Dr. Joy Freeman

About Me

When asked to look at my life and some of the things I am proud of about myself,

I found it is not necessarily all the things I have “done”. Funny, but I notice an aspect of it, is the very thing that some would judge me for…..

That is, my ability to make changes. And for this I call myself a "Professional Change Agent". Freedom has carried a high value for me as well as honoring my truth over outer rules or boxes that don’t fit the truth of who I am. A life of feeling depressed and trapped is just not OK in my book. There are always choices one can make to change the sense of trapped, but it usually takes courage, leaps of faith, core habit change or standing up for our truth over other’s judgments.

But I got that this was not possible with out first establishing a Relationship of Trust between all parts of myself, my Soul Self and Spirit. So I set out to learn how to create this. After many years of study, searching and practice, I finally experienced this Relationship of Trust, and that it created a ground of inner safety and strength, that gave me the courage to take the risks necessary to create a life that fits the truth of who I am.... only then did I move out of depression, ill health, feeling lonely and many other very unhappy states.

As the child of an alcoholic, chain smoking mother and a workaholic father during a time period where mother’s natural instincts were superseded by male doctors, to the point that breast feeding was abandoned, I grew up in an environment where there was little to no consistent palpable connection.

The current field of psychology with its Attachment and Affect Regulation Theories labels this lack of “attunement” to an infant and young child, along with other ongoing adverse child hood experiences as “Developmental Trauma”.

This history along with my natural inclination, (as my mother told me when I was 9 that “I really understand people”), is what spurred a lifelong quest to understand “what makes people happy?” This quest was also motivated by my own deep level of discontent and sense of not enough, unloveable and other core states of defectiveness. I now understand that all this comes from an underlying shame that exists as a result of this lack of initial Self building Connection or non attunement. These feelings of inadequacy (no matter how successful I was in the outer world) were only enhanced by many poor choices I made in relationships, that this all typically leads to.

My first book Express Yourself: Discover Your Inner Truth, Creative Self and the Courage to Let it Out, took me 7 years to write and was my first attempt at expressing all that I had learned and discovered up to that point, to help me move beyond the inherent sense of inadequacy that was lodged deep within my cellular memories. That was published in approximately 2000. When I did radio interviews for this book I had distilled what was in this book down to 4 Keys at first.

Now many years later with more life experience, trainings and working with many more people as a workshop facilitator and counselor, I have enhanced the existing keys, added more and refined it to 7 Powerful Keys. I also have come to understand that so much of the woes of our culture come from a great sense of Disconnection that I talk about in the book as “the Great Disconnect.” The Antidote to this is contained within this new book, the 7 Keys to Connection.

So though my resume is 3 solid pages long of many different things I have studied, created, or done in the world, I have come to let go of all this value and importance placed in my “doing.”

Through it all and the inner work done I have come to find my value in my “being” – that is, coming to love and accept and find value in each part of myself, even those parts that I have judged in the past. I have come to see how much it actually assists others simply by being who I am. In my case, being someone who values and loves change, has grown into the ability to make those changes even when they can be quite scary at times, and have learned how to translate that ability. With this, perhaps I can help you make the changes your heart is longing to make.

Joy Freeman

ps I love to Dance, Sing, and Hike in nature. (hence the dancing pic) I make it a point to include these things regularly n my life, without which I get dull, and somewhat depressed again. The old adage all work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy (or Susi suicidal - lol) is so much more true than you can believe.... it is completely unnatural (read more about all this in 7 Keys to Connection as it happens to be one of the Keys.

Lastly, I also facilitate fun playshops of creatively expressive, dance, drumming and singing or writing and include elements of these in deeper workshops as well.