The Forced Joy Project with Dana Frost

Transcript

Jessica Fein: Welcome. I'm Jessica Fein, and this is the I Don't know How You Do It podcast, where we talk to people whose lives seem unimaginable from the outside and dive into how they're able to do things that look un undoable.

I'm so glad you're joining me on this journey, and I hope you enjoy the conversation. 

Welcome back to the show. As you might know, I am a big believer in joy. I realize that sounds kind of dumb, like who doesn't believe in joy? Right? But what I mean by that is, I think joy can live alongside tragedy. I've even seen it grow in the face of unimaginably dark circumstances.

On the last episode, we spoke with Tanmeet Sethi, who writes about joy as an act of resistance and joy as justice. If you haven't listened to that one, you might wanna [00:01:00] go back and check it out. This week we're approaching the topic of joy from a different angle with my guest Dana Frost, who runs the Forced Joy Project.

Dana is a relentless optimist who had every reason to throw the idea of joy away forever. Instead, she decided to force joy, and it's led to a movement that today helps grievers and other people going through really tough times find a glimmer of joy and so much more. I'm excited to introduce you to my guest, Dana Frost.

Welcome to the show, Dana.  

Dana Frost: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Jessica Fein: I've been waiting quite a while to meet you, and I've definitely been like Instagram stalking you, and every time you put up a post, I'm like, yes. I just love what you're doing so much. So I'm so excited to have this opportunity to chat and to share everything that you're doing for the grief community and also just for people in general who are going through tough times.

Dana Frost: Thank you. I really appreciate that. And the [00:02:00] feeling is mutual, also stalking you, love what you do, so I appreciate getting to have this conversation with you. 

Jessica Fein: Excellent. Okay, let's start in your late 20s, it was about your late 20s, early 30s when your life changed. Dramatically. Can you tell us what happened?

Dana Frost: Yeah, yeah. In my late 20s, I was diagnosed with cancer, and so I think that was the first big kind of life shaking moment that I had, at least as an adult of like, life is just good. I'm on one path, this is what my life looks like. And I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma and was, and was in remission and then relapsed within a year.

And so went through the whole trauma of thinking, we're fine, we're back on this path. And then, My world being shocked and rocked again in every possible way. And got through that. It's now been, I'm over 10 years in remission, so that feels like a lifetime ago. And in a certain way it is a lifetime ago because life continued to rock and all the ways that it does for [00:03:00] better or worse.

And you know, here I am. 

Jessica Fein: And then you are going on this roller coaster and thinking you're outta the woods and then you're back in the woods. And it was a lot of ups and downs. And then Brad was diagnosed. 

Dana Frost: So my husband, Brad, five years after my diagnosis, the doctors were kind of like, because I relapsed.

They were like, you need to wait five years. And you know, once you get to that point, we feel good. You're kind of in the clear. So we put off the possibility of having kids, like everything was just kind of this waiting period of hold your breath, get to this point, and then figure out what life looks like.

So we were weeks, weeks after that five year mark we're on vacation, celebrating that, celebrating our anniversary. And kind of talking about what does life look like in the future and everything from where we wanna live, to where we're going to retire. And you know, we're in our early thirties, so this is not a normal conversation, but just dreaming of all the things we wanted to dream about and think about.

And Brad had a pain in his side [00:04:00] and we thought he pulled a muscle golfing or running. He was very active and it turns out that it was stage four kidney cancer. Whenever people ask me about it, I still, I'm now six years since he's died, so I guess spoiler. If you don't follow me, Brad did not make it. But I never know how to like talk about that moment to describe how much that just ruined me.

And even looking back of just the news, even with all the hope that we'd make it through it, of just going through what we went through and then being told that Brad had stage four, had terminal cancer. I still feel that shock like in my body even talking about it now. 

Jessica Fein: I totally get that, and I can't even imagine in terms of the role reversal, because presumably he had been the one tending to you and caring for you, and you get to the other side of that and then boom, you've switched places.

Dana Frost: Yeah, and I used to joke with Brad that I was not very good at being on the other side. I was a much better patient and he was. So great at handling. You know, you do [00:05:00] know of the outside world and how much information that people want and are asking, and you become this gatekeeper of between your little life at home and the diagnosis and what you're going through, and then everyone else who loves you and cares about you and what they wanna know.

