Metaphors shape our perceptions of ourselves, our relationships, and our capacity for personal growth and change. When we use them to speak about ourselves and our world, they are reflective of the beliefs we carry and the truths we prize.
Today, our guest Joy Marie Clarkson wants you to better notice the metaphors you’re anchoring into and how to switch them to ones that encourage flourishing over productivity. If you’re tired of your constant cycles of updating, crashing, and rebooting, Joy will teach you how to stop looking at yourself as a machine and instead own this metaphor for yourself: I am a tree.
About a few other things…
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TRANSCRIPT
Monica: Joy Marie Clarkson, welcome to About Progress.
Joy: It’s great to be here. I’m excited to talk with you today.
Monica: In many ways you are living out the dream 20 year old Monica had, and I am all here for it. I am just your number one fan now and wanting to learn about everything you’re putting out there. But today we’re going to be talking about something that’s a little bit more academic than maybe my listeners are used to, which is going to be fun.
And we’re going to talk about metaphors and how they matter and how they influence the way that we view ourselves, our lives, our capacity to change the way we show up to our lives and including the way we are trying to grow and to develop ourselves. So let’s start by just leveling with metaphors. Like, why is that a thing that you’re into and why should we all be into it as well?
Joy: That’s such a great question. And when I started writing this book, I, wanted to find a way to answer it compellingly because I know that if you hear metaphors, kind of the, what came to my mind is like freshman English class, you know, um, doesn’t seem like something that has a great deal of relevance to our everyday life.
But what I wanted to show in this book is that we use metaphors all the time. We may not think that, but we really do. We talk about recharging. We call somebody a wet blanket. That’s metaphor, right? We use metaphors all the time to describe ourselves, our relationships, the world we live in.
And I also think that those metaphors we use shape how we live. And so an example of that would be, um, which I’m sure we’ll get more into, but if you describe yourself as, as a machine, right? If you say I need to recharge or adjust. Or if you describe yourself as updating, all of that is kind of using your language to imagine yourself as a computer.
And if you imagine yourself as a computer, you’ll kind of expect the same sorts of things from yourself that you would expect of a computer. And that shapes how you live. And it also shapes how you think about productivity, how you think about flourishing. And even those two different words, productivity and flourishing, both kind of have metaphorical imaginations connected to them, right?
Productivity, we can think of, uh, an assembly line of things being produced quickly and efficiently and, and in the same way, whereas flourishing, we think more of something like a garden or a tree. And so, the metaphors that we use I, I want to convince people shape what expectations we have and how we live.
And so with the book, my goal was first of all, to make people aware of the metaphors they’re using to kind of wake up to the funny ways in which we use metaphors all the time. One of the ones I’ve been thinking about lately is people talk about their battle with mental health.
And I was thinking, what an interesting metaphor that is. Cause that kind of almost begins to picture yourself at enmity with your mind and, you know, we know from a lot of research on mental health that’s not really a fruitful way to think about yourself that, that wouldn’t actually contribute to flourishing or, or gaining better mental health.
So I wanted to make people aware of the metaphors they were using and then to kind of resource them with thoughtful and intentional different metaphors that they could use to. to approach life. And in doing that, I kind of drew mainly on metaphors from scripture, from the Hebrew Bible and from the New Testament and from poetry and art.
And I think all those things can help kind of give us a new, a new, um, arsenal. There’s another metaphor for you, arsenal of metaphors for living life. Um, so that’s a rambly answer to your question, but I want people to know that metaphors are important. I want them to be aware of the metaphors they’re using and to have a rich resource.
Monica: I think the connection you made is so true, and it’s also so revelatory. Once we realize, Oh my goodness, this is how often I compare myself to a soldier going to battle or a computer producing work, we can recognize too, how that is not healthy for us as humans. And. We’re going to dig in more to that part of the conversation, but I do also want to bring up where you said a big source of your material comes from scriptorial works.
And I was curious, is this a religious book then? Is this a religious, way of thinking about it? Is this, basically, is this only for people who find themselves a follower of the Bible or would they also be able to get a lot out of this whole conversation and the sources from which you are getting them from?
Joy: I’m still pretty young, but I’ve been writing and teaching and, doing a podcast and written other books. And my background is I’m a scholar of religion and art. So I have done a lot of research on Christian theology and how,
a lot of the Western art that we see is informed by, by theology, by the Christian tradition. But the way that I like to think of it is that I work from a tradition, but my goal is to just share thoughts about the world from where I sit. Um, but I like to think of that as appealing and has something to offer people, no matter whether they are religious or not religious, whether they share in that tradition or not.
