It started with a movie….and ended with a joyful silent disco!

YOUR OWN DAMN JOY

by Chelan Harkin

The price of admission

into heaven

is your own damn joy.

Please stop denying yourself this

and please stop telling yourself

you’ll only (maybe) get there when you die—

go there now!

What kind of damn fool

puts off heaven?

Child, it lives in the center of your heart—

that endless meadow of happiness and praise.

This world needs you to go there now

to do your part in turning it

into a paradise.

Let’s take a breath together.

The emotional weight that so many of us are carrying right now is real.

It can feel like too much.

Like joy is out of reach… or inappropriate.

But here’s what I’ve come to know deep in my bones:

Joy is not a luxury. It’s a lifeline.

It’s not a way of ignoring what’s hard.

It’s a way of staying human while facing what’s hard.

And as Chelan reminds us so powerfully:

The world needs you in your joy.

Not fake, pasted-on-smile joy.

But embodied, contagious, soul-level joy.

The kind that opens the heart, raises the frequency, and whispers:

Heaven is here. Let’s not wait.

Last Friday night, some of my neighbors and I gathered at our community farmhouse to watch Mamma Mia! We’re dreaming into our own little Blue Zone here in Austin—so we brought Greek-inspired, plant-based dishes to share and let ourselves sing and dance like wild women.

About halfway through, I got this intuitive hit:

“What if we did a silent disco walk around our agrihood with the Mamma Mia! soundtrack?”

So I organized it for Monday night while the joy was still flowing.

But over the weekend, I spoke with clients, friends, and family members all navigating grief, illness, and deep uncertainty.

And I paused.

“Is this really the time to lead something so lighthearted?”

That’s when Wayne Dyer’s words came rushing back:

You can’t suffer enough to ease another person’s suffering.

And that’s when Chelan’s poem found me again.

I remembered that joy is a form of prayer.

A form of protest.

A form of power.

So on Monday night, we disco-walked.

Headphones on, under the stars, singing ABBA at the top of our lungs while walking through the farm fields.

Laughing. Walking. Hugging.

We didn’t just raise our own vibration—we sent ripples out into the world.

💃🏽 🌾 💫

So here’s my prayer for you:

That you make time for your own damn joy.

Even now.

Especially now.

That you remember heaven is not a far-off reward.

It’s a meadow inside your chest, waiting for you to step in.

With fierce grace + contagious joy,

Deb