And Brad was always so good at letting me kind of live in being the patient and taking care of myself and shielding me from all the questions. And I really, I'm an introvert and I really struggled with that role and feeling helpless, feeling so helpless for me, it was like something happens to me, you know what?

Not, whatever. But I could handle that news a lot easier than the idea of something happening to Brad and not being able to control the pain he was going through and just the questions and the unknown. Yeah. 

Jessica Fein: When you had his diagnosis coming, right, when you had hit the five year mark, was there a piece of you that was like, why me?

Why would we be having this double whammy? Did you feel that? Because I can imagine [00:06:00] that I would. I'd be like, really? Wasn't it enough that I just got through five years? 

Dana Frost: Yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And because we were both such optimistic people, I remember we had a conversation. We were like, oh, we're gonna be that power couple.

We're gonna get through it. We're gonna go inspire people all over the world. We're gonna write books like, this is what we were supposed to do. We're gonna get challenged in every possible way. But we truly thought we would be the people that beat it and went on to tell that story. The alternative wasn't an option.

Like it just wasn't an option. 

Jessica Fein: And how long was it from the diagnosis to when you realized it was not only an option, but it was the trajectory? 

Dana Frost: Yeah, so Brad made it a hundred days from his diagnosis until he died. And I'd say it was up until 10 days before where it was like, hope, hope, hope. And looking back, I'm like, how in the world did I not see it?

And I think I saw it. But we do all kinds of crazy things in our brains to not [00:07:00] deal with that kind of trauma. Because at the time, I had to deal with everything else of emergency room visits and doctor's appointments and medications, and all of the things that truly were to keep Brad alive. Having my brain go to like what would be next, just, I don't think I could have handled it.

So our brains are magical creatures that do what they need to do, and it was the last 10 days where truly his organs were shutting down. And it was a friend of ours who was a doctor but not our main oncologist, and he was the one that kind of had to be the bear of bad news and be like, he's not coming back from this and it's time to call his family.

Jessica Fein: So how did you get from this place of heaviness and having to, you know, find hope within, how did you get from that to force joy? Because I think you got to force joy after Brad's diagnosed, but while you were still in caregiving mode with Brad. 

Dana Frost: Yeah, I never thought force joy would be a thing that would stick with me.

That would be [00:08:00] a business that would help other people. It started. From, I like to say a moment of desperate kind of weakness of, well weakness, and I use that term very lightly, but that's what it felt at the time as a person who was always positive and optimistic. I was having a really hard time with Brad's diagnosis and feeling helpless, and he was also always so positive and we were both just having a low day because it was hard and it was one of those probably really real moments of this is hard and we're acknowledging it.

But at the time I wasn't great at holding onto both of those and I was just like, I need us to find some sort of joy in this moment. Like I need us to find something because it's so heavy what we're going through. And Brad rolled his eyes at me and was just like, you want us to force joy? And like just thought it was the most ridiculous thing.

And I was like, yes, this is what I need right now. I need us to just force it if we have to like anything. And we didn't really think much about it, and Brad was such a [00:09:00] lovely partner that a couple hours later we were taking a walk and music was playing on the river, walk around us and he just pulled me in and started dancing with me and said, here's your force joy.

And made a moment that was just a simple moment. In the middle of so much grief and just made it really joyful and it kind of stuck from there where we started just documenting. Every day we've started an Instagram account, which is the first step in any real business. Of course, you know, of course, get it online, and we just started documenting the tiny little things every day that we're talking tiny some days, but just what are the moments that we can take a second and recognize some good in our day?

And some days it was a lot harder to kind of find what those were in other days. You know, it was easy and light and we were surrounded by so much love and it became part of our routine during his diagnosis and after he died. I never had any intention really of continuing it, but again, was having a really awful, [00:10:00] terrible time mourning the loss of Brad and was just like, okay, I'm gonna do what we were doing.

Let's see if this works. And. It's much harder to do it without the partner that does it with you. That encourages you, and it was imperfect in every way. It can be imperfect, but it kind of grew after that, of being a place where I could talk about all of it, where I could talk about the joy, I could talk about what I was feeling.

And at the time I feel like now we have all these beautiful grief accounts and maybe it's the world that we're, that we both are in of. We find like-minded people who do talk about this, but I don't think it was as common then, and it felt like a place where I could just. Get it on paper and feel seen, even if it was by strangers.

