Katy Bee: Joy First...Spreading Hope Through Laughter (Encore Episode)

Let me ask you a question.

Would you be willing to drop everything in your life, pack up your vehicle, take a camper and drive across the country with the expressed purpose of bringing joy, intentional joy to people who are lonely and lost and down and out and suffering from bad calamities such as cancer and to bring them joy?

Well, that is exactly what our guest on Cancer and Comedy episode number 61 did.

Her name is Katie B.

And she went on a joy tour where she connected with essential workers and all kinds of walks of life and people facing tough circumstances like a cancer diagnosis.

And she goes into the science and spirituality behind laughter and offering practical advice on how to cultivate joy in our daily lives through simple acts like complimenting people and strangers and savoring moments of happiness.

That's the focus of our episode here today on Cancer and Comedy.

My name is Dr.

Brad Miller and a few years ago I had a cancer diagnosis and I was not able to savor happiness at all for a bit.

In fact, I was a bit bitter until I had some transformative moments where I said that I cannot continue to live like this and I have to take what I have and to leverage that to do some good for the world.

I had to laugh to keep from crying.

In order to do that, I took my history as a pastor for 43 years.

My background is having a doctoral degree in transformational leadership and my love of comedy and things that made me laugh and bring brings me joy.

And here we have the Cancer and Comedy Podcast bringing you great stories that people can lift you up, such as Katie B.

She is our guest today, her on Episode number 61 of the Cancer and Comedy podcast.

We are here to lift you up.

Cancer got you down.

Pretty grim, huh?

How about a show that turns the grim into a grin?

Way to go.

You made it here to the Cancer and Comedy Podcast, the show to lift you up with hope and humor that heals.

Hey there lifter uppers.

I'm Deb Krear, the co host of Cancer and Comedy where our mission is to heal cancer impacted people through hope and humor.

Something we like to call turning the grim into a grin.

Well, today on Cancer and Comedy, we're going to talk about how to be a joy advocate.

Our guest is Katie McGlynn, the founder of Katie B's Journey, who will teach us about her journey from professional clown and street performer to traveling the country in a jeep, going from town to town advocating joy wherever she goes.

Now here is the host of cancer and comedy, Dr.

Brad Miller.

Hey, hey, Deb.

And Our lifter uppers are great followers here of the Cancer and Comedy podcast.

We're glad to have you with us.

And glad to be connected to you.

As we have a really great guest.

Today here on Cancer and Comedy and we are all about here developing a community of people who have decided that cancer or other bad things in life, other adversities in life are not going to stop us.

They're not going to be a blockage to keep us from living our life to the fullest.

And so we like to call that kind of moving from the grim of cancer to the grin of a fulfilled life and how we'd like to advocate and teach how to cope with hope.

So we're here to help you get connected in some so many ways and we know so many of our people in our community are getting connected to us.

And you just simply go to our website, cancer and comedy.com and you follow us there and then we'll get with you.

And if you'd like to leave us a note on the website, we'd love to hear from you as well.

So we like to develop this sense of community here at Cancer and Comedy.

So part of what I like to do is to share joy.

That's what our guest is here about.

But got some joy to share here with you, Deb.

And just a couple of dumb dad jokes.

Are you ready for a couple dumb dad jokes?

I love our dumb dad jokes.

All right, here we go.

Hey, I don't know about a lot of people change their clocks here recently and time change.

And so here is, here's my clock joke for the day.

What time is it when the clock strikes 13?

I don't know.

Time to get a new clock.

Just one more here.

When does a cucumber become a pickle?

I don't know.

When it goes through a jarring experience.

Oh, no.

Boo.

Well, folks, don't say I'm not giving you early warning.

We are going to have another one of Dr.

Brad's bad jokes of the day following our conversation.

But then we turn serious with our face it or break it segment.

Well, as Brad mentioned, we would love for you to be a part of our cancer and comedy community where together we crush cancer with a message of how to cope with hope and humor.

Please follow Cancer and comedy@cancerincomedy.com follow indeed.

That's where we would like for you to be.

And so on today's segment, we are conversation.

We are talking about how to be an advocate for joy.

We have a great guest with us.

Here Today her name is Katie McGlynn but she has professional name of KDB and she is from.

She has the Joy First.org foundation and she is an advocate for humor.

She comes to us with a background as a professional clown and one who was a trained street performer.

But she had a bit of a change of perspective in life and when she, when COVID 19 happened and a lot of changes were happening in the world and a lot of people were having some pretty frustrating times and there was a lot of division in the world.

There still is all kinds of ways as we know.

And she realized that there was a lot of pain, a lot of division in the world and she wanted to do something about it.

And so she developed this situation where she got in her Jeep Wrangler and hooked up a eight foot trailer to it and started traveling the country to share joy and her life.

That's what it's about, sharing joy and laughter and gratitude in some kind of unusual situations by basically going out into the public to share joyful moments to give people what she calls a standing ovation.

So give me, that's kind of a little bit of a background there, but give me a little bit about your perspective and learning a little bit about, about KDB and about her story.

Give me some first give me some of your impressions about her story.

Well, you know, what she did is amazing and I love the fact that she really did just look at things and think I need to make a change, I need to help spread joy.

And that was what was so fun about this because she really, you know, she was successful with what she was doing, but she wanted to make a difference.

And I think that's the biggest thing is she thought, you know, how can I make a difference?

And that was when she came up with this concept of the Joy First Foundation.

And in that process she was able to really impact some people.

There was a story she tells about encountering she would go to public places like Walmarts or events, teach at festivals, things like this, where she would encounter strangers.

