Episode 181 with Joy Prouty
Rediscovering Joy: From Survival Mode to Present Moments
SHOW NOTES:
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
181 JOY PROUTY
Ginny Yurich Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Ginny Yurich. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside. And I'm so excited. I have a new friend with me today. I just absolutely adored her book. It's coming out next week, but it will already be out by the time this podcast airs. Joy Prouty, welcome. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Hi.
Joy Prouty This is getting like I my face is hurting from smiling. This is a wonderful shift from the way I've been feeling internally about the book release.
Ginny Yurich So it's a lot of pressure. Yeah, yeah.
Joy Prouty It's just, I think any level of vulnerability, you know, a new level that you step into is a whole thing. So, yeah.
Ginny Yurich Sure. Well, I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your book. The book is called Practicing Presents A mother's Guide to Savoring Life through the Photos you're already Taking. And it's one of those books I read a lot, especially for the podcast. It's one of those books that felt like a comfy chair. And I don't think that happens very much. Like you read it and you just feel more at peace. You know, some books you read and you're just whatever consuming information. But this was like a blanket. It makes you feel something. And so I really genuinely enjoyed it so much. I actually can't wait to see the final version because I've got a black and white. Oh, yeah, I know it will be a lot different with the photographs, but just such a beautiful book. Very meaningful. Thank you.
Joy Prouty Thank you.
Ginny Yurich And it hits kind of right where you're at. It's like I needed to read this. And I also think, too, because there's a lot of information out there about like not taking pictures and being in the moment, but I actually really like taking pictures. So it was very validating for me, too. So just enjoyed it so much. Huge Congrats and. Q I'm excited for people to read it. Like one of those ones to really touch your soul. So this has been a big journey for you, like you've been a photographer for a long time. But beyond the photography, you have a lot of thoughts just about being present. So I love to start there. Okay, If you're interested in starting there.
Joy Prouty We can start there.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. About how photography has helped you be more present.
Joy Prouty Well, photography has been the only way I think that I have that I was for various seasons of life, able to become present. And I didn't know that that's what I was doing. I didn't know that. I'm like, Oh, this is my nervous system is regulating. You know, I didn't have the terms for what was happening there. And I think people can do it in all different ways. I mean, some people find it through physical activity. Is that right there? It's whatever gets you out of your mind and into your body, because an embodied experience is one that we can really be seen and heard and see others and hear them in our current life. And also, for me, growing up in survival mode, which I think a lot of our generation did, we have had to find our own tools of learning to regulate ourselves. And mine was photography, and I think it felt so good. And I was like, Oh, I'm the best version of myself when I'm looking through this little black box. And not only can it soothe me, but when I take a picture of someone else, they see something good there too. Or I can see something good that maybe they couldn't see. And so I think it was a method of learning to self validate from an early age, and then it's just hit different levels and layers. And I gained words for it over time and I was like, Oh, this is actually like a neuroscience based activity that's helping to rewire my brain. Oh my gosh, how you know? And then the validation was on a whole nother level where I'm like, okay, this is really something valuable.
Ginny Yurich I just love how you wove this together in a book that not only are you giving practical tips for taking photos, which I've already been using and really like, but you took it just to this very deep level about our mothering and our humanity and how a hobby like being a photographer or even if it's a career, you can do so much for our souls. So you have a lot of kids and photography has held you through mothering a lot of kids and also a health journey. So could you tell us about just the last couple decades of life as a mom and and just the.
Joy Prouty Last couple decades? Okay, no problem.
Ginny Yurich Drew. You know, let's see.
Joy Prouty Oh, goodness gracious. Okay. So, yes, I have seven children. We have homeschooled from the beginning. And I think the majority of that was necessity at first because we traveled so much and we thought we want to be together as a family. So we traveled a lot and brought the kids along and lived on the road for a while. Anyway, we fell in love with becoming children again through their childhood. And I think that no matter how many kids you have or if you're homeschooling or. Not. You are forced to learn to parent yourself when you're raising all of these people. And for me, as far as health stuff, when I look back now, I see that so much of my struggle physically was based in my inability to recognize the way I was handling stress. And when you're parenting and you have very little sleep, I mean, with seven of them, I still have a baby. And raising a teenager that's almost an adult. You know, we have not slept in a very long time. And if you're kind of teetering on the edge of trying to handle a lot of stress and then you're not getting sleep, it just causes an internal revolution to have to happen if you want to keep showing up to your life. So I think that I suffered with times of migraines and lots of anxiety stuff, tons of panic and depression and ADHD. And I mean, I see PTSD and there's a whole list where shall we point? But I didn't have names for those things until the last couple, you know, maybe the last like seven years. I could like start to name that stuff. But all along that way, I would get so panicked. And growing up in a home where my emotions felt really invalidated. I think in that sort of situation, it's common that you turn in on yourself and you can't really blame your caregivers because they're taking care of you. So you're just like, What is wrong with me? And I had carried that kind of anthem with me my whole life. And definitely in my mothering, you know, and especially when your kids are doing things where it's like you're reacting in a certain way, but it's like at least for me, I knew.