And that felt really powerful for me and to feel validated and to have other people say, this is how I feel too. And it just kind of grew from there into this organization that talked about grief and talked about joy, and talked about all the many emotions in between and how do we carry it all and how it's messy and [00:11:00] it's unique for every single person.

But there's that commonality of that experience of grief and trying to figure out what life looks like. In grief after grief, alongside grief. That's kind of what forced joy project has become. 

Jessica Fein: What would you say to people who say, but I'm grieving and I'm in such a dark place. Joy can't exist there. I mean, I know.

I used to think those two things seem to face value mutually exclusive, and I have completely come around on that. As you know, believing that joy and grief, not only can, but really. Have a, a beautiful way of cohabiting, right? So what do you say when people are like, no, you cannot, forcing joy is just pushing aside, pushing away the feelings of anger or sadness or whatever.

Dana Frost: You know, it's such a hard question because what I've learned, because I also have been there, I remember where it was like Joy will not exist ever again. This is it. Maybe there'll be some level that's [00:12:00] so much less than what it was before. Some level I will get to, but it's impossible. I. And so I try and not convince anyone else that's in that moment that they need to see it.

Now I try and just show that it's possible to talk that it's possible and hope that that's enough. Hope that the possibility is there for people instead of being like, you've gotta see it. Let me convince you that there's joy because we're not always ready for it. And there will be moments, some tiny moment will happen and you will smile.

And you'll probably then catch yourself and feel guilty about it. Because that's how it usually happens for us, is that first little moment. And maybe I'm like, I hope nobody saw me. Right. Right. How can I possibly feel anything positive when this person is dead? Mm-hmm. But slowly those moments will become more and more, and the guilt hopefully will lessen and.

You will learn. I think it's a natural process if you were open to [00:13:00] it, that the joy is there and the grief is still there, the anger is still there. It's not one or the other. It's not the joy is pushing out these other feelings. It's just making room to accept it when it comes in and not feel negative about that.

Because I think we associate these quote unquote negative emotions, anger, sadness, grief. They're kind of put into this negative category, and joy is a positive one, but when you're deep in grief, Joy is the negative thing that you're feeling, and so I think just making room for that and allowing that into your life is probably what I want for people to understand is that that's possible. 

Jessica Fein: Can you explain what you mean when you say, when you're deep in grief, joy is the negative thing you're feeling? What do you mean by that? 

Dana Frost: I think that, at least for me, I got very comfortable in the role of sorrow, sadness, like that was what felt natural. Brad was dead. My life is sad.

So the second that joy started coming in, it [00:14:00] felt like a betrayal. It felt like it was the negative feeling that went against what I was supposed to be feeling, you know, sadness and grief and sorrow. And so it started becoming associated with something bad. If I am feeling joy, it's a bad thing. It means I don't miss Brad, it means I'm over Brad. Even if I never felt that way, I worried about the perception of other people feeling that way. And I remember the first time I went out dancing with some friends, somebody made a comment, was like, I saw you and looked like you were having a great time. And it was so hard for me to go out the entire time.

I thought about how much I didn't wanna be here, how much I missed Brad. But really just trying to force myself to go out and have fun. And then I felt horrible, horrible that someone saw me having a good time and thought I was having a good time. And it's just, it's so complicated and it's like it was all of those things.

I was having a good time and I was also missing Brad and I was also grieving. And I think that's the [00:15:00] misunderstood thing about grief is that it's all there. It's all there together. 

Jessica Fein: And I love that you've now created a space where people can be comfortable feeling whatever it is they're feeling. They can feel like shit and they can also feel joy, and that's okay.

Yeah. And one of the things that you talk about is how when you're living in darkness, you should look for the light. What do you say then, when somebody comes to you and says, it is pitch black. There is no light. I don't know how to find it. How do you help them see that there might be this little tiny sliver crack of light?

Dana Frost: Yeah, I think about the things that you loved. It's almost like going back to that childlike wonder. Like what are the things that just without all the constraints of being an adult and life experience, like what are the things that just open your eyes and wonder and awe. And so for me, it's the lake.