And she was sometimes going to places like she tells a story in our interview, they'll go to a Walmart.

When she encountered an employee, it just said something about I'm here to give you a standing ovation gear.

And it really became and to spread, give you some joy in your life.

And it really led to a moving moment where the employee kind of opened up his heart to her and had a moment there.

And I think it's interesting how she went to people, strangers and was able to Impact some joy into her life by doing what she could.

Put joy first.

Tell me about, in your experience, about, about encountering strangers or counting people in an unexpected places and how they're.

There's opportunities there to, to bring something good when there may not be something good in their life.

Right.

It's funny, I just had this conversation with someone else this morning about how can we help others.

And sometimes it's just a matter of looking around and seeing that someone might need a little boost, you know, and, and what Katie does is she has cards that she gives to them that, that has, you know, kind of inspirational type of things.

And, and then she just waits and sees if they want to talk, you know, and, and sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

But I think we get so caught up in what's going on in our own lives, good and bad, that we forget that sometimes a simple word of encouragement to someone else can really change their day and maybe their week, who knows, maybe even their life.

Yeah.

I love what Chi talks about here, and it's about having a little bit of intuition, a little bit of reading.

The room in terms of people because.

She, she takes a bit of a risk and she goes out and meets strangers very intentionally, meets with strangers.

But I think all.

We all can have a little bit of an intuition, as it were, about trust your gut about terms, when times, when it is time to try to pick up on cues there and to reach out to people.

And she, in her case, talks about meditation being part of that for her and prayer and things like that.

But how really laughter is really a part of that too, and how they can all be a part of the process of bringing joy to people's lives.

I love this aspect of being very intentional about bringing joy.

What do you think?

Right, yeah.

You know, and, and, and I think it is that we have to be intentional, and maybe it's that we think, I'm going to bring joy to five people today.

You'll truly be intentional about it or even just think, I'm going to smile at everybody I meet today.

You know, it was, it was interesting.

One of the things I was thinking about is sometimes the people who seem the happiest are sometimes the saddest.

Right.

And so maybe that's another thing, like what you were saying is kind of pay attention to them, and if they're a little too happy, maybe you just need to say, hey, how you doing?

You know, anything going on?

And they might say, yeah, there is, or they might say, no.

But one of the things Katie talked about was take the time to listen and just, you know, if they want to talk, let them talk.

Yeah.

But it's also putting yourself positioned to listen because so much we live in so many silos in this life.

You know, we're kind of isolation, isolated.

And, you know, people are lonely for many reasons, but sometimes people are lonely.

Cause they feel like nobody notices me or nobody talks to me.

And what Katie does here is she notices people.

Right.

She is kind of professional.

Notice her in a way.

And I love, I love that.

And she shares about the duality of life is one of the things that we talked about how, you know, you do have this sadness.

You know, we talk about here about, you know, cancer being an adverse thing, but how we can approach it with, with good, good humor, if we thought to.

And there's comedic and tragic elements to life and how you can embrace those and kind of see both of those.

But what I love about her is her just really being.

She's a student of humor, you know, this street performer, the professional clown, I think comes out there.

But she also can teach us a few things, being kind of ambassadors of joy and to look for, look for these things.

If you ever had that happen to you where someone's kind of come up to you who you didn't really know or, you know, wasn't a part of your circle, it's kind of helps helped you a little.

Yeah.

You know, and, and sometimes, you know, like I said, we get caught up in our own worlds and we don't always put the happy, happy face out there, you know, and, and, and I try and be joyful, but some, you know, you're.

You're not always.

And I have had people come up and say, how you doing?

You know, just, just checking in to see how a total stranger.

It's always very interesting, you know, and, and one of the things that I really liked about what Katie talked about was it's reciprocal.

Right.

If you give joy to someone, then a lot of times they will give joy back to you, you know, and.

And so I try and do that.

You know, if somebody came up to me and said, how you doing?

How can I bring joy back to them?

Yeah.

That's awesome.

That's awesome.

Well, here's kind of some of the themes we.

I was privileged to talk to, to.

To Katie on our conversation, and we do talk about this.

Some of the things we just mentioned.

Here, recognition, giving somebody a standing ovation, you know, just saying, you know, that you are a good person here.

Right.

Acknowledgement play.

She has little exercises that she does and laughter and gratitude and helping people to open up their hearts and, and help this experience.

She also teaches workshops and things like this and how she can help others do do that and will connect up with those as well, help to reimagine the human experience and lead a more joyful life.

Are you looking, are you looking forward to hearing her, hearing a little bit more from her?

I am.

I am.

And you know what, There was something that she said that really hit home for me that she said people need humor buddies.

And, and I love that because I thought, you're my humor buddy.

That is true.

You're my humor buddy.

I love that.

And you're right.

She talked about being a humor buddy.

But, you know, in order to have a buddy, it's usually somebody has to step forward and say, hey, let's be buds, you know, look, you know, let's get through some things here together.

Well, we believe here on our cancer and comedy community, our lifter uppers are kind of our humor buddies as well.

And we love to serve you.

And so we'd like to serve you now by sharing this interview that we are privileged to have with Katie B.

From joyfirst.org.

I'm Dr.

Brad Miller, and today we're talking with an incredible person.

Her name is is Kate McGlynn, but she's also known as Katie B.

She comes with a professional cloud background.

But what I want to talk to you about here today is how she notices things.

She is what I might call a professional noticer is that not too long ago, Katie noticed that people were not all that happy in this world.

They were kind of struggling with frustration and anger and division and other things happening in their life.