And I’ve been very lucky to be companioned by a lot of religious and non religious readers over the years. And I appreciate their perspectives. But I think, and hope that I would also have lots to offer, people, no matter what corner of the world they sit in and how they look at the world.
Monica: Well, from the way I look at the world, I do think you are succeeding in that hope. Let’s go to the metaphor of us comparing relating ourselves to machines and you brought up a few examples there, but maybe you can bring up a couple more, but what are some of the ways that we are doing that?
And why is it damaging to us as humans in particular to what you’ve talked about, about us flourishing more?
Joy: Yeah. So I think I’ve, I’ve hopefully brought up a few of those, but there’s, there’s so many different ways we talk about it. Right. We talk about recharging, updating, adjusting. Um, we even sometimes when we compliment someone for being really productive, we might say you’re a machine. Right. And when we say that there’s nothing inherently wrong with using the machine metaphor.
Right. When we say that we mean is that someone right. Um, produces a lot of work, that they’re quick. Um, and the reason that we say they’re a machine is because machines are strong in a particular way that humans aren’t, which is that they are consistent and mechanical and fast. And so sometimes when someone’s particularly fruitful in their work, we use that to describe them.
And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. But the problem is, is that if it becomes what, there’s a scholar, there’s scholars called Lakoff and Johnson, who wrote a book called Metaphors We Live By. And they describe metaphors that kind of become systemic metaphors, metaphors that describe a whole area of life.
So if machines become kind of the systemic metaphor for what it is to be human, I think it’s damaging because humans just aren’t machines, you know? Are many things, but we are not the same every day. We are affected by, by our mood. I just got back from Asia, which was warm and humid and, uh, have lots of fresh fruits.
And now I’m back in Scotland and it’s cold and it’s dark and it’s very dry. And, you know, our environments affect us, the seasons affect us, our relationships affect us. And so we just don’t operate the same ways that machines do. And so if we expect ourselves to act like machines, we will begin to kind of have unforgiving expectations of ourself that ironically actually make us less, quote unquote, productive, right?
If I’m not operating within the reality of what a human being is, then I’m not going to get the best out of what a human being is. And so I think that the problem with machine metaphors is just that humans aren’t very much like machines. And so the more we use, we describe ourselves like that. Uh, the more we expect ourselves to be like machines, the more we fail at being machines, and the less we’re able to actually thrive as the kind of beings that we are.
And the less we’re able to have language and creativity and adaptability to what it looks like to thrive while as a human.
Monica: I see a lot of shame coming up with that way of connecting to ourselves and, and the level of which we’re supposed to be, um, Productive and the predictability of our productiveness and, and how, um, consistent it is and effective and all these things, you know, we just, that shame is what I see creeps in so much of what’s wrong with me.
Like, why don’t I, I used to be able to do this last year really easily. Why can’t I do it this year? Or that so and so can do it so easily. And why can’t I, at least that, that comparison. Piece that is so driven by, by shame. And you’ve shared this story about you doing your master’s, I believe, and, and trying to operate as a machine and crashing, which is another metaphor.
I’m just realizing, you know, crashing, um, and not being able to keep up. And it actually. Worsened your ability to be productive and working towards your degree. Could you share a little bit more about that moment where you recognize, Oh, wait, like in my rush to be a machine, I’m actually. Being less productive, less fruitful,
Joy: Yes. Yeah, so is actually when I was finishing my doctorate. Um, which, yes, uh, which is a, I think there’s no real pleasant way to finish a doctorate. I have only met like one or two kind of You know, um, uh, unicorns of people who really enjoy the end of their doctorate, but I, I just pushed and pushed myself.
I was really trying to finish the final draft of my thesis at a certain point, and I’d kind of cleared away everything in my life that was not eating, paying my bills and, and writing a thesis, and I kind of just like, I had withdrawn from a lot of, Pleasure activities, and people, and just kind of anything that didn’t seem, um, productive.
And to my great frustration, I was going so slowly on my PhD. I, I, I couldn’t get anything done, and I was feeling really frustrated. And, um, and at the same time, I also was just having a lot of health issues. I, you know, it wasn’t anything serious, but I was getting cold all the time, and I had migraines.
It’s kind of an old foe of mine. And so I talk about in the book about reaching this point where that all kind of culminated in this, this sleeplessness and I was, um, in an attempt to overcome the sleeplessness was watching a documentary by, uh, David Attenborough, you know, the, the conservationist, and he was talking about palm oil trees and how they make all this money and they’re very productive.