Ginny Yurich There's.
Joy Prouty Part of me that like, why am I This doesn't feel right. Like this tension inside of me as a mother. I know, you know, because you have this whole thing about being outdoors, you know, like, I'm like, grab your camera. You like, let's grab whatever we need to get outside. It's the same idea.
Ginny Yurich Yeah.
Joy Prouty Where we're needing to find a salve because there's no answer for some of these things. And so peace is the answer that helps us. At least for me, becoming present is a state of regulation. And I most recently was you told me to go into it, so I'll just keep going.
Ginny Yurich Tell me when to stop. Oh, okay.
Joy Prouty So four years ago, I was pregnant with our six child and diagnosed with type one diabetes. And I think that our current world doesn't really know that much about type one diabetes. There's like, stigma, and I had to learn a lot about it, and I didn't know it was that big a deal. It's totally life threatening and you have to learn a whole new way of living. And I'm insulin dependent and I was pregnant at the time and there was a lot of fear if my child was going to make it. And I felt a lot of pressure on me to get my stress under control.
Ginny Yurich Which is ironic. Yeah, right. Okay. Pressure to feel less stressed. You might. You might die. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's.
Joy Prouty Just that is motherhood. But the coolest thing about getting diagnosed, if there is some cool thing about getting diagnosed with a non curable disease, it's that I could finally see the way that stress was affecting my body and like, I could see it in a number. And I now had knowledge as an adult for what stress was, how it was damaging me. I think if I had been diagnosed not pregnant, I wouldn't have maybe taken such an interest in all of the layers of this. But I knew, okay, like even if I don't value my own self very much, like that was kind of the anthem over me. In times of worry, that's the place my mind will go. I thought, This baby is in me and this baby deserves a chance at me learning how to regulate my stress. And so every time my blood sugar would start to raise during that pregnancy, I would pick up my camera and I would watch as I would catapult myself into this world of focusing on beauty, wonder goodness, being present with my people there instead of inside my mind. I could literally see the numbers, my glucose numbers come down because my anxiety was lessening. It just was a pretty mindblowing thing to see. That feeling can come through ways that you maybe didn't realize you were already had right in front of you.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. And that that draw toward the camera from a young age. You talked about 12, you know, you talked about a young age where you had a pretend camera, right? That from a young age your body knew, your body knew. Hey, there's this thing that's going to help you feel better. That's really encouraging. Like you said in you can find your thing, whether it's the camera or something else. This book is helping you to practice presents and to learn. You said being kind to yourself and self-compassion gives you an opportunity to slow down. So, so much beautiful advice in here. One of the subjects that I've never talked about before, but I thought it was such an interesting one was this concept of ourselves being photographed. And I love how you shared your journey of being a photographer and then moving into the home and spending a day with a family and getting their real life moment. Can you talk us through that transition, your photography transition and why you made that change?
Joy Prouty Sure. Thank you for drawing attention to that. I've been doing photography for 20 years now, and I think when it started out, Instagram wasn't a thing yet. There wasn't. I mean, Facebook was kind of starting. I think it was I don't I don't remember exactly, But the photographs I was taking at that point, people were not thinking about how can I take this and show myself to be different than how I am, at least when I started. And I watched in real time as I became as I started to do this as a profession, I started to see how the shift into like a social media world changed the way that people wanted themselves to be perceived visually and as someone who really values authenticity. That was hard for me to handle, you know, requests to make certain parts of the body bigger or smaller or just appear different. And that was my job to be paid to make people look a certain way. And so I had to go through a lot of personal evolutions of courage, of jumping, kind of pivoting or expanding into a more authentic version of that photography career I had created. When I realized, Oh, no, people think that I'm going to. People would often, if their child would cry, they would, you know. Stop, stop, stop. Be quiet. Be quiet and give them candy or like, rush them away. And it just felt like all the truth in photography was, like, slowly evaporating. And I think it's been that way for quite some time. But I think I just got a little bit of a closer view over time as the years went by. And so I realized I don't want to do this anymore. Like this is agonizing. I want more truth. I want people to have time to be honest and not feel like they have to be looking like they're having the best day of their lives. And I had a client at that point that was contemplating getting a divorce, and she said, Would you consider coming and spending a whole day with us and just see if there's anything worth saving here? And that was such a profound invitation because that just felt like a lot of pressure. Yeah, but also I was excited because I thought maybe this is my new doorway into doing this kind of work. And it was so interesting because the day with them, it was a beautiful day. And I came away with that thinking, Oh, she just spoke this thing that maybe every mom is thinking when she books a photoshoot know like, are we going to make it? Like, can you just come in, show me if there's anything here worth saving. And so I started to see every family that I was photographing that way. And it really transformed the way that I started taking pictures or like, you know, kind of shifted. Well, I'm so glad it touched.