And she said, I'm going to do something about it.

I'm going to spread some joy.

I'm going to go with joy first.

So, Katie, welcome to our conversation here today.

Is that a record description of what you do?

Yeah.

That's great, Brad.

I like that.

That's impressive that you've collected that from just doing your research.

Well, it's a joy.

It is indeed a joy to have you with us and your website that we're talking about here today is joyfirst.org where you're looking to bring joy to others.

But I want to ask you, first of all, what's something that's brought some joy into your life of recently and in recent days?

What's up?

Put a smile on your face or brought some joy to your life?

Oh, I'll Tell you, I had an amazing weekend.

So Joy first actually showed up at a fashion show nearby in Superior, Arizona and did a little comic relief and gave some whistle slide whistles and kazoos away to the audience and that was fun.

And then from there I was honored to be able to witness a small part of the Apache Sunrise ceremony, which is where young girls are taken through a ceremony to become women.

And I watched this 13 year old girl and her cohort of supporters dance for six hours on Saturday.

That was just amazing.

I watched her be blessed.

I watched her bless babies and other people in her community and she was supported by two other women.

I mean, it's just such an.

I'm so looking forward to more because I'm really working toward connecting more with the Apache community.

And then what finally brought me a little more joy was I went to the hot spring and so I had a soak and that was absolutely joyful.

Well, I love what you're sharing there, Katie, because you're talking about transformation that comes with, when we allow joy to come into our lives that you talked about.

Transformation happened with the folks who you served in the event that you did.

The transformation of the young woman, the transformation of the people around her.

And then, yes, a little personal rnr and transformation to go do the hot springs.

That's good.

Do you believe this deal of.

You believe joy can bring some positive transformation to people who may need a little interjection of some joy in their life?

Oh, absolutely.

I believe that we all have stuff.

I know for a fact that each of us has stuff we're dealing with every day, that we possibly are grocery shopping, ruminating about thinking and processing and going through all of this emotional ups and downs and whatever.

But like, what Joy first does is we come in, we break that capsule open and allow for something different, which is recognition, gratitude and acknowledgement for simply being alive.

That's awesome.

Goal is to just break that capsule open for a minute so that we can all realize that that capsule can stay open, but we have to learn how to do it.

Love the way you put that.

Break open the capsule and be kind of like, and I've heard the phrase, you can't make an omelet unless you break some eggs.

You got to, you know, take a little bit of a risk, a little bit of, you know, get out of the norms, break, break the patterns there in order to have some joy in your life.

And it seems to me, Katie, that you've had some of that happen in your own life that led you eventually to form this organization.

Joyfirst.org tell us a little bit about the origin story and maybe there have been a little, maybe been some breaking of capsules, as it were, for you.

That kind of, you know, kind of was the defining moment for you to start this organization.

Tell us a little bit about the origin story there.

Oh, so Joy first foundation came out of the Ukraine war, actually.

So we were in Covid and the Ukrainian war started.

And I worked with a group called Voices of Peace.

And we were an international group that created online support sessions for Ukrainian refugees.

And we offered meditation, laughter, yoga, and just some opportunities to do improv and kind of let your feelings out.

And then the international folks offered counseling after the fact to these refugees.

And we got people from around the world.

We had some African refugees as well show up and we happened to be in a meeting and somebody said, we need to start a nonprofit.

And I said, I know what it's called.

I heard it in my meditation this morning.

I had a rumination of Joy First.

Joy First.

Joy First.

And that's how the name happened.

And, and yeah, it really started out of trying to be helpful in the middle of, of war, in the crisis.

What a powerful imagery that is.

So tell me then, what is it?

You've said some of what you do, but I also know a part of this is you actually went on a, a Joy tour and you really got serious about this.

Tell me about the Joy tour, about the, about the Jeep and about the trailer and about, you know, how you really, you, I mean, you invested in this, you engaged in this.

This was not just an idea for you just to kind of do a one off thing or just kind of.

A short period of time.

You've jumped in full force in this.

Tell me about those next steps for you.

Absolutely.

So I had purchased an eight foot runaway trailer, which are made in Florida and they're tiny, right.

And I put it behind my Jeep and started on the tour of Joy, which really was about initially thanking grocery workers, doctors, nurses, service people that were essential workers during COVID And as we remember, grocery workers were spit on sometimes.

They were treated pretty badly at times.

Terrible, terrible during COVID So my first initial service was to offer gratitude and acknowledgement to those folks that put up with what they did put up with and then continued to work.

And that led into people hiring me or donating in order for me to go specifically to someone that they wanted to bring joy to, which in turnout, the quadriplegic young man who was hit by a car and his Family had been struck with tragedy.

And so we basically did kind of an impromptu birthday party when there wasn't a birthday.

So I guess we call that an unbirthday party.

Yeah.

Okay.

And the neighbors and gave him, like, a few hours of joy with his family.

The fact that they had made it through this crisis.

That's amazing that you shared that in that transformative moment there.

And it sounds like you.

Yet you've brought in your expertise and family gathered.

But tell me, was there some tactic.

Or some action or some practice that.

Maybe you're able to apply here that.

Maybe could be helpful to our lifter.

Uppers here that they could use in their life, that they could apply something here?

Is one thing.

You know, we.

You know, we get together and we.

We want to be helpful.

We might sing Happy Birthday to person in that situation.

But what are some things that you teach her that you do that are helpful to people?

Well, I teach people that giving a compliment to a stranger means more than you could possibly realize.

That's one thing.

The other thing is that joy is reciprocal.

So when I give, I also receive.