And I was like, I wish I could be like a palm oil tree. But the reason they’re so productive is basically that farmers who farm them have cleared out everything, all other plants, all other wildlife to grow these palm oil trees. But then as they did that, the kind of surrounding land started to mysteriously die and they didn’t exactly know why.
Um, but as conservationists looked into it, it was because all of these little things. That they couldn’t exactly calculate how they were contributing to the ecosystem, but they were, so they figured out that one of the biggest ones was that these, um, I think they were some kind of creature. I think it was an orangutan.
They took two years to raise their babies. And while they did it, they would swing from tree to tree, teaching them what plants to eat and, and doing that, the, they would eat and then they would poop. And then that would, Put the plants all over the rainforest, which made there be a natural biodiversity that caused it to continue to grow.
And because they removed all these animals, doing this kind of pointless, meandering thing, it began to diminish the environment. a very long way to say, as I was watching it, I thought, I’m like a palm oil forest. I have cleared away everything in my life that doesn’t seem, productive, or that I can’t measure its productivity.
I think that’s a big part of machines, is that we kind of evaluate ourselves only according to what we can measure. Um, but that just like the palm oil forest, I had kind of made the forest of my life less fruitful and I was beginning to kind of diminish and perish precisely because I wasn’t allowing for that kind of, for those many seemingly unproductive things that contribute to making you a human be able to flourish well.
And that was really a big change for me. So I started, I started kind of prioritizing my health. I started prioritizing being with friends, doing creative. And to be honest, I realized that once I did that, it was much easier to kind of get back up on the horse and finish the PhD. Once I prioritize the kind of holistic, humane part of being a person, I was actually able to quote unquote produce.
And that to me is kind of a picture of what I wanted to write about with this is thinking about how do we have a more holistic picture of ourself allows us to be fruitful and to be, to be a full human and to progress and to grow. Right. I love that you’re. Your podcast is about, it’s about personal growth, right?
It’s not just about patting ourselves on the back. It’s also about wanting to flourish and to grow and to stretch in different areas. But I think the way that we do that is by having a full and accurate picture of ourselves. And I think sometimes metaphors get in our way of doing that, but they can also help us gain a fuller metaphor and move into growth.
Monica: In your book, you talk about seven different metaphors and how they are a little bit more helpful than seeing ourselves as machines and another metaphors as well that aren’t very helpful. There’s one in particular I’m drawn to, and I’m sure, um, You are more so as well. I mean, because it’s what your book is named after and you are a tree, seems to be something that in particular is really impactful and personal for you.
And. This is the one I really want to lean into, although I would love to talk about each one of them, because it really does, for me, paint that picture of flourishing, ways that few other metaphors can do, and just what it means to be someone. Who is growing in many directions and how also we can’t do it alone.
And there’s so many things there that you taught me even about trees are so helpful to this. So tell us more about this metaphor and why in particular is something that we can look to borrow from trees and how they, how they grow, how they help each other, how they get their nourishment, then their seasons, and how can connect back to us as humans in the pursuit of flourishing.
Joy: So part of the reason I picked this, this metaphor is just that I think it’s one of the most pervasive and ancient metaphors for what it is to be a human and to flourish as a human. I had so much fun writing that chapter, actually the URO tree chapter, because it just allowed me to sit with the many.
Poetic and story and, um, just linguistic ways that we link humans and, and trees. When we talk about people, we tend to talk about them as plants or trees, right? We say someone’s a late bloomer, we talk about feeling rooted or unrooted or uprooted, you know, and all of those are ways to describe how we feel in life.
So we, we reach for that metaphor, I think, kind of, unconsciously. It’s just there easily for us to attach to. But I also specifically linked it to, uh, the Psalms. So in Hebrew Bible, you have the Psalms, it’s the book of prayers. So it’s the book that we’re given language to, to talk to God, to describe our desires and our human experience.
And the very first Psalm. Describes the blessed person or the happy person, the flourishing person, and the image that it gives is of a tree. So it starts by, um, talking about what the blessed person does, and it’s largely about the people they surround themselves with. But then it says, this is what a, this is what a flourishing person is like.
And it says they’re like a tree planted by streams of living water. They bear their fruit in season and their leaf does not wither. And, and it contrasts this to the wicked person who’s like chaff, who’s blown away in the wind.
