life you already have.”

The Thing That Makes It Stick

One of my favorite things someone said near the end of the program was this:

“I’m kind of proud of myself for actually sticking with a daily habit for this. I’m not sure it will stay a daily habit because I’m fully human, but I’ll integrate more of these bits of time to stop, listen to the audios, and take that time for myself and my soul.”

That right there is the whole thing. Not perfection. Not a flawless streak. Just a decision to keep coming back to yourself. To keep making time for your own soul.

And the accountability piece — the daily check-ins in our Telegram group, the way these women cheered each other on, celebrated each other’s wins, answered each other’s questions — that’s what made the difference between a solo listening habit and an actual transformation. I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it: your daily practice is what rewires the subconscious, but the community is what makes the rewiring stick.

Watching them hold each other was one of the great joys of my month.

Why Nine People Is Exactly the Right Number

Nine people. Not ninety. Not nine hundred. Nine.

Every single one of them visible. Every share witnessed. Every shift celebrated. That’s not an accident — that’s a design choice. I believe transformation happens in intimacy, in the small moments. And I’ll take a room of nine fully present people over a crowd of hundreds who are half-checked-in every single time.

We’ll be doing more of these. Different themes, same philosophy: simple, sustainable, subconscious-level change that fits into your actual life.

If something in you lit up reading this, stay close.

Joy isn’t something you earn. It’s something you grow from and with.

I believe in you.