And so when I walk up to a stranger and I give gratitude and acknowledgement, and I give little things like cards that say, thanks for being on Earth today.

Things like that.

And in that, we start to kind of connect.

You know, I walk up and say, thanks for being alive today.

Thank you for being on earth today.

Thank you for just being you and making it through all that you've made it through in your life.

And a lot of times what happens is they go, phew.

You have no idea.

Bring me their story.

And I listen.

And these are strangers in many cases, right?

These are people you're just encountering on the.

In your travels.

Absolute, random, spontaneous strangers.

Yeah.

Picked from my gut that says, that person needs this.

Give me a specific person.

Give me a kind of set, the setting for a person you encountered in a.

That really kind of threw them, that surprised them, you know, that.

That.

That somebody would encounter them and offer them to say, hey, thank you for being on Earth today, or something like that.

Tell me a story about a particular person that you can.

Oh, my gosh.

I will say that I have over probably at this point, 6000 Joyful Moments is what these are called.

Wow.

Wow.

And four people have said, no.

I will say that in two and a half years of being on tour or more.

Now we're looking at about three years.

So one particular story is one of my favorites.

I was in Walmart and I was told I was I got the impulse to approach this young man in the electronics department and he was jovial and, excuse me, jovial and happy and happy to help.

And I started, I gave him a little light that time, I was giving out these little finger lights and he said, I said, thanks for being alive today.

I, I got close to him, not too close, but close enough to look him in the eye and you could see he was getting emotional.

And after I finished the phrases, he said, I could tell something was wrong.

I said, do you want to talk about it?

And he said, yes, but this was all happening on camera, which he gave permission for.

But at that point he said, please turn off the camera.

And then as he asked us to turn off the camera, he said, I really, really need this turned off the camera.

And he told me about how his mother was homeless and he was working at Walmart, two jobs actually, trying to get her out of homelessness.

And he was so brave that he told me the whole story and all I could really do was offer support because we don't have tons of money, right, to get the mother out of homeless or miss or anything like that at this very point.

Right.

So I gave him a hug and I said, you matter more than you know and this will come back around for you.

And you know, it gave him best wishes and we bonded in that moment.

And then I walked away and I thought to myself, does Walmart know that he's going through this?

Yeah, you know, that was my big question as I left.

Does Walmart know?

And it's certainly none of my business to tell Walmart, but can he tell Walmart and still keep his job?

You know, these questions about how we're cared for as employees.

Sure.

It goes to workplace environment, it goes to HR issues, if you will, in, in companies and what a career, what a great story.

Because I think it's.

Let's just assume then, let's just, let's just assume a good thing that this young person, this young Walmart guy in the electronics department went and shared something else.

Good.

So maybe one of his co workers at the break room at the back, just something like that.

And maybe, just maybe that little joy can be viral.

I assume that may be a part of what your, your vision is here and then so that can be possibly transformative to the workplace at the Walmart in whatever town you found yourself at.

But do you think maybe this, if we have this type of interjection of joy into the rough patches, the sad places, the difficult people's place, people's life it can be transformative in workplaces, in schools, in hospitals, in churches, in social studies, in politics, in social orders.

Is it really possible, given the division and all the nasty stuff that's out there, for joy to be transformative?

I know it's a little big picture question that was sparked by this one incident, but just go with it for a second.

Do you think that's a realistic possibility?

Actually, I traveled, I crossed the country three times and I stayed with other humorists and social therapists all over the country and brought them with me to do joyful moments.

It would be me and someone else.

And I will tell you that absolutely, we didn't talk about politics, politics never came up.

But everyone was transformed by doing these joyful moments.

Everyone.

That's awesome.

That's awesome.

So in a way you have interjected this humor and this joy, this sense of well being that comes with that into people's places.

So let's just say, I want to use a phrase here, heart sick.

You've heard that term, people are heart sick.

And that can sometimes be manifested into sickness, you know, physical illness, that kind of thing.

So if you were a joy doctor, as it were, and able to kind of give a prescription of joy to help the heart sick, what would your dose be?

What would your prescription be?

What would that, what would they, what would you write out here as your prescription there?

I would say start with 10 minutes of gratitude meditation and then find friends to laugh with.

Watch something funny.

Make sure you laugh so you're getting your endorphins, your serotonin, your dopamine up there.

Laughter is a chemical process.

So is smiling.

You can also hum, you can sing to yourself.

All of that raises the good chemicals, the happy chemicals, and lowers the cortisol.

And then play, have some fun.

Because we're not too old ever to have fun.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And I want, I want to go back and speak about the virility, the viral possibility of joy, please.

So we have joy forward.

And what that means is a lot of times, because it's so reciprocal, I give someone a moment of joy and a lot of times I give them extra cards, extra little things that they can give away too.

Okay?

And then I receive by giving.

And that doesn't always come up in the conversation, but I will say it right here.

When you give a compliment, when you give some recognition to someone, you thank your grocery person that's checking you out.

I mean, I, I do it all the time.

And the grocery, the person who's doing checking out my groceries says, Man, I really needed that.

Thank you.

And if we can imagine that every single person standing in front of us will respond with, boy, I sure needed that today.

Thanks.

You know, that's awesome.

And a big, A big piece of this though, I think.

Katie, I just want to talk about this for a.

This virility virality becomes through the action that you took to encounter, you know, not only get in the, get in your Jeep and drive up places, but to encounter people where they're at, whether it's in Walmart, someplace else and to engage with them.

And that is overcoming some fear there on your part personally and the people you're with.

And also to break down a few barriers or tell me a little bit about facing fear.

