Of course, I grew up hearing all of the jokes about being “Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.” In sixth grade, I was in the hospital due to complications from chickenpox the same weekend that the epic movie made its annual presentation on television. Since I was obviously not at home, my younger brothers assumed that really was me on TV. They were terribly disappointed when I arrived home without Toto in tow!

I’ve actually never been to Kansas (though I did spend eight years in Texas, another state in Tornado Alley, so maybe that counts for something), I am originally from the Pacific Northwest. It seems so odd to me that a girl who still feels the tug and call to return to the Land of Moss could ever survive a decade in the heat of Las Vegas, or an extended sojourn in the high desert of Northern Utah, yet here I am.

From the time I was very young, I could “see auras” around people and objects. My grandmother, an amazing woman with a free and incredibly creative spirit, would hide “thought-forms” in the backyard for us to find with dowsing rods. She also put pyramids over her bananas to “keep them fresh longer,” adored all rocks and crystals, and could use a sewing machine like a wizard. From her, I learned that there is more to this Earth-realm than what is seen. I also developed a keen desire to discover how to access it.

In our family, there is a pattern among women to find something that we can improve or heal, and then do it. The caveat is to pass along the shifts AND the “leveling up” practice to the next generation. The women in my branch of the family, from my grandmother to my granddaughter, all carry the middle name Joyce as a sort of token reminder. For my section of the Yellow Brick Road of family life, I have felt the call to discover, share, and amplify JOY. Hence, InJoy Intuitive Hypnosis. Here is a little history about how that came about.

I was raised by a single mom in a very conservative and religiously dominant community with 4 of my 6 younger brothers. After spending several years as a rather dysfunctional teenager (didn’t most of us?), I managed to evade the AIDS scare of the 80s mostly unscathed, found my soul mate (or did he find me? THAT is one of my favorite stories and you can learn more about it in my Epiphanies Blog), and we founded our little corner of humanity. I became a devout woman of faith, a wife deliriously in love with her husband, a super Scout mom, and a homeschooler for 20 years. It was wild and amazing and hard and beautiful, and I would do it all again in a heartbeat (with a few changes of course, lol!). And as frequently happens in our real-life stories, the more comfortable I became, the more things started to change.

My mom began having health challenges. Big ones. Being a homeschool family allowed us to shift family gears and come back to Utah to care for my mom for what we thought would be 6 weeks of hospice care. Instead, it ended up being two years of gently overhauling everything I knew about life, love, family, commitment, death, parenting, and being parented.

During that time in the summer of 2007, I took a class on “energy healing” in hopes of being able to ease my mom’s transition. It was the first step in the rest of my life. Of course. That is how Love Magic works. My mother had summoned me back to the place where I would find the steps my soul wanted. Later in December, I held her hand and “birthed” her back through “the veil.” Truly a precious, glorious experience.

Now the flood gates were open. I had “seen too much” of the variety of ways Spirit works in our lives, and as Spirit insistently does, my old beliefs and limitations were being challenged. I unpacked the differences between what I had been trained to expect from a demanding and somewhat crotchety god and my own sublime experiences with Divine Love/ Source. I found my wings and embraced the intuitive clarity that had always been bubbling just beneath the surface of every moment. (Please note, because there were times in my life when a set religious paradigm was key to my growth and development, I strive to honor the beliefs and traditions of my clients: they are there for a reason, and that makes it a sacred space.)

Much like the Very Hungry Caterpillar, I devoured metaphysical information as I had once inhaled doctrine. I trained in more modalities and certified to teach them. My priorities were still centered around “hearth, home, family” so I kept my practice quite small. Yet, as our “nest” began to empty and our children launched into the next phases of their lives, a tide of delicious energy kept pulling me deeper and deeper into the healing arts. The cycle of one life phase folding in on itself even as the next one began its unfolding process caused my intuitive “clair-senses” (clairvoyance, clairsentience, clairaudience, etc.) to develop exponentially! I use these etheric senses and skills on behalf of clients who are looking for ways to improve their lives, find peace with the past, and springboard into powerful futures.

So, here I am, unfolding. My practice has grown sturdy legs and runs smoothly on its own, bringing “tech support for the soul.”™ both locally in my little town, and worldwide via Zoom calls. My husband is as excited as I am to see this part of me take the lead and fly!

Remember when Glinda asked Dorothy if she was a good witch or a bad witch? Well, I took a phrase from Wayne Dyer and made it my own: as one who works with the power of hypnosis and the benevolence of Source Energy, I am an Optimystic Source’ress who is free of the narrow confines of that old Yellow Brick Road and excels at restoring JOY.

And so it is!