Ginny Yurich On my crying over here. The tears are falling.
Joy Prouty In this year at the time for sure, because it was almost like when someone says these heavy statements of finality, it's like you think, oh, they must appear like things are really bad. But I think what I realized was, oh, everybody is just really, really numb or like putting on a good face, especially for the person documenting them to, like, prove to everybody else that they're okay. So I thought, I want to do this all the time. I want to be with people for a whole day. I want to spend the night on their couch. I want to see them like. So I think any work we do, if we're paying attention, it makes us a better person when we're not working. And that's where it started happening to me as I was observing these people willingly, like grieving in front of me and like being willing to just like, strip it all of it away because the purpose was not to get a great shot for Instagram. The purpose was just show me what's here because I can not see myself clearly.
Ginny Yurich Hmm. Wow, that's so powerful. I got so much out of this whole concept because another thing that you talked about was that looking back, I mean, what do you really get out of a posed picture? Like looking back, you talk. Talked about, like you want to be able to see all the things that were on the counter and you knew even talked about how you look back at photos with your kids and they're noticing things that you had forgotten. Like, oh, remember that one thing? And is I mean, such a beautiful statement you wrote, Home is a place filled with all kinds of vulnerabilities. And I found that the things people later wish they could remember are often the things they are currently trying to forget. Hmm. Wow. I mean, that's everyone needs to read that. Like, photograph the things that you want to forget right now, because you're going to want to remember that you made it through.
Joy Prouty Or.
Ginny Yurich That you're resilient. And I think it's really a powerful statement. I loved what you talked about. You know, your kids may be looking back and I think all remember this. Remember that because they see the things that are in the background. So really a lot there. What about just and this is a huge topic to you about. Okay. This really hit me. Truth be told, you're talking about like how as mothers, most mothers, some mothers are looking fantastic, but a lot of mothers are afraid to be photographed because it shows what we actually look like. And in our minds, this is what you talked about. And I kind of feel the same way in our mind. You know, we're seeing ourselves 15 years ago or ten years ago, but that's not how we actually show up. But you said the most profound thing. This is who our kids are seeing. And I thought that was so beautiful.
Joy Prouty I know. Isn't that true? I mean, I think if we can I think all of us we have had these moments with our kids where we realize, you know, like when they push into our squishy belly or something and they, like, love it, you know, where there's these, like sensory experiences that our children are having with us that we are not aware of. And like the feeling of that spot, like at your neck, like the neck where they, they nuzzle their face in, like even my teenagers, that's still the place they go. And those aren't things I think about, but those are the things that define who their mother is to them. And so often, 99% of the time, my mind is filled with like, who am I being perceived as? Like, am I keeping my crap in hidden enough to not damage them? Like, that's pretty much all of my mental energy is there. And so I think it's such a gigantic mindset shift to then start really paying attention and choosing to document for them.
Ginny Yurich The.
Joy Prouty Things that they will want to remember. Like what I wouldn't give to have a photo, I don't know, just photos of things that I remember about my mother that she would never have thought to take pictures of just because their generation. It was a more pleasing, posed perspective that was happening. So a camera like, I think having a mantra is really important. It's when we're like taking a pic, when we're choosing to be in a picture, having a purpose for this. Like it could be what we were just talking about. Like this is how my Clementine loves playing with my hair. Okay, so that's the image I want to have for her. We're going to have that real experience. We're going to embody it. We're going to soak it up. We're going to have it as sensory as possible. And then it's also we're going to take a picture. It's not going to be a big deal. We're not going to set up a whole photo shoot. We're just going to have a proof that it happened of this memory and that that's for her. But I benefit, too. But I'm thinking of what's for her. So I think it's important to realize in the book there's there's several things that we can do with photographs. There's the memorializing of who they need to remember us as. And then there's also these other photographs that we need to do to heal our inner child wounding. That is separate, but they both benefit and nourish each other. They're just not happening, usually simultaneously with children involved.
