Episode 91: Five Ways to Fight for Joy as Free Birds

Fighting For Joy

This past week I spoke to a group of local ladies called "The Free Birds", women who are in the empty nest season of life. I called my talk “Five Ways to Fight for Joy as Free Birds” and intertwined parts of my grief story, my menopause journey, and thoughts on entering a new year with five practical ways to experience more joy in this unique season of life.

Over the weekend I recorded my talk and am releasing it as an episode today so that you can hear it as well. I’ve been wanting to do something on the topic of being an empty nester, so I am excited to have this to share. And, even if you’re not a "free bird", most of what I talked about will still be applicable to you, so I hope you will listen too!

When I spoke in person, I cut a few things out for the sake of time, so the version you’ll hear today is like the "extended cut", an advantage of recording it at home after the event. I did decide to leave out some of the more private details that I shared with the ladies about the night of the accident - things that I’m not ready to put out into the podcast world at this point…or ever…but again, if you’re wanting to hear more of my grief story, the things that I DO feel comfortable sharing are in Episode 1, and woven throughout almost every episode of the podcast.

So, listen in to what I shared with these women - "Brave Jodi" giving public speaking a try again after a long stretch of feeling like it wasn't what God had for me. We'll see what's ahead with this...

I’m glad you found this episode. I hope it encourages you and that you can take away just one thing to work on as you fight for joy in 2025!

*Don't forget that as a Fighting for Joy listener you can receive 10% off of your first month of counseling services from BetterHelp, my podcast sponsor. Check out my link at betterhelp.com/fightingforjoy. Christian counseling can be such a huge help in this broken world and a major tool in the fight for joy.

** If this episode was encouraging to you, I’d like to ask you to please consider rating the Fighting for Joy podcast, and even leaving a review. Once you find my show, scroll down to where it says “tap to rate” or “write a review”. Tapping to rate literally takes a second or two, and writing a review can be quick as well. Just sharing that you enjoy listening, or that it’s an encouragement to you is enough. The longer I do this the more I understand how helpful those ratings and reviews really are, so thanks for considering this. It means a lot!