The most valuable resource for community development is not oil, money, political strength, ideology. The most valuable resource for a community is an individual connected to and living from their heart and soul. Living as an individual from your heart and soul is Joyful Being. Everyone has a thread that connects them to their heart, soul, or deeper self. That is why we encourage individuals to find their individual path by exploring our multiple shared interest groups. Our purpose is to build a different experience of community by enabling and empowering the individual path. Help us co-create communities organized around seeking Joyful Being. Read more...

When Joseph Campbell was asked, “Is that what people are seeking, the meaning of life?” He replied, “Oh no, they are seeking the experience of being alive.” Joyful Being believes that when it gets down to it the primary motivations of humans are integrity and love. Said another way, what we seek is to be ourselves and to connect to others. If you notice the times you were truly happy, it was because you felt truly alive and connected. Think of falling in love, this is the best example of feeling totally alive and totally connected. Feeling alive and connected is Joyful Being. Now think of our individual lives and our communities being organized around enabling and empowering individuals to feel alive and connected. The way you follow the thread to your heart, soul, deeper self; is to follow the paths that create this alive and connected feeling. Help us co-create communities organized around feeling alive and connected. Read more...

Awareness of what helps you feel alive and connected and engaging with the world with clear intentions is the Joyful Being method. Our community is located inside your heart. Our desire is not to sell or impose anything on you, but to turn you toward your inner self and trust what emerges. We want to work from the inside out, not the outside in. The Latin word for education means to pull or draw out, not to cram in. We want you to become aware of what helps you feel alive and connected with the intention of increasing the love, joy, peace, wisdom, compassion, tolerance, health, beauty, and humor in the world. This balance of awareness and intention holds us to a path that will not be destructive to our individual self or the community. It then becomes safe to engage the world and act from a place that is centered and grounded. Help us co-create communities organized around awareness, intention, and engagement. Read more...

The place where these four ideas meet is Joyful Being. Joyful Being is about wholeness. The quality of your relationships in these four areas will determine the degree to which you will experience Joyful Being. To ignore one or focus on one are and exclude the others will not bring wholeness. Within, the individual this means paying attention to the quality of the relationship with themselves, others, spirit, and the earth. For a community it means social justice where all are included and empowered, open spirituality where all can find the sacred in their own way, honoring the individual within each of us, and honoring the earth which is our container. Our hope is to help you improve the quality of your relationship with others, spirit, our selves, and nature or the earth. Help us co-create communities organized around social justice, open spirituality, the individual journey, and earth harmony. Read more...

These are the human values, the soul values and the reason we are here. Joyful Being is not shy, our communities are built around the inspiring idea that the reason we are here as individuals and communities is to create these values. When these values replace power, status, control, ideologies, race, nationalities, ego, as the centering source of our identity then you will experience Joyful Being. Communities develop individuals and individuals develop communities. What if the real purpose of communities is to culture and facilitate a certain kind of development within individuals? Our proposal is that the goal of development hidden away in our heart and soul when we come into existence is to see love, joy, peace, wisdom, compassion, tolerance, health, beauty, and humor as the source of our identity and our true self. Our proposal is that it is the purpose of communities and cultures to foster and facilitate this kind of individual development goal. Read more...