Ginny Yurich Isn't it interesting? It makes me think about when you talk in the book about the history. You touch on it just a little bit, which I never, ever occurred to me like I was, you know, that there was a time period where people didn't have cameras as most of human history, right? There wasn't cameras, but I never thought about you literally had the date in there, like in this part. Kodak came out with a camera and now we can all take photos. And it almost feels like it came at a time when we really needed it. It came at a time when we are in these spots where we need to have some healing and we need to walk through these times and we need to have some proof, like you said, proof of the things that we did. I mean, sometimes even a little video will pop up and, you know, you think like, oh, I was probably a crummy mom. And then you have a little video that pops up and it's their little voice and they're reading their book and they're like, you know, it was okay and it. Gives us so much. And it's a gift. It's a gift that we have this in this time. And I think it's such a huge statement. I wanted to embrace how she saw me. You're talking about the child. Like I'm thinking about how tired and how heavy I look. I'm thinking in my mind, I see a younger, skinnier pasta version. This picture doesn't match what I look like in my head, but, I mean, it's a good fight. Fight against comparing the current me to the past. Me really big things. Looking at ourselves is how our kids see us. And to your point, when you talk about documenting for them, I look to the part where you are talking about some of the pictures that you have that your mom took. I thought that was so special. You say, when I take a picture of my child, I envision them holding it in their hands in 30 years. Oh, I love that. Can you talk about a favorite picture or two of yourself that your mom took when you were a kid?
Joy Prouty Yes. Thanks for asking that. I have this one picture where I was totally naked and covered in marker. You know, every inch there wasn't one inch that. It wasn't just the thick, the smelly mark. Remember the smell of the markers, like every fruit.
Ginny Yurich Smell.
Joy Prouty And shit. And I just was so proud. And I. I just think, you know, there are a lot of things that she didn't look at, you know, that she didn't see in me internally. But she saw my creativity. She saw my like that. I was not going to be put in a room with a perfect anything like I was just is just going to be what it's going to be. And she was celebrating it. And that was just I mean, it was a healing moment when I found some of those photographs when I was putting this book together, because I realized so often in our mind, we've crafted our relationship with someone or the way that they see us in a certain way, because Trump is so can gets all wound up and we don't have good memories. I mean, that's also in the book. There are too about like, you know, how we have to be focusing on something for at least 20 to 30 seconds for it to even become a memory. And so our memories are not perfect. And so it's really valuable to look back and to then now choose to tell, you know, you will have to tell the whole, because I get this question a lot. Moms are like, Well, okay, I want to do this work. But like, how much of it can I really like? Like, isn't isn't it? I don't know. How much can I do with it still being a positive experience or like. So just as a few things, just like if I can leave a few ideas. Yeah, few things that I do. This is you don't have to take pictures of like, showing your body parts necessarily start small where it's like, okay, for me, something that my kids are always looking at. I have a lot of marks on my leg for like where I give my injection of my shot. And that that in itself is something that causes me a lot of fear. And they come alongside. They've been in that journey with me. And so they look at them in my toddlers. They trace their fingers along there, and they helped me. We did a little photo project where they helped me take pictures just with my phone of those little marks. And then we made them into constellations. So it's like, what can we show them? It's not just smiling pictures. What can we show them on ourselves? But then they will later look at their bodies and say, this is not an imperfection. This is something that is can be art. And so it's changing that mindset of like the things that maybe might be defined as previously, something that shouldn't be looked at or that should be hidden, that we can reframe that through photography and the experience of what that looks like.
Ginny Yurich I am impressed at the depth that you have gone with this. I'm so impressed. This book about I mean, it's a beautiful covers, got your picture with the camera and it's just so, so much more than taking pictures. There's such a depth to this book. It's very beautiful. And you talked about that negative negativity bias, which is one of the things I had written down that you said the brain is like Velcro for negative experiences, but Teflon for positive ones, that it's that you have to be actively present for at least 20 seconds in a joyful moment in order to retain it, but only one second for the negative.
Joy Prouty It's so crazy. It's so unfair. It's very primal. You know, that's that's I think I when I heard that research for the first time, I was like, this is so this sucks. This sucks. Our brains are like they because the whole purpose in the beginning, whenever was was to stay alive, to keep it, to keep this thing rolling, this human race rolling. And so, like, for anything bad, like a stick fly at your face or a huge cliff, you know, like. One second. Okay. You got to know that has got to become a memory so that you don't die.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, but the.
