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Journeying from
 Loss to Love

Helen H. Adam

Studies indicate that the average young child laughs approximately 400 times a day, literally living in joy. Somehow we manage to subdue that joy one way or another as we grow and mature.  However, by rediscovering and embracing some of that lost joyability, our lives can become more meaningful, loving and happier.

Joyability: Journeying from Loss to Love describes some of the richest experiences of a  lifetime, spanning emotions from the depths of despair to unbelievable joy. It incorporates courage, faith, hope, personal growth, inspiration, and spirituality and weaves together memoirs, bereavement, betrayal, life and career change with mind, body, and spirit.

By taking charge of my life, my life today is whole and exhilarating, happy and loving. I live with  a joyful feeling of expectancy – as if something marvelous is always waiting for me with each corner I turn. I am healthy and active, with a wonderful sense of inner peace.

Most of all, I am filled with gratitude – gratitude for my life and everyone who is now or ever has been a part of it. Truly blessed and with so much for which to be grateful, I now realize that experiencing the terrible lows in my life helped me to become more aware and appreciative of the wonderful highs.

The highs are not just the peaks of joy and ecstasy I encountered. Highs can also be everyday pleasures – a hot shower, a beautiful sunset, a telephone call from a loving daughter or from a good friend, or a flock of robins alighting on the pear tree outside my window during a late winter snowfall.

Can I possibly be the person who spent over twenty years working sixty to eighty hours a week some years without even a vacation] building my own businesses, somehow sandwiching in time for my family? 

Can this be me – someone who never even knew I had a spiritual path  – now on an accelerated path beyond any expectations?

A series of traumatic events impacted my life, including the death of a teen-aged daughter, the deaths of my parents and the death of my husband, plus a betrayal, and an accident that left me with a physical disability.

No longer a daughter, no longer a wife, only “half a mother,” no longer a corporate president, physically handicapped and in considerable pain, the combination of circumstances left me feeling not only alone but that I had lost my identity in every sector of my life.

I did not even know who I was! I only knew who I wasn’t! 

Everyone experiences more or less of these events in their own lives, but not usually in such a concentrated form.

Eventually the realization that adversities are really challenges, and that challenges offer opportunities for choices, choices to learn and grow both personally and spiritually, has made all the difference. That knowledge has changed my perspective on life and all that it offers, once more allowing peace, love, happiness, and even joy to permeate my world. Instead of “quietly retiring” I reinvented myself and started a new career as a teacher of The Mind, Body, Spirit Connection…And How It Affects Your Health and Happiness, also as a Reiki Master-Teacher and an Integrated Energy Therapy® Master-Instructor, a combined vocation that brings me great joy.

Many of the lessons learned were learned the hard way [being hit with the proverbial 2x4], but I realize now that the challenges I faced were generally opportunities in disguise, that my “teachers” were unexpected and, in most cases, unaware of their true roles in my life.

Added to each chapter in PART I are comments IN RETROSPECT wherein my present more detached perspective and increased spiritual wisdom concerning the most important events is shared, along with the unexpected gifts or lessons.

The purpose of writing this book is to share a unique journey so that others, by making better choices, might benefit and make significant changes in their own lives for a more loving, satisfying, and joyous existence. To paraphrase Robert Browning, “by rediscovering and embracing joyability, it is possible that the best is yet to be, and that time is NOW!”

 In her latest career, Helen Adam is an Integrated Energy Therapy® master and Traditional Usui Reiki master, writer, motivational/ inspirational speaker, grief consultant and a facilitator of Mind, Body and Spirit related workshops and seminars.  A passion that brings her great joy is teaching an on-going course on The Mind, Body, Spirit Connection…And How It Affects Your Health and Happiness at The Center for Learning in Retirement at a local college.  Registration usually fills quickly, with a waiting list.

The best credential for teaching this subject and writing a book is first hand experience. Helen Adam has not only experienced the heartache and agony of some of life’s toughest problems but also survived to become a better and happier human being.

Helen has been involved with the planning and production of meetings for a total of more than 26 years. Her path to this field started when she first became interested in gardening in her teens. By the time she was in her 30s, she was not only winning numerous blue ribbons and trophies for her flower arrangements and horticultural specimens, but was being invited to teach the art of flower arranging and give lectures and demonstrations to gardening clubs and women’s organizations. This led to the founding of a nationally known and successful speaker and entertainment agency, which soon expanded to include meeting and convention services.

Moving on in her career, she recognized an unmet market need and the necessity for a computer database of information on hotels, resorts and conference centers. Founding another company, she created a worldwide database with an extensive search and sort capability, specializing in locating the best location for corporate and association conferences. She was frequently called upon as a consultant to those in the meeting and convention industry, and invited to speak at colleges and meeting conferences.

Helen has written a number of business articles and previously authored two books – Meetings, Conventions, and Incentive Travel: 4349 Ideas and Money Saving Tips” and The Book of Meeting Checklists.

A member of The Writers Room of Bucks County and the International Women Writer’s Group, she is active in community affairs and has been the recipient of numerous awards, including “The Legion of Honor” from The Chapel of the Four Chaplains. Helen now lives on “sacred ground” on an east-facing ridge in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

“I was truly inspired by Helen Adam’s wonderful story! She takes us with her on a moving journey of personal transformation—from being corporate executive to becoming a spiritual teacher and healer. A series of devastating events in her life including her 19-year old daughter’s death caused by a drunk driver and her husband’s unexpected and early death; a business betrayal, and a fall that left her permanently in pain—serve to galvanize her spiritual growth rather than defeat her. By embracing these events as challenges, Helen uncovers the pathway to ‘joyability.’ Fortunately Helen shares with us the tricky corridor through which we, too, can transform such events into a joy for living. Helen’s warmth and wisdom are a great comfort—especially for anyone experiencing loss.”

Diane E. Eyer, Ph.D., Psychologist, Author of several books
exploring the popularization of psychological science.

“Helen Adam illustrates in a most profound and powerful way the old proverb that ‘our greatest joys and our greatest sorrows grow on the same vine.’ The description of her journey from the most devastating losses and disappointments to joy and spiritual meaning will resonate with and inspire anyone who has ever asked themselves, or God, ‘Why me?’ Beyond just overcoming her tragedies, she builds a new life, a new career, and a new personal mission to lead others on the path from their sorrows to a state of joyability.”

R. Foster Winan, Author, Lecturer,
President of The Writers Room of Bucks County

“Helen’s story will motivate you to think hard about what impacts our lives. She may have found, through spirituality and caring for others, a prescription for a happier life.”

Larry Kane, Veteran TV News Anchor
Author, Ticket to Ride 

“With Joyability Helen Adam gives readers a valuable tool to return to their soul’s joy. By sharing her own journey through many challenges and the reinvention of herself, Helen shows that adversities are openings to the possibility to learn and grow on a personal as well as a spiritual level. Joyability encourages us to change our perspective, embrace our challenges and make the journey to a more joyful, peaceful and spiritual life.”

Rev. Astrid M. Detwiler, Chief Editor
New Visions Magazine