Facing fear of the unknown, of rejection.

Of, you know, how laughter can, you.

Can have a nervous laugh, that kind of deal that you could have a joyous laugh, you know.

But tell me a little bit about, I know you teach some about this, how we can face some of these fears of the unknown and how.

Really seems to me you've had more joy than, than bad stuff come out of that.

Is that right?

Yeah.

I will start by saying I was a street performer in Europe.

Okay.

So I living came from passing the hat.

So if you are uncomfortable talking to strangers or doing a show in front.

Of strangers, you're not going to eat then.

Right?

Right.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So I've had a little practice, but science has showed, shown us, science has shown us that actually our fear is pretty unwarranted.

We are afraid of not being accepted.

We're afraid of our partner in the conversation not being interested in what we have to say.

Actually, once people take the risk and try to have stranger conversation, they actually feel better and it makes it easier in the future.

And nine times out of 10, and that's not a scientific amount, but my guess is nine times out of ten, it's a better outcome than what you thought was going to happen.

Yeah.

And as you said then, that not only is good for the person you're approaching, it's good for you.

Right?

Good, good, good.

Yeah.

And.

And one of the things I mentioned in, in one of my talks was now three years in, something I've noticed is there's a, there's this little corner of the eye.

Let me see if I can get here.

This part of the eye will change.

And when that, when I see that change, I know I've gotten deeper.

And I've seen it so many times.

I've had people with walls up and I approach and they're skeptical.

And I say, I'm not asking for anything.

I'm just giving.

And.

And then I start the little standing ovation, and I see that happen, and I know we hit an important moment.

Wow, that's.

So that.

That's a real physiological manifestation of what you're experiencing.

And I might just call it the twinkle in the eye.

You know, the twinkle in the eye.

That.

And if somebody.

So you're.

If you can approach someone with kind of that connection, eye to eye, face to face, person to person, that is open and not threatening, that's.

That's a good thing.

I can break down some barriers there.

And it seems to me, Katie, see what you think this almost goes.

If we talk about.

Some people say the eyes are reflections of the soul, for instance, that this goes to kind of a metaphysical or spiritual plane in some regards.

Would you say that there is at least an aspect of this that goes to some sort of a spiritual aspect.

That goes to people's hearts and minds and souls?

No question in my mind.

Yeah.

I believe that at this point, our bodies are.

Are.

Are vibrating.

Right.

And our ears are the receptacle of vibration.

And if we're vibrating and our ears are vibrating, then by.

By bringing some of this, there's an increase in vibration.

And I know that that might sound a little bit cheesy.

I see it as.

As an uplift.

I see it as a raising someone up.

And much like improv, where one of the rules is to make your partner look good.

Yeah.

It's based on that principle.

Okay.

So I truly believe that this is part of this is if we're not spiritually connected, then we're in this space of doubt and fear, and we don't.

You know, people are just in their daily grind.

And part of what this does is enable an open.

I call it a crack in the door.

That's awesome that you can open it wider yourself.

Yeah, yeah.

All I'm doing is showing you it can be opened.

Hey, my friend, I just wanted to share with you that here on Cancer, on Comedy, we have a special gift for you that's going to help you if you're impacted by cancer in your life and you want to do something about it.

It's.

It's our free course.

We call it the HHH or Triple H course, which stands for Healing through Hope and Humor.

It helps you to develop your cancer coping credo, a statement that's going to help you get.

Get through that.

It's a free course.

Just takes you.

It's a Five short sessions.

It's all audio.

You can get that free course at cancer and comedy.com free.

Well, I think what we're talking about here is how that crack in the door and joy.

Humor can be one way of doing that.

There's other ways of doing it too.

It can be poignancy, it can be emotion, it can be tears.

All those things are the emotional connection.

But I think we're talking about this, this interconnection or the integration of the spiritual and the physical and the emotional and the relational all coming together here.

But it takes somebody taking a bit of a risk and reaching out and it takes that teaching there thing.

And I love what you're doing here is you're not only exhibiting it yourself in terms of your actions, you're taking, but to taking, but you're also teaching people how to do it.

And you have some courses in teaching and things that I know that you work on here and I know you work with like caregivers, that, that type of thing and, and like hospital staffs and that people who deal with, deal with a lot of pain and a lot of tragedy and health related and otherwise.

What do you, what do you, what.

Are you teaching them to help some, to help others?

Well, first is how to talk to strangers.

Yeah.

How to be comfortable approaching strangers and getting a little deeper with the people that we don't know.

And I want to go back to one of the reasons that this is poignant for me is I read the Celeste prophecy in the 90s and one of the points in the book was if someone makes eye contact with you, you want to make eye contact back and possibly have a conversation because it's possible they have something to tell you that's important.

And I do believe spirit talks through other people to us.

So I feel like spirit flows through me during these joyful moments.

And I'll tell you a couple, at least one more story.

The, the whole tour of Joy morphed a little bit.

So one thing that happened was I was traveling and I happened to be invited to someone's house, very good friends of mine.

And I arrived right when they got a cancer diagnosis.

Okay.

And I said, joy first is here to be your house cleaner, to be your cook and you take care of your family and what you need to take care of.

And that turned into 3am driving to the hospital ER for a procedure that needed to be done in an emergent fashion twice.

And, and I was there for the duration of the time they needed me.

And then I went back on Tour when the family started to come in and they had everything under control and they felt like, okay, the urgency now is gone.

Now we're going to deal with the story that's coming from this.

The other thing that's come out of this is suicide prevention and anti bullying programs for schools, businesses using improv, laughter, yoga, and other modalities that support feeling joy, feeling compliments, feeling kindness, so that that can be repeatable.