Joy Prouty Problem is that anything good or beautiful, it takes up to 20 seconds, at least 20 seconds. So it's like, think of as a mom, you are rushing through everything and you're so tired, you're not paying attention. Like, and then you add in social media in the way that we have been trained to have short attention spans. I mean, it's like at every turn our brains are being told, Look away, look away. Don't, don't, don't be present, don't be in your body. You might feel something and you're not going to buy that product or whatever. We have to retrain our brains or else we are going to have no memories. Yeah, I mean, that's the heartbreaking thing, really. Because think about it. Our grandparents, they had so many stories. They're telling us all these stories like and how often now can we tell a story without grabbing our phone? Almost never.
Ginny Yurich Wow, you have to sit with it. And 20 seconds is not that long. But actually it does. It is long to be sitting in a spot where you're actually present for the full 20 plus seconds, experiencing the joy sitting with that. And that's what you talk about in this book. Like you have the sentence that says the camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera because you're learning how to focus and to take that time and really to notice what's in the lens. It's a big thing to know 20 seconds of joy or we don't retain it. It's huge. And one second for the negative. Oh, wow. Okay. So there was a beautiful story in here about the collecting rocks with the cousin. I loved that story. And it kind of led into I think it maybe not right into but just being present. And then you have this four step presence principle, and this shows up throughout the book in different ways, different ideas. Can you? Well, the little collecting rock story is so precious. Could you tell just a little part of that? I loved it.
Joy Prouty Sure. Thanks. Well, I think that I mean, all of our kids collect things when we go on adventures, right? So often our pockets are full of these tangible pieces that prove that they were present. And that's the same thing as what our photographs are for us. We don't really accept that much anymore, usually just the kids. But it's that's kind of that's the connection point there. But he his cousin had come for a visit and because of COVID, they hadn't seen each other in so long. And it was just really, really special. And after he left, Smith was so sad. He's very heavy feeler. Wonder where he got that from? I don't know. And he came in, you know, to bed in his his pockets were full and I climbed in next to him and he brought he was so sad and he wasn't talking and he pulled his hand out of his pocket and he handed me these rocks and he said, will you keep this safe? So and I said, What are they? And he just could barely tell me without crying. But he was say, you know, that it was from the Rock Pit where they had been playing. And he didn't want to forget this experience that happened. And so he collected these rocks as proof because he didn't ever want to forget and he wanted to make sure they would be able to stay safe. And so I put them in a safe place. And so anyway, I realized, like he developed his own little plan for making sure that he wouldn't forget this beautiful experience in the midst of so much disappointment that had been happening. And so I realized that's what we need. We need a plan. And so the presence principle, it's a four step plan that combines the neuroscience research with photography principles to rewire the brain and get you sitting in an experience long enough to retain it in your memory and for it to feel enjoyable. Because I know for me it's hard to enter into a moment, and especially as someone that was trained for a long time to take pictures that look perfect, I have to constantly be assessing, okay, this is like therapy. Every time I am choosing to tell the truth and not wipe things off or move things away. And so it's like it's that choice, that internal choice is the thing that is so transformational about this principle. Okay? So number one is slow down and breathe. So the first thing that we always have to do and you can apply this even if you don't have your camera, you can use it for any situation to move from your mind into your body and experience more peace. So this is something that a lot of us I think were already doing. We just hadn't really formulated it to realize, Oh, something scientific is happening. Okay, so number one, slow down in breath. Body regulation. So. Deep breath. Breathe out. Know, develop whatever kind of breathing technique you need. But you need something where you're hand to heart. You know, realizing sometimes I'll even use this trick where, like, I'm like, tracing my spine, where I'm like, I have a back, I have a body, I'm in my body. I am like, I come back into this space. I'm an adult, I'm safe. Whatever things need to happen there, you just breathe into your body. Just stop it. Stop and just stop.
Ginny Yurich Yeah.
Joy Prouty Breathe. Once you're in your body. Because I think that's the problem, is a lot of us are taking pictures from a disembodied space.
Ginny Yurich Wow. I would say that's how I feel. That's so interesting, because I've been thinking a lot about your book and slowing down because it's a mixture of two things. It's a mixture of wanting to capture the moment and then also the silly pressure from social media. So I think that for a long period of time, to me there's like a lot of pressure to capture it the right way. And so it does feel disembodied. It feels instead of like, I am here, let me see the beauty in this moment. It's like, I'm not really good at this. I'm trying to capture whatever. This is my only shot. The kids are going to move.