And so I used this Psalm kind of to meditate on the facets of what makes a tree flourish. So it’s rooted, you know, much of what we see of a tree. We can’t see, right? What, much of what we know of a tree is unseen. It’s, it’s beneath the surface. It’s shaped by its history, by its relationship to other trees, by the soil, , and that’s a reminder of so much of what it is to be a human is beneath the surface and it’s a part of considering what it is to flourish is, is to know what it is to be human, but also that it’s by streams of water, right?
So that image is actually intended to be A tree that’s planted in a garden, right? That it’s created, it’s in a place where it’s by a source of water, where it can be nourished. And that reminds us that humans, like trees, if we’re going to thrive, we need sources of nourishment. Intellectually, emotionally, socially, spiritually, uh, and to think about, what are those sources of nourishment?
And how do we kind of diminish when we don’t have sources of nourishment? And then also thinking about, um, it bears its fruit in season. That’s a phrase that I love, and you were talking about that sense of shame earlier. And this is, I think, one of the great things that relieves shame. It doesn’t say that a, a flourishing tree, a flourishing person always bears fruit.
They bear it in season. And one of the things I enjoyed doing when I was researching for the book was looking at different kinds of trees and how actually It’s not, not every fruit bearing tree bears fruit in the same way. Figs bear bear fruit three times a year. Whereas an apple tree, if it bears too much fruit, it will only bear fruit every, every other year.
And so thinking about ourselves as trees, and knowing that we have seasons, and we have fruit bearing seasons, and we have bearing seasons, uh, that’s not a, a bug in the system. That is, there’s, there’s a metaphor for you. It’s not a bug in the system. You’re not a machine. It is a feature of being a tree.
It’s a part of flourishing. And so if you find yourself in a long season of not bearing fruit, that might actually be a good thing. It might be that you are preparing for a great season of fruitfulness. You kind of just need to rest and let your roots sink deep in the soil and see what will come next.
Um, and then, and then the passage ends with, um, and their leaf does not wither and whatever they do flourishes. And that brings to mind this kind of question of. What endures of a tree, right? A tree endures for many, many years. So what are the things that do not wither in our lives? Um, that’s a part of flourishing too.
It’s not just productivity. It’s not just rudeness, not just nourishment. It’s also endurance. So what, what allows a tree to live for hundreds of years? What doesn’t wither? And how are we living those things in our lives? So those are my reasons for the tree and kind of. Um, the main image that I sat with was that psalm.
Monica: I want to connect one thing to the last part you just brought up about, living for a very long time, you talk about a stump that was still showing signs of life and how that’s shouldn’t be possible because it doesn’t have leaves, you know, to, to, I’m not going to explain the science cause I’m not a science person, but it shouldn’t be possible and what the scientists discovered though, is that it was connected.
Yeah. To all the other roots around it and how that was allowing even a stump to flourish because of how much it was connected to other trees. And to me, that really resonated because sometimes we are just stumps. Like we just, we can’t reach anymore. We can’t grow anymore. We can’t strive anymore, but we can be bolstered up and given that nourishment by the people around us, which don’t wither, especially when we’ve put nourishment in those relationships.
And that. Is what I find in my past history as a perfectionist was what suffered the most were my relationships and the process of trying to be so productive of being so efficient and consistent. My relationships suffered. So when I was a stump, I didn’t have as much of those to depend on. When I needed them the most.
And the reverse has been true for me. As I’ve worked more on my relationships during those times where I feel like I don’t have much more to give. I have people who at least support me during that time. And it’s been such a different way of living.
Joy: Mm. I love that, and I also love, so the, the, the thing you’re talking about is this, the scientists who discovered stumps that still had green, right? They still had photosynthesis. It didn’t seem like that could still be happening, but somehow it was.
And the thing I also love about that is that the trees, if you can talk about trees deciding, the other trees decided or, or sent their nourishment to that tree, um, without any promise in the sense of any possibility of it bearing fruit, right? They just nourished it because it was in their, it was in their canopy.
It was their tree to nourish. And I think that so often we can feel like we can only receive. Support or nourishment for the people. If we kind of display some kind of, well, I’m gonna get better. I’m, I’m gonna be okay. But that actually the very nature of the support we need and love is that people give it to us simply because we are loved and, and not because we need to prove our capacity to improve or produce.
Monica: And it’s bringing me back to, you know, another part of computers is that they work best in isolation. You know, when you have a lot of computers in the same area, they’re not going to work so
well together. You know, they get burnt out quicker. The technology doesn’t work as well. The internet is way down, but it’s so different when we look at it as a tree is best in a community.