Because I think we've forgotten how to feel kindness.

Yeah.

And all the division and all that, what's been happening, I think part of us have lost that feeling in our hearts of kindness.

I love what you're sharing there, losing the feeling.

But teaching what can be repeatable.

And that kind of goes to developing, if you will, new muscles, new, you know, new habit, new practices that we may not be used to because so much of what the world teaches and gives us is bombarded by negativity and, you know, all kinds of bad stuff that happens to us both personally and beyond, you know, from the outside in.

And what I'm hearing you say here is that we can have a little window into the soul here to teach people some.

Some stuff here.

And that's what I love about this.

And so teach me.

If I wanted to bring joy to some people who are unhappy in my life, what are some of the habits that I need to have?

So the best?

Well, first, we want to get in touch with our gut, because our gut is going to tell us what we need to do.

For you, as the practitioner, you would start by making sure that you're elevated.

So meditation, prayer, laughter, watching a funny program gets us in a state that is a little bit higher and more ready to give.

And there's a.

There's a person who's in the woo woo field who says in 5D, if there's.

We believe in 5D consciousness, which is our next level of consciousness, everything's funny.

And so I've had a theory that if we do laughter, we help ourselves raise up into a higher consciousness.

And then we were more able to.

To give.

And when you arrive, it's not about cracking a joke.

In fact, I want to share that.

I was sharing a lot of podcasts and comedy and things with my friends who are getting this diagnosis.

It turns out they were each other's humor buddy.

They were better than anyone else to bring humor into the situation on their own.

And so after trying to see if I could be a humor buddy, I relinquished that responsibility and recognized that they were already so good at it.

So if you're dealing with big diagnoses and very difficult things, you want to have a humor buddy.

You want to have that person that's going to help you laugh and get past some of the difficulty.

We want to have our feelings.

That's really important.

But then we also want to work our way up back to a place where we can then be sharing with.

Others what you share there, because it has to.

The humor buddy is that joy.

First person who says, okay, I'm here to speak into your life.

Humor and joy is a part of this, but mostly I'm here to be your buddy.

I love that part of it, to be your buddy.

Like you talked about a little bit ago about how, you know, part of what you did to bring joy to people's life is take them to the hospital at 3am and maybe cook and clean or whatever it would be.

Those are.

Those bring joy too.

And that's more of the sustained nature.

You know, it's.

I think there's a slight difference, a slight nuance between happiness, which kind of.

Kind of comes with the root word.

Of, is happenstance, which is kind of a momentary thing.

Happiness is momentary in the sense of if we laugh at a joke or we have a funny moment, or we have a happy moment, but joy is more of a sustained thing and more of a content type of thing, they said.

That's my understanding of it.

That's the way I like to, to teach it.

And.

But we need both.

I, I believe you do speak on that a little bit to cut us a nuance between happiness and joy here.

So we can cultivate happiness by paying attention to our brain chemicals.

And that's the endorphins and the serotonin, the dopamine, and lowering the cortisol.

That can be done through exercise, through, through going and watching something funny, through prayer.

Through all of that, happiness can be lasting.

As positive psychology shows and Seligman.

It takes effort.

Joy can be found in awe and can be found in simply connecting with others.

It's a sense of delight.

And delight is the most important thing when you see it, to savor it.

When we find ourselves in that moment that we say, wow, this is the greatest thing ever, and we're really feeling, feeling joyful.

Take 20 seconds, look around, see where you are.

Take it in all the details for at least 20 seconds because our brains will store it.

And when we need it, we could revisit joy.

We can go back to that place that we were at and feel it again.

Let's just go with you personally here for a second.

Give me one of those moments that you referred to for your 20 seconds of joy.

Give me one of those moments.

You gave me a good story before about how you serve somebody.

Give me some moment where you experience that joy that you draw upon there.

I'm a huge fan of nature and I believe water is far more powerful than we are aware of at the moment.

And so I made sure that when I was soaking in the hot spring that was this beautiful environment, that painted walls and, and foliage and Buddha and this 104 degree mineral water that's healing me.

I take that and carry that with me.

I do a lot of hot springs.

I'm a hot spring fan.

There you go.

That's awesome.

And I pray with the water because we are learning it's possible that water has memory and we remember that we are at least 70% water.

Yeah.

And so I did a lot of gratitude in that water and a lot of savoring, you know, so that I can go back and feel what it's like to be in that hot spring connected to spirit.

So for you it's a hot spring and for others it might be a moment in nature.

What?

You know, my wife and I just took a long hike on a fall day in a around a lake just a couple days ago.

So that was a great nurturing thing.

But it might be a moment with your grandchildren or it might be some moment for memory of whatever high school reunion and, or my mom.

When you were anything to draw upon.

And that, that, that's a good thing because what you're talking about here is this connection between the kind of the spiritual, the metaphysical and the physiological Here it's all connected.

You've spoken about it a couple times.

But as we bring our conversation around here, you've mentioned several things about research and benefits.

And I know that you're connected with, with therapeutic humor.

A T h the American Associates Therapeutic humor.

Just tell us a bit about the importance that this is not just woo woo stuff.

This is just give us a little hint about research and things of this nature.

And then we're going to point people towards some places, practical places that they, that they, that they can go, that this is real stuff.

Real science is involved here.

Right?

Real science.

So what we've learned mo in the last couple of years from neurologists is your body can't, your mind and body can't tell the difference between spontaneous laughter and laughing on purpose.