Joy Prouty Out.
Ginny Yurich And it feels frantic. That's really interesting.
Joy Prouty Yeah, I think it's hard. I mean, I want to encourage so many people to use their phone to do pictures who because it's accessible, which is good. But I think our minds have been trained to think of our phones in a certain way, like we already have such a tension. I think it's like, I want to break up with my phone, I need my phone, I need to make money on my phone. I need to connect to my people like we have this tension. So I would encourage when you're doing the presence principle or like if you're trying this and you really need a framework like starting it, step one, like find an old camera or like, I mean, they're so cheap now. The technology is so cheap for a good camera. Like you can spend 50 bucks and get a great camera that at least you're like, okay, this is my tool for this. And it's like even just choosing that tool is such a powerful mindset shift. Okay, so step one is slow down and breathe. Okay, Step two Okay, I'm going to just get a balance so that I'm actually giving you the right words as well.
Ginny Yurich So I've got to set an intention.
Joy Prouty Okay, so you tell it to me and I'll explain it. Okay? So slow down to breathe. Set an intention, write it everywhere. Okay. So there is another thing that being on our phones has stolen our ability to have muscle memory of our experiences. So because of that, there's not a lot of actual writing that's happening with a pen. And so much of intuitive research shows about how it's like we can't really dive in and know anything that's happening internally to us unless we are using our body to communicate. And when we're just typing with our phone, it's a very if that's again, a disembodied kind of experience, right? I mean, I can write a poem on my phone, but if I, I might never cry if I'm writing it on my phone, but if I'm writing it with a pencil in my journal, I'm having an experience. So the whole point of this is like, how can we do the things we're already doing but take the disembodied body part away? And how can we make this a present experience? So it is going to take it's going to feel uncomfortable at the beginning and so set in intention and write it everywhere. Okay, this is going into the research again, but it's it's based in the way that our subconscious is constantly searching for the things that we are feeding it. And so there's this part of our brain. It's the base of our brainstem called the reticular activation system. And this is like the club bouncer that's like keeping the bad things out, keeping getting the good things. And basically it's like it's this door. We're telling it all this information. So if I'm telling my reticular activation system all day, every day, Joy, you're a bad mom. Joy, Everything is so bad. Like, oh, they'd be better off without you. Which is a thought that enters my brain often when I feel like I'm really disregulated around my kids is that that reticular activation system is going to say, Oh, Joy is telling us it is so important to look for proof that she's a bad mom case. Send that to the subconscious. Joy is telling us that she thinks she would be better off without her kids. Let's look for proof of that everywhere and then sending that to my subconscious. So then so it's like I'm not only thinking these sites and I'm trying really hard, but then my subconscious is working against me.
Ginny Yurich To.
Joy Prouty Search for proof that things are in fact as bad as I think they are. And so there is great power, scientifically proven power in setting an intention and feeding it into the reticular activation system so that your subconscious is then. Working for you and it's like you're getting this extra brain boost. It's helping you point towards goodness that I was like, Oh, there is. I mean, I always thought positivity was just people trying to make me feel better. I didn't know that this could actually, like, enhance my brain health. So yeah. So you want to set an intention and write it everywhere. So like, so Jenny, what would be one that you would do?
Ginny Yurich Well, one of the ones I wrote from your book said, Be all here. And I really like that one, right? Just to be present. And you had a bunch of different examples in here, actually, in the different chapters. So be all here. I like that you say say it out loud, put it in my phone, write it down. So I see it throughout the day. I like that one a lot.
Joy Prouty Great. Yeah. You just need to remind yourself constantly because our brain is constantly scanning for negativity all the time. We have to be like, See? I mean, some days I'll just sharpie out my arms with like some of these intentions. So I'm looking even if I look at my phone, I'm looking at that thing I wrote. Oh, wait, hold on. That's more important. Put the phone down with the intention. Say it. Breathe. Take 10 seconds. When we get in the car, set the intent. Say I tell my kids that the intention to.
Ginny Yurich Give another like an example. I'm okay or things are okay. What are some other ones that you would use?
Joy Prouty I can find joy.
Ginny Yurich Or I can find joy. That's the beautiful. There's one in every chapter, so I mean, it's worth it. I am expansive. That's beautiful. I mean, they're all really meaningful.
