This morning started out strong. I was clear, focused, and ready to create. But then I had a conversation that sent me spiraling. It wasn’t catastrophic, just sharp enough to knock me off balance. Suddenly, I felt criticized, impatient, frustrated, and annoyed. In JOYELY terms, I had shifted from the Expansion Stage into the Inactive Stage of presence. My chest felt heavy. I sat there, numb, unable to function.

And it reminded me just because one person on a team is in the Expansion Stage doesn’t mean everyone else is. Emotional alignment is not automatic. This isn’t about right or wrong, it’s about noticing and supporting the culture we want to create.

Because of the work I’ve been doing, I immediately tapped into my Joy Intelligence Quotient my JQ. That’s our ability to use joy as a core life skill to navigate emotions, not a surface-level feeling, but through the scope of being grounded in presence and rooted in safety.  As I tuned in, it felt like the light shifted slightly. The fog lifted just a bit.

I grabbed my JQ Emotions Map and began the process.

Step one: Locate.
I asked myself: What am I actually feeling? Where am I on the map? I found “criticized” clearly in the inactive stage. I layered in frustration, which was sitting on top of vulnerability, which itself was hiding the deeper fear of being misunderstood.

I knew I couldn’t focus with all this playing in the background. In the past, I would have just pushed through. But now I know that path leads straight to burnout and resentment. So I left my desk. I drank water. I moved. Fresh air and movement are powerful.

I found a quiet bench in the park and moved into

Step two: Explore.
I asked: What are my current levels of safety, presence, and joy? I realized I didn’t feel safe to speak about feeling misunderstood. I wasn’t fully present, I was lost in mental rehearsals of what I should have said. And joy? Completely buried. But I didn’t want to stay there and knew I did not have to if I prioritized this moment.

So I did my first Chair of JOY® Experience (COJ). I sat. Listened to birds. Breathed in the fresh air. I thought about the heavy weight on my chest and imagined it softening. I let myself feel the sadness of the moment.

The Chair of JOY method—Sit, Breathe, Think, Feel—is neuroscience in motion. When we slow down and breathe with intention, we activate the parasympathetic nervous system. This helps quiet the brain’s stress response and opens up the prefrontal cortex, where we access reflection, empathy, and decision-making.

I didn’t overthink it. I trusted the process. With each breath, I returned to the moment a little more.

Maybe it wasn’t about me. Maybe the other person was simply doing their best. Maybe I was unsure of my own intentions. It didn’t fix everything, but it softened the edge.

By sitting with presence, I created space for a new emotional pathway. This is how the brain begins to rewire. Each intentional pause, each grounded breath, becomes a small signal to the nervous system that safety is possible.

At the end of the COJ, my chest felt a little less heavy. And that was enough.

Then came

Step three: Shift.
I noticed I had moved from the inactive stage into the awareness stage. That meant I had naturally crossed the first emotional barrier: accountability. Not because I forced it, but because I was willing to pause and notice what was happening within me. I asked: What do I really want? What values are surfacing here? I reconnected with my desire to contribute, to be included, to feel that my voice matters. Underneath the surface frustration, I found passion, devotion, and strength.

I stood up. Grounded my feet in the grass. I did my second Chair of JOY. This time, I felt ready to move into threhe feelings that were slow in coming, but I noticed a tinge of curiosity, motivation, even a little excitement. I could feel myself beginning to use my emotions as a resource for problem solving, not just this current issue, but knowing that I was building the understanding that this could apply to any problem coming my way.

That naturally led me to

Step four: Integrate.
I focused on brain-body alignment. I took deeper, longer breaths, stretched, walked. I let my body lead while my brain caught up. This created a sense of brain-heart coherence. I did my third Chair of JOY. Just 15 seconds, but enough to complete the reset. This time, I crossed the barrier of acceptance. I had accepted what happened, accepted how I felt, accepted my ability to work through it.  It was a powerful process already. 

From there, I naturally passed the final barrier: Trust. I remembered that while I can’t control everything that’s said to me, I am in control of how it moves through me. I am the one responsible for how I hold it in my body and how I move forward.

As I strolled back to my desk, I felt a clear shift moving through me. It was a steady return to the Expansion Stage. A renewed energy pulsed within, filling me with sharp focus and a surge of creativity that felt almost electric. Just minutes later, and quite surprisingly, a bold idea came to me.. I saw the next step in the product system we’ve been developing, and it landed in a way that made it seem simple.

The emotional groundwork I had just laid made it possible. My brain lit up. The science behind this method had cleared space for new insight. I could feel the rewiring happening in real time. I wasn’t relying on logic alone. Something deeper was firing. Neuroplasticity in motion. My brain was literally creating new pathways, tuning me into a more vibrant, solution-driven state. That’s the power of the JQ method. You don’t have to chase joy. You just have to prioritize it and practice it. That’s the magic of JOYELY in motion.

But life didn’t stop there.

Less than an hour later, someone canceled an appointment I had really been looking forward to. The rejection hit hard, and without warning, I felt myself drop straight back into the Inactive Stage. That fast. The emotion this time was rejection, a tough pill to swallow. But now I had JQ.

I paused. I took off my best earrings. A 20-second COJ. I messaged the person to see if they could reschedule. He said, “Yes, of course.” I smiled. It wasn’t about me. It usually never is.  And just like that, I was back in the Expansion Stage again.

That’s the truth of this work. We don’t go through these stages once a week or a few times a day.  Typically, we move in and out of them many times a day. The emotional barriers: Accountability, Acceptance, and Trust aren’t linear. They’re organic. We don’t force our way through them. We organically feel our way through with our brain and body knowing what to do.

It’s almost unbelievable what happens when we take time to notice and do a 60-second COJ. Yes, I’ve been studying joy for a long time, and still, I’m amazed each time. The Chair of JOY has always been powerful. But when it’s paired with the JQ Emotions Map, it becomes a full system for navigating life in real time.

No grinding. No pretending. Just listening and responding. I used the framework Bailey and I designed together, the same one we’ve been refining over the past year. And it helped me move through what could have been an unproductive, emotionally draining day.

So yes, I’m still learning the power of JOY Intelligence. Still practicing. But this morning was a full implementation of all of it. I used it to stop self-sabotage and steady myself for a productive day.

• The 4 Stages of Presence: Inactive stage, Awareness stage, Reflection stage, Expansion stage

• The 3 Emotional Barriers: Accountability, Acceptance, Trust

• The 4 Steps of the JQ Emotions Map™️: Locate, Explore, Shift, Integrate

• The 4 Steps of the Chair of JOY®️ Method: Sit, Breathe, Think, Feel

• The JQ Framework: Safety, Presence, Joy