So you get the same chemicals and benefits from whether you're watching A program, and you're laughing at the program or you're doing something like laughter yoga or laughter therapy.

These things are really important because cortisol destroys our bodies and contributes to a lot of different illnesses.

By reducing the cortisol on purpose, science is showing that we are able to stay healthier, feel healthier, be healthier, and who knows if we can't reverse some things.

We know that Norman Cousins had.

I'm going to ankle ankylosis.

Spindylitis.

I'm not going to get that right.

Yeah, ankylosing spindy.

But he had a very painful spine disease.

You did a much better job than me in pronouncing that.

Way to go.

Thank you.

Thank you.

He.

He wrote a whole book about how humor made such a big difference.

And science is also showing us that.

That laughter is more effective, 50% more effective than acid.

Awesome.

Awesome.

Well, that.

That's kind of what we like to talk about here in cancer comedy, how there's kind of two.

Two aspects of life basically that, you know, kind of have the tragic of the drama of life, then the drama of life.

You have tragic things happen to us.

It might be cancer, it might be, you know, Covid.

It could be know destructive things of any number of sorts.

But the comedic side is the part where we look to see what is the lighter side, what is the brighter side, what is the possibilities that can happen.

And you've shared those here with us here today.

And so just to kind of bring us around, if people want to learn more about you, Katie, you obviously are a wealth of knowledge and experience for people who really want to be intentional.

I think that's important thing here.

If people want to intentionally bring joy to their life or be the means to help bring joy to those that they know in their life, who, you know, who need a little.

Need a little happiness, need a little joy.

How can people find out more about you?

I know you're involved with several things.

Here's a couple of podcasts and so on.

Tell us how people get contact with you and maybe some resources that you might have to can speak into people's lives.

Sure, yeah.

So you can find me on Facebook @Kate McGlynn M C G L Y N N.

And on my personal page, I often am posting talks or information about humor and about Joy First.

And then the organization is Joy First foundation, joyfirst.org and you can search KDB Joy for Music.

I've been making music that is yoga music.

There's an album out right now called you matter and all of the lyrics.

I write the lyrics and AI writes the music and the singing.

Okay.

But I have started singing also what's come out of AI so it's kind of powerful, actually.

And then I also have a YouTube channel, KDB Joy Activation.

So you can hear about humor.

You can hear about ways to raise your vibration, if we use that terminology.

And we.

And you can hear about science, about water, science about humor, and science about what feels good and how to stay feeling good.

And she knows of what she speaks.

She comes from a professional performer background.

A professional clown, a performer, street performer, and other.

With other organizations.

So you can see what she has.

To offer in that regard.

And that is wonderful.

But also see that it's not just about the performance for you, I could tell.

It's about the transformation that you can bring to people's.

People's lives and also the research.

And I love that.

So that's all that we're talking about here.

We know you also have a podcast that you work on called the Laugh Box Podcast.

And I understand.

Do you have your own podcast as well that you.

Did you work on, is that right?

Joy first foundation also has a pond.

A podcast.

Yes.

So people.

Yeah, interviewing people that I've stopped and worked with about their experiences with Joy first and what it was like for them to be a Joy first ambassador.

Very good.

We'll put links to all of these things at our podcast, Cancer comedy dot com.

Well, K.

Kdb, what a wonderful opportunity has been to be in conversation with you.

You have shared so much with our audience here, and I just want to kind of leave us with this thought.

If you were going to kind of speak to that one person right now who's out there listening to us, who's just kind of in a bad place, and you wanted to give them that.

That good thing that you say you are.

I'm glad you're here on this earth.

What would be your message to that one person who needs to hear your voice here today, here on this podcast?

So I want to give you a standing ovation, and I want to say thank you for being alive.

I want to say you've made it this far.

You got to keep going.

You matter more than you know, especially if no one has told you that, because your energy matters.

What you say matters, what you hear matters.

And so if we can go through life understanding the effect that we have on others, then we get to bring someone joy and receive joy at the same time, which is incredibly powerful.

And thank you for living through all the stuff that you've lived through so far.

And thanks for flying around, around on this crazy blue marble with me.

I'm inspired by hearing that and I thank you for sharing that because I'm just taking to heart myself.

Anyway, thank you for being with us.

Our guest today here at Cancer and comedy, Kate McLean, also known as Katie B.

You can find her among in many other places@joyfirst.org Katie, thanks for being our guest today on Cancer and Comedy.

Oh, my gosh, it just fills you with joy just to listen to Katie.

That was so much fun.

Indeed it was.

And I love the opportunities to just to connect up with people who are being very intentional about helping people who are hurting.

And that's what Katie is really all about.

Joy, first name or her organization is joyfirst.org and she's also really a big advocate of therapeutic humor as we are here about really being intentional about this, how joy can be helpful in the process of, you know, like we talk about turning the grim into a grin, which is, you know, grief into relief.

And, and so what are some of the things that you mentioned in some of our conversations?

There was a couple aspects of her, of her, of our chat that spoke to you in terms of practical applications.

What people can do.

You know, I think from, from a practical standpoint, she really talked about sometimes we have to actually take time for joy.

You know, whether it's that we're going to go be joyful or we're going to think about things that gave us joy.

And, you know, because life can be pretty hard, right?

And so maybe we need to, you know, we, we've talked a lot about having gratitude, ending your day with gratitude, things like that.

I like the thought better of taking time for joy.

I mean, that just that really hit home.

I thought that was very interesting.

I love that.

Because she also talks the intention at taking time in her case is about planning and implementation.

We can look for those spontaneous moments.

I think that's true.

In her case.

