My Odyssey to Reconnect with JOY
my name is
marilias i’d love to know yours
we all have one right not a choice we
made
do you like yours or do you hate it
maybe do you think it’s defining you
what is its meaning
i recently listened to a talk from an
expert in names and she was stressing
the importance of this act from
our parents not a random choice
at all consciously
or unconsciously when we are giving it
given a name
there is often a mission attached to it
so let’s take our name as a gift
a wishing from our parents maybe a
blessing more than a curse
hopefully and decide
what we want to make of it
mine is very unique in fact so
unusual that no one can catch it the
first time
even french people
even after 10 years in asia
i got used to it and i cannot drop the
second part of my name
because lies is an ancient french word
that means joy
and i can tell i was pretty happy
growing up
in a big family the older of
five siblings with a twin sister
so i thought i was pretty much
programmed for joy
you got it my topic today
is joy and i want to start with a
distinction
joy versus happiness
even though marilyus rhymes with
happiness
as i said the meaning of my name is joy
not an effort to pursue something for
some kind of perfect life
but more something that you embrace
in the moment
because let us face it life is not a
straight line
it has a way to take you to places you
never thought
you would go
this is me eight years ago
pregnant with my fourth kid
when two months before the delivery date
he was diagnosed with a genetic
condition
called achondroplasia the most
common form of dwarfism
still a pretty rare condition affecting
only
1 out of 25 000 pregnancy
it was a complete shock and i was
oscillating between
denial and scandal
why me if i can take a comparison the
unlikeliness
of it to happen is like being on a plane
embarked for some destination and at the
last minute
you end up landing in a different place
you say
what i didn’t sign for this
but this is it and
i want to share with you three keys
that made me reconnect with joy again
because the next two months were pretty
much
of an emotional rollercoaster
and very soon anxiety and self-doubt
started to creep in
will i be able to love this kid
how will the world accept him
how to raise him to be a joyful boy
and if i can continue on that lighter
metaphor
we all would like to be traveling here
was i
expecting a third child knowing it all
dreaming of the next destination like
some great vacation
in bali secretly hoping for a cute
little girl
after three gorgeous boys when
just before the landing the doctor
the captain announces
welcome to alaska
now how do you react you have to get
down on the ground in alaska
and you have a choice you can either
suffer and complain like a good french
would do
that it’s so damn cold here and you’re
not prepared for this you
don’t have the appropriate clothes in
your luggage
or you can
[Music]
explore and discover that they are in
fact
beautiful and different things to see in
alaska
back to this moment
look my tummy was huge
how ironic for such a tiny baby
i remember vividly when
i made this shift inside from
resistance to acceptance
and it’s only until i accepted the
reality
as it was my child has dwarfism
until then you are in a dark place and
there’s no much room for joy
but then you can start to see
glimpses of joy
and i kind of got excited to embark on
this journey
or should i say this odyssey because
this is then
that we decided to equip our sun
with a strong name euless it’s the
french word for odysseus
and let me refresh your memory in case
you forgot this
famous king who went to war
against the troians for 10 years and
then on the way back
found a lot of struggles until 10 other
years later
he can finally get his wife and his
throne back this very
charismatic hero is remembered
for his astuteness perseverance
and loyalty now back
to our euless
when he was born i completely fell in
love
wouldn’t you
now on our journey there were a few
stops to hospitals
and he was not a great fan i was not a
great fan either
i’ve only been to hospital four times
just to give birth
when i saw my baby all wrapped up for
this mri
it’s easy to get sucked into the spiral
of fear what could go wrong
and every medical checkup could
have been excruciating i think anyone
here
who have ever had a loved one in
hospital
knows about how it feels
so i decided that i should trust
and i had to work a little bit on this
one uh
with some fake it until you make it as
they say
but i decided i would trust euless
that he’s gonna make it through no
matter what
and honestly he became so
confident in his own skin
like his signature was be fearless
and have fun so much that
he would bring a smile and completely
shift the atmosphere in any hospital
room
and similarly with schools
maybe i was lucky that we met the right
teachers and headmasters but
i think most probably he was attracting
with his energy
the people that would trust him and
believe in him
let me tell you a small story when he
was
three years old i think he was dreaming
to ride these bikes
and one thing with achondroplasia is
that because of the size of the legs
there was no way his feet could reach
the pedals
and i think he inspired his teachers by
his relentless
drive and he found ways to have a friend
of his
driving and pushing the pedal for him
while he was standing
up like a warrior very proud on his tank
now i must say that i feel extremely
proud
of what he has become this is his
first graduation party after four years
of
amazing preschool and now here
in this school well accepted by his
peers
knowing how to get help when needed and
really spreading
joy all around because
trust and joy work hand in hand
and they are very contagious
now baby you think it sounds a little
bit
too good to be true like you know toxic
positivity when
you’re asked to always see the silver
linings or
just as simplistic as put on your rosy
glasses
maybe you think well it’s easier said
than down
and i must be optimistic so no wonder
maybe with my upbringing that i can see
the glass half full
and i am marry joy after all
now was i joyful all the time
of course not was it always
easy i swear no
but i learned that
it’s actually a third concept that is
key
here and i’ll call it grace
it’s a skill of cultivating joy
and grace doesn’t mean ignoring the
reality or
the more negative emotions
or hiding or trying very hard to find
joy that is
elusive no i think grace is about
embracing joy where it is
and it is after all accessible
it’s a skill that can be learned by
anyone
at any age and when i realize that
it clearly made me a different mother
and it
also invited me to step
into a new profession one that would
allow me
to help people build their resilience
and find their joy for themselves
so i hope i can share with you a few
tips about that before concluding
and what an amazing opportunity that i
can
share my experience and as well as
what i learned in the textbooks but
julius didn’t
need me to journey in grace
this is his first pop-up card that he
did when he was five
and this is the gratefulness note that
he wrote last year
i am grateful that i am small because
when i play hide and seek
it’s easy to hide
each time i see this nut it makes my
heart melt
nor does he know all about the science
behind positive psychology that shows
that
what you focus on grows
and the surest and the shortest way to
joy is gratitude and there are many ways
to practice it
in fact a study proved that
even just five minutes a week
of journaling can raise level of
happiness by 10 percent
another one showed that gratitude
practice would correlate with a drop in
25 percent
in depression
but my favorite one
is as simple as
take a moment every day before bed
and just think about three good things
that happen during the day big or little
i also like to add two other questions
to be able not only to appreciate the
good that happened during the day but to
wonder
why did it happen and what can i do
tomorrow to repeat it
this method has been proven to work
over and over again be it for
leaders for educators in families in
groups
and the last one i want to share with
you is this one
can you seek think of
a memory a good memory of you from the
past
if you close your eyes and visualize it
for a moment
your body your heart your mind will
shift
within seconds
it’s because positivity triggers
positive feedback loops in our brain
and sometimes i ask my client to list on
a list of
activities or things that they that
brings them joy
and when they look at the list they
realize they are cheap and easy
and they can actually re-experience
those moments
anytime but we tend to overlook it
i also learned from a great ted talk
from designer
ingrid fetter lee that they are
specific shapes and colors that bring us
joy
that help us access to joy like
confettis for example like this
eggs painted by a friend of mine for
easter
so what if we could see more of the
aesthetic of joy
around us
now as i’m wrapping up i must confess
that julius has become my greatest
teacher
in joy and that i have no doubt
he will in the future step into the
power
of his name and do big things for the
world
so i want to leave you with this simple
message that
if ever the journey of life takes you
to places you didn’t plan to visit
remember that joy is about
choice trust
and grace merci
thank you