Carol: What inspired you in choosing to Joy Coach® America?
Karyn: In April of 2013, I invited my friend Elizabeth Allen to accompany me to attend a Grief Coaching Course in Los Angeles, to continue my education with Grief Coaching work. We spent three days with my father, a retired Naval Commander in his home in San Juan Capistrano, prior to attending that Seminar.
After the conference was over, my father came to bid me his final good-bye. Elizabeth and I sat with him in an IHOP where he ordered hot fudge sundaes to celebrate what would be our final meeting on earth.
While visiting that Sunday with my Dad at our last visit in Los Angeles, we were blessed to hear my father share something with me, that he had never shared before. He shared his experience in the U.S. Navy where he took a series of career interest tests.
My father, who was sitting beside me spoke sincerely, “It was discovered on that aptitude test that I would have made a good bereavement counselor, clergyman or grief counselor. See, Karyn, we are not so different! I have the same interests as you! If I hadn’t been a Commander in the Navy, I would have probably endeavored to do the same exact work you are doing today! I probably wouldn’t have been so hard on you, in that case! I would have been a kinder, softer man.” He followed his remarks with, “Continue! Continue with the path you have started!”
While my father paid the bill, I turned to Elizabeth and said with tears in my eyes, “I know we are planning on coming back in November, but I have a feeling that my father will not be here at that time.”
After my patriot father’s unexpected passing, three months later on July 24th, 2013, I changed the name of “Joy Coaching® ” to Joy Coaching® America” in his honor. He was an example of pure patriotism that was imprinted into my heart.
It was during that final visit with my father on April 24th, 2013, that I intuitively knew that I would never see him again in this life. He passed away at 4:22 a.m. on July 24th, 2013, exactly three months later to the day. The morning of his passing, I awoke to an American Flag standing proudly in my lawn. It was a perfect symbol of my father’s patriotism and love for his country. On his grave marker, I had inscribed, “Patriarch and Patriot” in his honor.
As I reminisced upon my father’s patriotism this July 4th 2020, tears stream my cheeks. I have been listening to the news sending sound waves of cruelty, hate and deception as it escalates in this world. And again, I feel my heart breaking and wondering, “What is all this fighting for?”
As I open up my journal to write about July 4th, 2020, it is with a heart full of mixed emotions. I am praying for America today in a way that I have never dreamed I would ever pray for “Her” before.
In my mind’s eye, I see “Her” bowed like a statue of liberty, kneeling in fetal position, with a broken torch and a crumpled American Flag draped around her shoulders. I see tears of sorrow streaming her cheeks and I wonder…”Who will come and comfort America? Who will revive “Her” great Spirit? Who will remember…”Her” before it is everlastingly too late…Who will remember what made “Her” great in the first place?” Who will endeavor to repeat “Her” history truthfully?
I hear my father’s voice this early morning, speaking to my soul, as though he is whispering down the corridor that connects heaven to earth, “Continue. Continue. Continue the work that you are doing. America stands in need of comforters, now, more than ever before!”
And so, a small band of caring, kind, compassionate women…rise up…calling themselves, “Joy Coaches”. And we begin to spread across the battlefield call “one nation under God”. We will go about ministering to the wounded in spirit, the brokenhearted and the grieving. Not necessarily with P.H.D.’s in Psychology, but with hearts combined in that same spirit of empathy, love and kindness for which there is no degree.
What do we call ourselves? Comforters. There is no college degree for that. The work that we render will continue to bring comfort to those whose hearts and lives “have been broken in the wheels of living”.
For as Tennyson essentially once said, “Not even the angels of heaven can minister to mere mortals like those whose hearts have been broken in the wheels of living.”
And so…as the nation continues to grieve…. We will continue Joy Coaching® America…and beyond.
Carol: Why does the world need Joy Coaching® now?
Karyn: I believe that Joy Coaching® and it’s NEARLY twenty years of evolution, since 2001, has become a ‘gentle salve’ for the hidden wounds that the world is now facing. As the sorrows of this world have surfaced, I believe there is a greater need for “comforters”, “nurturers”, “Grief Coaches”, “empaths”. “Relaxation Therapists” through this Faith-Based-Method, point to a Divine Source for their clients who want to receive hope and healing. While we are not the “Healer,” we all believe that there is a “Healer” who knows the hearts and minds of all those who stand in need of comfort, hope and a renewed will to live!