Of trees and same with us, I’m not going to keep beating that, that horse over there, but I do want to, um, have you read a quote to me that I feel like was really helpful. And this is coming from someone who, even with all my work on not leveraging my identity off of my productivity, I discovered in the winter of last year, how much I still was.
And that’s when I was a stump or I was in a season of winter, if we can go with the season metaphor and. It was frustrating for me. I I’m, I’m going to make this a nutshell. I had my fifth kid. And so I w I knew what it was supposed to be like, right? I knew what to expect. And yet it flattened me in ways I never had experienced with my other four, even though I had a very quote unquote, normal, healthy baby.
And I had not had normal or healthy babies in the past. I have some special needs kids. So for me, it was just so demoralizing when I was like, I can’t do. The basics of what were so easy when I had harder circumstances and that self blame creeping in and recognizing that I was just a tree in the winter and it was okay, it was just okay.
And this, what you shared would really have helped me then, but it’s helped me now as I’ve kind of grown back to being okay and I’m now back, I feel like in spring and that’s feeling really good to begin the spring of my, of my own season again, but I want to share this for people who are feeling. Like they’re kind of in the winter right now and that’s their season and it’s really hard and it can be demoralizing and frustrating.
Um, so I’m pulling up my copy and I know you have your copy here and I don’t want to say page number for those who do get the book because it might not be the right page that either of us are on, but I will say it’s in the chapter You Are a Tree and it’s in the section
yields its fruit in season. Okay, Joy, will you please share that with us?
Joy: Yes. Sometimes it can be frightening when it feels like our effort or prayer hasn’t borne fruit. But remembering you are a tree can relieve some of this anxiety by reminding us that even when tree seasons, as long as they feel, may be a time when our roots are growing deep, and may precede the decadent glory of spring.
This perspective encourages us to pay attention to what is happening in our lives. What season we are in. Trees are constantly adjusting to the weather, the sun, the nutrients in the soil, the activity of bugs and animals. This invites us to adopt a posture of agency in those waiting and wintry seasons.
You need not only weather the storm, but also figure out what you need in this season to ready yourself for the next. Do you need to draw strength from other trees in the forest around you? Do your roots need to grow deeper? In this, meditation on the metaphor of trees can offer some hope. Seasons come again and again.
Just because you had an early frost in life doesn’t mean you will not bear fruit again. Just because you feel stripped down by life does not mean you will not flower again. You are not a machine, useless when one or many of its parts expire. You are a miraculous and beloved creation, with more resilience pulsing through your roots than you know.
Monica: Thank you. That was so beautiful to hear exactly from you as it was meant to be. I’m curious about your own life. You know, what season are you in right now? Do you feel, and that’s a pretty personal question, but I’m curious about where you are with your own flourishing and how it’s changed you to change the way that you speak about yourself and your life and your humanness
Joy: I’m torn between saying I’m in a spring or I’m in a harvest season. I think I’m kind of in a harvest season. I think that there were, um, I think there were about five deeply good, but kind of wintery years of my life where a lot of what I was doing was. Working very persistently on my podcast and on my PhD and, um, there were good and happy things that happened, but a lot of it was just deeply dutiful and quiet and waiting and hoping it would mean something and grow somewhere.
And where I had a lot of, yes, under the surface, where I had a lot of kind of desires and questions, um, in my life that I didn’t know if they would be met with something good. Um, or if they would be fulfilled and I feel like in the past year and a kind of almost violent abundance, a lot of those, those questions about vocation and relationships and love have been answered a lot of those questions about work and good fruitful work have been answered too.
And I’ve been really blessed to be able to do a lot of things I love and care about. And, um, and even the, some of the questions I was thinking about this when I was rereading the introduction about rootedness and about, how to belong when, when I don’t exactly have a place that I’m totally from, a lot of those have been answered in interesting ways too.
And I know they’ll continue to be answered over and over again. And that has been, , in some ways exhausting, like harvest seasons, I think can be very exhausting, you know, when, when many things in your life suddenly bear fruit. But I’ve also just been deeply thankful for it. I’ve always loved autumns.
So, I think that is where I am, where I, I’m thankful for whether it’s the spring or the harvest. Um, maybe the spring, I think it’s the spring. I think it’s had a long winter and suddenly everything is growing and there’s a lot to do and a lot to invest in and a lot to love. And there’s, there’s a little bit of exhaustion in that, but also just deep thankfulness.
Monica: Thank you for letting us go a little bit more personal there. It’s lovely to hear about where you’re at and how it’s helped you. When I think about what I’ve learned from your book, if there’s just one takeaway I could have for my listeners, it would be to just ask the question, what season am I in? That permission to ask that question.
