Joy is your birthright as a human being.

However, when life gets hard, joy often feels like the last priority. It can be difficult to allow ourselves to feel content, experience pleasure, or find ease in the midst of hardship. And yet, real joy opens the heart. It creates space within us and gives us a wellspring of resilience with which we can meet the challenges that arise in our lives and in the world.

Choose Joy is designed to help you tap into this power, even in difficult times, so you can cultivate lasting joy and well-being. Are you ready to Choose Joy?

Discover the transformative power of mindfulness with Choose Joy!

We offer two flexible options to fit your lifestyle:

  • Live Class: Our next live cohort of Choose Joy will take place for five weeks starting in April 2025. Subscribe to our newsletter to be notified when registration goes live.

  • On-Demand Version: Prefer to go at your own pace? This self-guided option lets you engage with the material whenever it suits you.

Over the course of this six-week mindfulness experience, you will dive deeply into five different joy cultivation practices that will resource you, support you, and strengthen you – from the inside out.

Cultivating a foundation of joy enables us to act from a clear mind and an open heart. 

The type of joy we study in this course is NOT:

–  Fleeting, surface-level feeling of “happy” or “fun”

–  Denial of suffering – our own, or others

–  Toxic positivity that recommends we “look on the bright side”

The type of joy we study in this course IS:

– A deep, profound contentedness that can hold all fleeting feelings within it

– Honest about suffering and spacious enough to hold it

– A method to act from deep wisdom, rather than reactivity

– Happens when we open up to life, just as it is

By using the tools you learn in this wrap-around course, you will feel more spacious, open-hearted and resourced to meet the challenges in your life with more equanimity and joy.

Program Overview

An experience utilizing ancient wisdom and evidenced-based tools of mindfulness, journaling, and community to unravel places of stuckness and rewire your mind to experience more joy - each and every day.

  • Joy Through Presence: Practical, accessible techniques to begin or deepen a regular meditation practice.

  • Joy Through Pleasure: What joy and ease actually feel like in your body, and how to cultivate these states.

  • Joy Through Emotional Awareness: How to allow yourself to feel joy in the face of guilt and/or unworthiness.

  • Joy through Connectedness: How to tune into your capacity for love and gratitude to fuel your joy.

  • Joy through Equanimity: How to open up to all feelings and thoughts with an expansive heart

In this course you will learn…

Program Details

Watch the life-changing short teaching modules on your own time. Modules include audio and visual graphic elements as well as closed captioning and transcripts to match YOUR learning style

Practice with the corresponding meditation videos/audio recordings to bring the teachings into your daily life

Journal in response to the prompts to gain more insights and open up new understandings of the material

What previous CHOOSE JOY participants are saying

  • "So glad I did this class. Yael explained new concepts in a way that was engaging and accessible and helped me find language for what I've been feeling. It absolutely lived up to its name of Choosing Joy - just choosing to do this class was an exercise in self-care for me and I absolutely walked away with tools to uncover, experience, and practice finding joy."

  • “I LOVED the idea that joy is something that is always there when we pull back the curtain and let ourselves feel it. And I realized that after 5 years of working to name, notice, allow emotions, I had never focused on naming positive emotions.”

  • “Our suffering can feel incredibly isolating at times. I was grateful for the opportunity to better understand the factors and forces that spark and prolong suffering and to realize that they are common to the human experience.”

  • “Committing to more informal practice was powerful and made me notice the endless chatter in my mind. I keep coming back to the question of ‘what am I afraid to feel?’ It is a great reminder in those moments that I am allowing myself to get lost in useless scrolling.”

About your teacher

Hi! My name is Yael Shy, I’m an award-winning author and CEO of the industry-leading Mindfulness Consulting. I have been featured on Good Morning America, CBS News and in Time Magazine and the Harvard Business Review. In addition to my workshops and individual clients, I consult for major corporations and universities, including Proctor and Gamble, Columbia University, and NYU.  Deeply passionate about the transformative power of mindfulness, I have over 20 years of practice experience in Zen, Jewish, and secular meditation contexts.

Why I do this:

Meditation changed my life when I was 19 years old and my anxiety had grown so out of control I was having 2-3 full-fledged panic attacks per week. Social anxiety kept me from making friends, dating or going to gatherings without the excessive use of alcohol and drugs, and yet I was terribly lonely.  I never thought I could find a way out of my pain. Through mindfulness, meditation and therapy, I did. Although I still get anxious and lonely, these emotions no longer control my life or stop me from connecting with others or taking risks. It is now my life’s purpose to support others to uncover their inherent worth and capacity for deep joy through mindfulness. 

I have seen this course change lives and I can’t wait to see how it helps to alleviate your anxiety, stress, and overwhelm and bring you more lasting joy.

This experience is for busy, real people at every stage of life and meditation experience to re-boot, re-charge, and connect to who you really are. You deserve a break from your anxiety.

You deserve to be free.

FAQs

What makes this experience different from other meditation classes?

This course focuses on joy as the basis of the practice. Although we do not deny suffering — and its horrific scale in the world today — this course centers joy as a practice of resilience and wisdom in order to respond to suffering with greater clarity and an open heart.

What is the difference between the live course and the on-demand course?

The only difference between the two options is that the live version includes 6 weeks of live instruction from Yael Shy. For those looking for a self-paced course, the on-demand version is for you.

When does the live course take place?

This cohort runs for six weeks every Thursday from 3:00pm - 4:15pm (EST) starting on November 7th. The last class will take place on December 19th, 2024.

Is this just for beginners or just for experienced meditators?

This program is appropriate for everyone no matter your meditation background! Beginners will have videos laying out step-by-step instructions, and seasoned practitioners will be given tools and guidance to deepen and expand their practice.

Do you offer financial assistance?

Yes, please reach out to us if you need financial aid. Please email: info@mindfulnessconsulting.net. We also have an early bird discount for those who register before April 16. Use code EARLYBIRD50 at checkout for $50 off.

Are these teachings based in a specific tradition or lineage?

Much of what Yael teaches has Buddhist roots, filtered through her Jewish meditation experience, but you certainly do not have to be Buddhist or Jewish (or any religion or background at all) to participate! These teachings are accessible and clear with no confusing jargon or previous experience required.

I’m not sure if this experience is for me. Can I try it and get my money back if not?

Yes! We are so sure you will feel inspired and transformed by the content and community that you have 7 days after the course begins to receive a full refund (minus administrative fees). **No refunds are available after 7 days post-purchased date.

STILL HAVE QUESTIONS?

Email us at info@mindfulnessconsulting.net