Debrena Jackson Gandy - All the Joy You Can Stand: 101 Sacred Power Principles for Making Joy Real in Your Life

Table of Contents

To the little women who are the love of my life
my daughters, Adera, Kiana, and Kenzie;
and to Joe, my husband, best friend, and life partner.
Thank you for opening my heart wider
and teaching me how to stand
more and more and more joy.

Acknowledgments

A special thank-you from deep, deep down in my heart to those whose life stories and experiences inspired the chapters in this book. Because this book is made up of real-life anecdotes and vignettesmy own, and many, many more not my ownit is a quilt of stories Ive had the privilege of sewing together and a tapestry Ive had the pleasure of weaving.

Big THANK-YOUs to my literary agent, Denise Stinson, for continuing to believe in me and my work; to Kristin Kiser, my enthusiastic and encouraging editor; to Nat and Thelma Jackson, for being my proud parents; to my sister, Ericka, for being my sounding board; and to my little brother, Little J, for being the apple of my eye.

Thank you to the sisterfriends who were part of the Sisterfriends Round-table: Youlanda Allen, Angela Toussaint, Barbette Edwards, Sharon Allen Felton, Carol Blakley, Gotha Johnson, and Gayl Kirby, who helped me zero in on the themes for this book. Thank you to my sisterfriends in the Beloved theater party group, the Kindred Spirits, the pajama party divas, the pampering party crews, my Sisterfriends e-mail group, A Circle of Sisters, and the Wisdom Circle. Thank you for loving me, supporting me, and helping me to keep it real!

And thank you God/Goddess for allowing me to be on this planet, at this time, sharing this very necessary message.

Said the woman to her Inner Power,
Come out, come out, wherever you are.

Would you like to know?...

What gets in the way of feeling and experiencing your power on a daily basis?

How to make space and free up energy in your life?

How to restore, recharge, and renew your spirit?

What brings you joy?

Why you may feel restless, unfocused, and unfulfilled?

Why you may easily get angry, upset, or defensive?

Why you may be experiencing a loss of passion and enthusiasm in life?

How to break the cycle of unhealthy or short-lived love relationships?

Why judgment and guilt are so destructive to the spirit?

Why forgiving yourself and others is so liberating?

When your Purpose is tapping you on the shoulder?

How to be more open to your agents and angels?

Ways to heal your memories and emotions?

Ways to heal your body?

How to identify your power pack and create a support system?

How to recognize seasons and cycles in your life?

The connection between joy and power?

The ways that God gets your attention?

How to integrate renewal into your life?

How to create a life that is gratifying and deeply fulfilling?

Preface

We are in a time when many, many women just like you are starting to feel a change come over them. A change that they cant quite explain because its happening on the inside. A change that feels like a restlessness within, an inner quickening or an inner stirring. A change that may cause you to question things youve accepted for a long, long time; a change that is telling you its time for something different, even if you dont know what this something different is; a change that is letting you know that it is time to dig deeper and get in touch with your Divine Self, that immutable part of you that is spirit. This feeling is caused by your sacred inner power beginning to reawaken. These are also signs that your spirit needs feeding and is hungry for something more.

I believe that we each are created with an enormous capacity for having joy, peace, power, ease, and grace in our lives. We have an unlimited amount of divine potential that we have only begun to tap. Weve experienced but the tip of the iceberg, brief snapshots of the brilliance, magnificence, and greatness that lies within us. Theres more. Much, much more. And it is the awakening of this brilliance, magnificence, and greatness within that is causing this feeling, this inner stirring. I can relate to being in this space because being in this space is what prompted me to write this book.

All the Joy You Can Stand will help you learn how to access your sacred power and inner joy on purposeconsciously and intentionally and midwife them from being inner stirrings to being more fully expressed. All theJoy You Can Stand offers you a process for birthing your divine potential and removing internal blocks so that real power and joy become permanent residents in your life instead of occasional guests.

This book presents you with new ways of thinking, speaking, acting, believing, and being that free you up and enable you to access and