We were lucky to catch up with Joy KMT recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Joy, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
I don’t think that you ‘find purpose’, I think that you say yes to it. Purpose is a very utilitarian sort of word. It’s like asking “what are you good for?” Or “what is your value?” or “how are you useful?” and I think that people tend to ask those questions when we aren’t in communities that reflect back to us who we are, and who we belong to. When who you are is reflected with love from birth, we don’t ask what our purpose is as much, because our purpose is to be us.
The question becomes, instead, will you be brave enough to live as you? Will you be brave enough to let the gift that you were born with become fully realized and alive within your life and your actions? Will you be devoted to it, obedient to it, and let it have it’s way with you? Will you say yes to yourself, to your gift, to your life over and over again? So for me, it’s never about finding my purpose, it’s simply about being it, inhabiting it and allowing it to express itself through me.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I run a business called Tabernacle.Life. What I love about my work is that I get to support people in living from their so-called purpose, from a place of devotion, and I get to watch miracles happen in their lives because of that devotion.
So people who are feeling stuck, unclear, confused, I help them get clear, unstuck, and excited about being them and living their lives from the most liberated and vital places possible. I help folks to access their magic and to wield it effectively in the world. I think this work is important because collectively, there’s this sort of resignation where so many people are living from the bare minimum of what is possible, and the outcomes of that for our world are dire.
I work with committed, courageous, and intense people who desire deep transformation in their lives. Folks who are tired of feeling stuck, overwhelmed, and constantly replaying the same, tired loops. I help people get out of traps of smallness and helplessness and back in relationship with their vital power.
I do have a class launching soon, called Wild Desire. This class is about leaning into the power of desire. Not desire as hedonism, but desire as a superpower that helps you move powerfully in the world and create a life that is fulfilling and meaningful. It’s about getting to know yourself at the most fundamental levels, and using that knowledge to liberate yourself from bullshit that keeps you trapped and miserable. It’s a class that will help you be obedient to your yes, and that changes everything. Because life is meant to be pleasurable. It’s meant to be enjoyable. It’s meant to be challenging but enlivening. So this class will help you get back to that.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
1. The willingness to fail. Many of us don’t feel like we have the option to take risks, or to fail. Some of us have more safety nets than others, that is true. But you can’t get anywhere new in life without failure. So you learn to see failure as a teacher and not as an indictment. Failure isn’t usually personal, it can be because of a whole range of things, maybe some things that you did or didn’t do, but when you know better, you have the privilege of doing better. Coming from where I’ve come from, I’ve failed frequently, and publicly. But you get to make the choice as to whether or not you will choose yourself again, even after failure.
2. The willingness to take responsibility. The reality is that we will all experience failure, but it seems like it’s almost easier to take failure if we can ultimately shift the responsibility for the choices in our lives on to somebody else. Taking responsibility isn’t about taking blame, or feeling guilty. It’s about being able to creatively respond to whatever is happening in your life. It’s not about making everything right, but continuing to be a player, continuing to be the deciding factor in your own life about what will happen right now, and what will happen next.
3. An ability to surrender. When you know what you are responsible for, you know what you’re not responsible for. So many people have been taught to blame themselves for everything, and it keeps people paralyzed or looking for somebody to shift blame to. We have to know what is ours to hold, to work with, to make a decision about, to change, and what is ours to surrender, to let go, to give to our support system- whether that’s other people, your ancestors, the trees, or the universe itself. We have to have the spaciousness within ourselves to let the miraculous in. When we think it is our job to control every detail and molecule, not only does that stop the flow of good in our lives, but it is exhausting and depleting, and it robs us of our actual power.
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
I’m definitely looking for people to collaborate with. I would love to do more interviews, more podcasts, I’m looking for aligned, spiritually grounded people to do classes, workshops and retreats with. you can DM me on @tabernacle.life IG to get in touch, or you can email me at Joy@tabernacle.life.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.tabernacle.life
- Instagram: @tabernacle.life
- Facebook: Tabernacle.Life
Image Credits
Michael David Battle