Joy Prouty Thank you. Well, you're just basically trying to. So number one is you become embodied in regulate. Number two is you're trying to get your subconscious to help you in all of this work you're doing. Step three is then you engage in a sensory rich memory. Okay? So like you have calmed yourself, you are in a state where you know what you're doing. You have your intention, your body is regulated. Now you can enter this experience with your child and have it be one of intentional presence rather than this like tension of, Oh, am I doing this right, this resentment. Okay, So the way you do that is you have to make it super, super sensory. So experience that. That's why like cooking together can be really great or like music and dancing and you have to engage those senses so that you're continually staying in the body and retaining that muscle memory in your cells. And then once that beauty has happy your and you're feeling good about it, right? The presence has already happened, the connection has happened. You're like, Oh yeah. Or even if it was hard, but usually if it's hard, you're still like, Oh, it was hard. But yeah, and then you focus and take the picture. So there's not that anxiety of, oh, it's picture time. Yeah, it's creating a whole new framework around what it can mean to you and developing a new family culture around what it means. Like why are you do we take pictures on the first day of school? Why do we take pictures of the frog we found in the art? Like communicate and ask them why they think it's valuable?
Ginny Yurich I love that you wrote Capture the Essence, and I've taken that with me like so yesterday we were at the river and it's a spot where I've taken pictures of our youngest daughter a lot of times. But I did that. I slowed down. I'm like, What am I really trying to capture here? And she likes to make river stew and it's really precious. So I was able to step back and I took one like through the reeds. I don't know. I like it. I saw you did great. Yeah, I've done a lot. You know, just that thought of slowing down and not being so frantic about it and looking for the essence and thinking like, why is it that I want to capture? What is it about this moment that I really want to capture? And so I love that this presence principle is throughout the book. So is your poetry as beautiful? Every chapter. These are all your writings?
Joy Prouty Yes. MM Yeah, they're just kind of tucked in between. They're sometimes in the midst of learning about research and thing. Like you need a little, little palate cleanser.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, I love that. Well, because it you have, you talk a lot about creativity because I think creativity is such a tricky one. Right? And Rachel King wrote a book about it that I thought was really meaningful. And it's one of those things that often feels like it can go by the wayside, especially when we're so busy with child rearing. But you talk about when we create, we expand. And so I like that you show that throughout the book, either poetry along with your photography, and you had a really cool thing about gardening. It was kind of toward the end. I really like this part.
Joy Prouty About being a gardener.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, about being a gardener. But also like when we are creative that we're we don't really know but where and when we notice that we can be passing on our voice to stick around. So you told a story about your grandma every time you look at a flower?
Joy Prouty Oh, yeah. Well, she. She said. At the time, only God could make a flower every time she would touch that flower. I mean, I just got to the point where I just roll my eyes. Oh, she's saying the thing again. But she said it so many times. That was the legacy she left in me. Like that's the living part of her Inside of me is the way she she told me she was seeing things. And so I wanted to say and it goes with this really well that I think it's really important.
Ginny Yurich To speak.
Joy Prouty Things out loud, like these intentions that we're setting, like all of these things. My hope for them is that, yes, that mothers can transform, but that the children are noticing the tools that help her to find her peace. And this is like this the presence principle, right, is just a principle for regulated, focused, connected, present living. And that that's this legacy we're passing on. And I think the gardener you know, there's another there's another thing in the book.
Ginny Yurich With the lawn cutting.
Joy Prouty Yeah. Where it's like he speaks about how someone who cuts lawns, you know, they are just cutting it. But a gardener, they're molding it and they're touching it with their hands. And so that even after the gardener has left, someone comes in, they can see that someone who cared deeply had touched this living thing. And that's what we're hopefully doing in that. Creativity is like, you can't be a parent without creativity. I mean, you can, but it's going to be really miserable. And so I think we're already seeing our children force us to have to be creative and have to be playful, or else, at least for me, I'm filled with resentment and at the end of the day, and so I know instead of viewing that experience as one, that is going to be a burden to me. In fact, they're inviting me into learning like they are being present and I am saying, no way, but they're inviting me.
Ginny Yurich Yeah.
Joy Prouty So that that's a huge mindset shift that I hope is really the product of what people gain from this.
Ginny Yurich That creativity and present are our legacy. They are a legacy that your grandma was present enough to enjoy every flower that she saw and to speak it out loud. That left a legacy. And then you remember her when you see flowers. And I think that's so beautiful. I love this sentence. It says, We live on in the stories we tell, the recipes we scribble down the songs we sing, the photographs we take. Each one is proof of our presence preserved. So beautiful. One of my favorite poems in the book was We Carry Each Other. That was one of my favorite ones. Kind of right in the middle.
Joy Prouty Oh, thanks.
Ginny Yurich I love this one.