She is, she talks about sprinkling joy like confetti.

So in my mind, that means you are, if you're having a party with confetti, I'll just kind of, kind of play out the analogy a little bit.

Then you've made the confetti or you bought a box of it or whatever, you're gonna throw it around, or we're gonna have a birthday party with balloons and, you know, pinatas or whatever.

We planned it out.

I'm thinking about this guy, I have.

A granddaughter who's got a birthday tomorrow, so a seventh birthday.

So we have a little party for.

So.

But we planned it out and my daughter has planned out this party for a long time and you know, all kinds of good stuff.

So we're planning for joy.

That's what Katie's helping us do.

And that's part of being an ambassador for joy and that there's also things we can do to prepare ourselves for that.

You know, having habits that are help us for joy.

Daily gratitude, prayer things, meditations, things such as having a compliment markdown.

What I mean by that, Have a goal that you're going to give three people a compliment today.

Okay.

Something like this, you know, have a goal.

I'm trying to try this out.

Does any of this resonate with you?

Some of the ways that she talked about how we could apply in a.

Very intentional way and I think it.

Really does need to be intentional because we get caught up in things and you know, it's.

But we need to think, okay, every day I'm going to do X.

You know, I remember learning many years ago that if you do something every day for 21 days, it becomes a habit and then you no longer have to think, oh, I have to do this.

It's just a habit, you know, like brushing our teeth, all of those various things.

So, you know, if we can be definitely intentional about our joy every day for 21 days, then it'll just become a habit and we will be joyful all the time.

That's awesome.

Let me leave us with this thought.

She, Katie started this whole process because she was touched by the pain that people are going through, particularly the war in Ukraine and how there was some really horrible things about that.

Still.

Still does, of course.

And her foundation that she created helps to support refugees and organize joy infused events.

And therefore she went on this joy tour to help to be very practical about that.

Kind of like a rock tour, if you will, that kind of thing.

Or, or a entertainment tour.

And I just want to encourage all of us to have a opportunity to kind of think about our lives as what are we going to give back that's gives some joy to other people and get some practicality about it.

In her case, she's raising money and doing other things for.

For Ukrainian refugees and she got in a Jeep and driving the country to spread.

Spread joy.

But you know, people can do that in their own world, Kathy.

We can do it.

You and I try to do it through our cancer comedy podcast.

But we can encourage people to do that in their own cancer journey.

Whether you're the person who's suffering from cancer or you're the person part of the.

Part of the support system, or a doctor or some other person in the support system, we can infuse joy in wherever we're at.

But be intentional.

Be intentional about it.

Right?

And sometimes it's.

Something little can make a huge difference.

It does.

It does.

Well, speaking of something little.

Excuse me.

That brings me joy.

We have another one of Dr.

Brad's bad jokes of the day.

Several years ago, when I was a pastor, I was visiting an old man.

Who was on his deathbed, and he was surrounded by his wife and his.

Three children and his nurse.

And knowing that the end was near, he.

He said to them, jason, I want you to take all the houses in the Heights.

Rebecca, you get all the apartments in Oakwood Plaza.

Josh, I want you to take the office building in the city center.

And Susan, my dear wife, please take all the stores and the residential buildings in downtown.

And then he quietly passed away.

I was impressed by everything that was happening.

And I.

And I just said to the wife, I'm.

I'm just so sorry for, for your loss.

And.

And I said, but you must be so proud of your husband for having accumulated such wealth.

What wealth?

Said the wife to me.

He had a paper route sifters.

It's time to turn serious and enjoy Dr.

Brad's face it or break it segment.

I'm a bit of a Monty Python fan, and recently I heard Eric Idle from the original Monty Python troupe interviewed about the song Always look on the Bright side of Life, which comes from the.

The movie Monty Python's Life of Brian, which is a, you know, kind of ironic comedic view of the life of Jesus Christ.

And the song takes place as an upbeat, ironic musical number that was all around the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Now, those of us who are Christians know that the crucifixion of Jesus was a horrible, terrible time where Jesus was crucified and put to death for crimes he did not commit.

So it was a horrible injustice and a horrible thing to happen.

And yet in this depiction, it is Jesus and the other characters.

Brian are singing always looking the bright side of life, even at this moment.

And Idol says that he drew inspiration from lyrics that kind of poke fun at a bleak situation, as in crucifixion, encouraging them to maintain a positive outlook despite of dire circumstances.

Curse.

Monty Python is known for being irreverent and subversive comedic.

But it's now become a beloved song that is often now sang at funerals.

That's right.

You can also hear this song always Looking the Bright side of Life at funerals.

So I just want to encourage you to understand the true meaning of the crucifixion.

Of course came that Jesus was not only crucified, but just three days later was risen at Easter, the greatest celebration in Christendom.

So you had to go through the bleakness of the crucifixion to get to the resurrection.

The greatest joy so the greatest joy is preceded by the greatest horror.

So Monty Python through Eric Idle saying look at the bright side.

You could see a bright side.

So my encouragement to you in having a life of faith or breaking life is don't be so incredibly dismissed or disposed by the Grim to know that there is not eventually a bright side.

And always try to look as Monty Python, as Eric Idle would say from the life of Brian, always look on the bright side of life, no matter what your circumstances are.

Hey, thanks for joining us on the Cancer and Comedy podcast with Dr.

Brad Miller.

Make sure you visit our website cancerandcomedy.com where you can follow the show and get our newsletter letter.

Like what you hear?

Then tell a friend about Cancer and Comedy, the show that lifts your spirits with hope and humor that heals.

Until next time, keep turning the Grim into a grin.