Is what has given me the compassion and the space I’ve needed to accept where I’m at. And that includes like right now, I told you, I feel like I’m more in the spring. Like now I have more energy. Like I’m excited. I’m ready. I’m ready to do things differently. I can now do it. In ways I couldn’t have before, but in ways I can honor now too.
I can honor better that, that seasonal part of it. For you, what is, this is like asking you to pick between like your most beloved people in your life, I’m sure. But is there one takeaway in particular that you’re like, I just hope people can get this from my work through this book.
Joy: Um, yes. And this may seem like a left turn from what we’ve been talking about, but I think the thing I really want them to want people to take away from this book is to pay attention to your life. And a part of that is answering that question of what season are you in? Um, but it’s also to pay attention to the trees in your life, to the way that light falls on you in the morning, to the way that picking something up and putting it down feels.
To pay attention to all these experiences in your life because they give us language for and they reveal things about our deepest intuitions and desires and experiences. And I think that the more we pay attention to our life, whether that’s what season we’re in or the most kind of fundamental basic experiences, the more depth we discover is actually there every day.
And, um, and so that’s what I wanted people to take away was kind of a sense of wonder and attention to their life.
Monica: Ooh. You nailed it. I think you nailed it. So we like to end with a practical note and what’s one doable way that they can take action on what they learned today. I want to narrow that in on what you just shared. If you’re comfortable doing that about how to pay attention to our lives, is there a standard practice or an exercise or anything that has more of a doable practical nature that can help them better pay attention to their lives?
Maybe you can suggest.
Joy: Yes. So the first thing that came to my mind, which I think I’m going to say, even though it could seem slightly impractical. I’ve always kept a journal and, um, I used to keep a journal in a kind of intermittent way where I would like, when I had a burst of emotion, I would, uh, you know, write down things.
And that was just, I, I struggle reading those journals cause I just go, oh my
Monica: yes, I would so relate.
Joy: Um, but, uh, about two years ago I started to do, um, I started to write just every day, um, I, at that season of my life, I could write at least a page every day. I know that may not be possible for other people, depending on your life stage and work and kids and whatever, but just spending, writing something every single day and not writing about something deep or your emotional life.
You can, if you want to, but just writing something every day about where you are, what you’re seeing, what you’re doing. And I know that seems very silly and simple, but I think just that practice of. Sitting down, noticing, noticing something in your life and writing it down every day, even if it’s a few sentences, has really helped me kind of attend to the season I’m in.
I start noticing themes that I write about over and over again. It also just helps me notice little things in my life, whether it’s, you know, the bird that continues to come to my window or things like that. So for me, writing something a little bit every day really helps me pay attention to my life. But that could just be because that’s my, my own literary kind of neuroticism.
Monica: No, and I think you also shared that in a way that is very practical, even a sentence or two. And, and actually that helps me as someone who struggles with journaling because of that same relationship I’ve had in the past of it being more about, emotions or trying to process deep and hard things. And if I know I’m just journaling about like what happened that day or something I noticed in a sentence or two, I’m much more likely to do it, which will actually lead to more.
and processing than if I knew I had to start there. So thank you for that. I want to make sure we send people to where you are online. Where do you want them to go and where should they look for the book and when
Joy: the book, Your Tree and Other Metaphors to Nourish Life, Thought, and Prayer, uh, comes out on February 20th and you can pre order it now, um, anywhere that books are sold. So. So, you know, there’s the usual Amazon, Barnes and Noble. I also encourage people to order a copy through your local bookstore, which you can do through, I think it’s called bookshop.
org is a good resource for that. Um, and then I am on social media, uh, joy Marie Clarkson, usually at join us the brave, um, which is a tag I came up with years ago and have not changed from.
Monica: I love that.
Joy: I have a, I have a sub stack, which is also just joy Clarkson and,
and I have a podcast called speaking with joy, which I will be restarting as I do the book launch.
So people can find that as Well,
Monica: Well, I know since they’ve already enjoyed listening to you so much here that they, uh, should definitely go right to. Making sure they subscribe so that way they can get to it as soon as you are back. And I’m sure you’re going to be hitting it hard. And I am wishing you good luck and a good harvest. As all your work is producing the fruit here.
That is not just good for you, but for so many others. Thank you for taking the time today. I appreciate it.
Joy: Thank you so much for your thoughtful questions.
Monica: That was awesome. I really enjoyed that. Let me make sure we got everything here.