Joy Prouty It's got some grief. Grief in there. You really go. Go right for it.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. We talk about his hamster had died, but you have a sentence that you say am arms that have held caskets and babies and groceries and grief and me for 20 years through a thousand different heartaches this big where it's beautiful to see your creativity in this book. We just so enjoyed it. Thank you. So enjoyed it from beginning here. So beautiful. A beautiful work of art your book is and I know that it has come through a lot of pain and a lot of hard times, and it's really beautiful, the healing that you are presenting. One little special thing, a little tidbit is at the Forward is by JJ Heller.
Joy Prouty Yeah.
Ginny Yurich I thought that was so cool. I think one thing that's really neat about the book is that you see her journey, like you see your photography journey and you see your health journey and you see that through all of these, these resolutions that you have been able to form really cool connections that as you have strived forward in changing the way you photograph and thinking about things differently, that you start to rub shoulders with all sorts of different people. They're flying you in for different things. It's so neat. Q So JJ Heller is a musician. I think people just love her music, and I loved what she said about you. Here's what I think. I think if someone writes a book that they should do it, if only for the fact of what someone might write about you in the sure that say who? This is good. Yeah. What are you going to write? Like, here's what here's what she says about you, Joy. She says that you know how to discover and celebrate the beauty within people, that she looks at your photos and is instantly spellbound, that you understand the sacred connection between mothers and children and how to capture it and feel that you have wholehearted enthusiasm, that you know how to be put people at ease. I mean, all these things that she finds the light that is already there and will find a way to capture. So I just think that's such a cool thing. So you have done some of her music videos, is that right?
Joy Prouty Yes. Well, thank you for convincing me that I need to print that forward like poster size and put it in every room of my house so that I can be reminded that there's good things in here and inside of me. Oh, no, I think that's so funny. JJ is incredible. I mean, I see when I think of the music of my children's early childhood, I sang every JJ Hillary song to them and we still listen to it. And so it's just it's this it's so special that I got to work with her and bring to life just to stand witness to other artists that are committed to adding goodness and light to the world is a profound thing, I think. I think it only makes us better when we're able to collaborate with artists. And as someone who didn't grow up with a lot of, I don't know, friendships or collaborations, this is something I'm learning as an adult. And so to have someone like JJ to be a guide for me to learn how to love people, well, like exactly how she did in this forward, but just to see how like when someone has a gift, when you listen to her songs, yes, they're nice. But when you stand next to her in person and you hear her sing, it's like something vibrates. I remember the feeling I felt when I first heard her sing. She was singing to a child, We're doing a shoot and there's not even a big thing for her. And I thought, Oh, this is someone giving something really sacred that I can't believe I am feeling inside my body right now. And it's such a rare thing to witness. And so anyway, to get to work with her and have her be contributed to the book is really special.
Ginny Yurich So I liked reading about the different opportunities or different opportunities maybe isn't even the right word, the different sacred moments that people wanted you there for and was is one of the things that is encouraging because like you said, you've been doing this for 20 years and it's a lot of hard work and it's a lot of learning and you've stuck with it and there's a lot of fruit from it. Like you see that you're the sought after person for these different things. And I just thought that was so cool. Thank you, Joy. I love the book. It's called Practicing Presence A mother's Guide to Savoring Life through the photos you're already Taking. And there is just such a depth to this book. I want to say that you are a professional photographer, creative director and filmmaker, so, so much seeking to help people truly see. You have been featured on Entertainment Tonight, Magnolia Journal, People Magazine. You make hearts during films for musicians and nonprofit organizations. So, so much to learn. Live in Nashville with your husband and seven children. And so this book, Practicing Presents is out A mother's Guide to Savoring Life through the photos you're already taking and people can find more at Joy, Proud E-Comm and also on social media Joy. We always end our practice with the same question. So here's the question What's a favorite memory from your childhood that was outside? Hmm.
Joy Prouty Favorite memory from outside was riding my bike, delivering newspapers on Saturday mornings, like before the sun came up. I was all alone. I would listen to music I wasn't allowed to be listening to at that time, and I would put my arms out and I would just be feeling so free and I would think I was ten. That that that was definitely a good fit, that the Earth was with me.
Ginny Yurich What a cool memory. Well, Joy, huge congrats on this book. It was absolutely beautiful. Very encouraging to read. I learned a lot and came away inspired. I'm already making some changes just in the way that I am present, both for photography and with our family. So thank you. Thank you for taking the time to be here with me and with the listeners. I know that they are going to get so much out of it.
Joy Prouty Thank you.
Ginny Yurich Ginny. Bye.
