The art of storytelling. The premise that everyone has a story to tell, and maybe a shared common experience, the feeling of Joy.
Through my own journey, I have learned the power and importance of positivity, expressed gratitude, and joy. The Joy Project is meant to be both individually cathartic and collectively powerful, asking anyone interested in participating to share experiences in their life that they could recall and wouldn’t mind expressing, moments that provided Joy for them.
How to Record Your Moments of Joy
First things first, join our community.
Here are the quick and easy steps to find us:
Download the StoryCorps App
Click “Get Started”
Set up an account with your preferred email
Click “Communities”
Search for The Joy Project
Click “Join”
To create your recording:
Make sure you are using the StoryCorps App, you will not be able to record your interview on the site.
Under Record an Interview click “Record Today” and follow the prompts by preparing your interview with a title. Since we are providing you with prompts to record yourself you will not need to worry about the other preparation bullet points.
Hit Record Now and tell us all about your Moments of Joy
Make sure to “Save to Archive” when done!
To upload your recording to the community:
Login to the StoryCorps Archive website
Go to “My Interviews & Profile”
Click “Interviews”
Click “Edit Interview”
Scroll to the bottom and check off the box to add your interview to “The Joy Project” community!
Click “Save to Archive”
Prompts
- Please share some of the things that make you smile/bring you joy.
- Please share your earliest joyful memory.
- Do you feel like you laugh enough? If so, when, and if not, how do you think that you can increase the times that you feel joyful?
- Please share what person or people are you most grateful for and why?
- Do you have any additional thoughts that you would like to share with regards to joy?
About The Joy Project
Steve and I in 2018
By the end of Middle School, I had become a four-time National Champion/Co-Champion, was a three-time All-American, represented the United States twice in the World Youth Championships, and have currently led my school team to 15 National Championships. My success masked the ongoing battle with performance stress and anxiety that affected how I performed in tournaments. Recognizing that chess has always been, for me, a mental sport, I sought help from a sports psychologist to not only manage but use performance stress to my advantage. I was still feeling burnt out and my trajectory didn’t seem sustainable. More than anything else, this sports psychologist, Steve Kahan, taught me that the absolute most important thing was to love and accept myself completely without judgment. Steve emphasized the idea to try to always be in the moment, fully present, and to find joy in everything that I do, including chess. Steve became one of my most formative mentors and close friends since I was 9 years old. I was devastated when Steve passed away suddenly and unexpectedly this past fall. There are no words to describe the loss. Through my work with Steve, for the past seven years, I have practiced mindfulness and gratitude and have tried to learn how to live with integrity, acceptance, intention, clarity… and joy. I have been thinking about how I could honor Steve and his living legacy with this initiative.
StoryCorps’ mission is “to preserve and share humanity’s stories in order to build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world. To remind one another of our shared humanity, to strengthen and build the connections between people, to teach the value of listening, and to weave into the fabric of our culture the understanding that everyone’s story matters.” The art of storytelling. The premise that everyone has a story to tell, and maybe a shared common experience, the feeling of joy. Let’s each download the StoryCorps App and get started!
Using StoryCorps technology, I will share their App and assist in setting up interviews with a cross-section of students who have been exposed to my mindfulness initiatives; Colorflow and Mindmates, family, friends, teachers, local store clerks… anyone interested in participating and asking them to share the moments in their life that they could recall and wouldn’t mind sharing, moments that provided Joy for them.