It's standing at the edge of the water. And so it's going back to the simplest form. Maybe it is taking a walk in the woods. Maybe it is. Laughing with a best friend, like what is the [00:16:00] most simple thing? And knowing it's not gonna solve it. You're not suddenly gonna be like, now I'm feeling over it. But maybe it will for a moment make you feel something else alongside of the darkness. 

Jessica Fein: I think that's such a good point. You're not solving it. You're not curing it. We don't cure grief. Right. We don't get over it. We learn to integrate it and one of the ways we can integrate it is by having these other emotions alongside it. Yeah. Yeah.

You talk about the water, you talk about really being outside in nature. What are some other ways that you force joy? 

Dana Frost: Well, I would like to say that I don't have to force joy as much anymore, as you know, over six years out from Brad dying, which I think is important to say because we are all at different points in our journey, and joy eventually does come more naturally without being forced, at least in the same way.

And so I do wanna say that. 

Jessica Fein: I'm glad you said that by the way, because I think that that gives hope to people. It's not always gonna feel forced. Right?

Dana Frost:  Right. And [00:17:00] people have a hard time with the idea of forcing anything. And I'm, I'm one of them. And you know, it's the reality that it, that will shift over time.

And you know, time is such a weird thing. And so that's gonna look different for everyone, but it will shift. But in terms of other ways that I force joy, You know, writing was always a big one for me. That was from day one of Brad's passing to now, it is still the number one thing where I can go and kind of process my fears.

It's therapy. I can get it all out on paper, and so that feels really good, especially if I'm feeling misunderstood and I'm not feeling seen or I'm not feeling like anyone else understands me. Putting pen to paper and working through those emotions, maybe that doesn't sound joyful to some people, but the release of that, Is a big force joy for me.

And the other big one is music. Music has always been something I, I've just loved and I think it's really powerful in terms of feeling all of the emotions. So sometimes it's the playlist where I just need a good cry. I need to go on a long car ride. And I. Think about my life with [00:18:00] Brad and I have all these songs that make me think of him and our life together.

Sometimes it's a dance playlist and I'm gonna dance around my living room by myself and kind of hype myself up in that way. But that's been a really powerful one that also has shifted a lot in how I've used music. But throughout my entire experience with grief has just been a big one for me. 

Jessica Fein: I love finding the right music for whatever it is I am feeling or wanna be feeling.

My best friend will say to me, Listen, I'm giving you 20 minutes with Neil Young and then you've gotta turn it off cuz she knows that's gonna like totally make me weep. She's like, you can do it, but you gotta make sure there's an end point. 

Dana Frost: I love it and what a good friend yes for it. But we need a limit 

Jessica Fein: Can we just talk about your job title, because I think you have the best job title in the entire world. Chief Joy Officer. So first of all, I would like to be Chief Joy Officer and like have a business card. Do you have business cards that say that? 

Dana Frost: I do have business cards somewhere from when I first created this business, and they're probably in a drawer and it probably says Chief Joy Officer.

Okay. But yeah, that's the beauty of creating your own business is [00:19:00] you can give yourself whatever title you want. 

Jessica Fein:  I love it. So what is a job description for somebody whose title is Chief Joy Officer? 

Dana Frost: I feel like, at least at the time when I created the job title, I think it was an aspirational job title.

It was probably more needed for me than how I'm gonna run my business. But I truly wanted to be a person that helps others find joy. And now it's really funny because I feel like so much of my business is focused on acknowledging the other feelings, acknowledging the grief. But when it started, it was the, the really deep need for joy in my life and wanting other people that had been through something similar to just help them see that that was possible.

Jessica Fein: A lot of people find that when somebody they love is struggling with grief, they. Are at a loss. They just don't know what to do. And the people are most comfortable when they're in, like, is there something practical I can do? How can I cheer you up when there's really no cheering to be [00:20:00] had? But one of the things that I love about what you've done is you've created products that really.

Can help somebody when they're grieving. And so if you had somebody you loved who was grieving, you might wanna do something like give them the smash kit. Is that what it's called? Or do I just think of it that way? That's what it's called. Okay. Can you tell us about the smash kit? Because it's like the best invention ever.

Dana Frost: Yeah. So all of my products have come truly from a place of, what did I want? And they've grown very organically with my business and the smash kit. The day after Brad died, I had a friend of mine gather a bunch of junk from different thrift stores and around his house glassware, old TV monitors. And put it in a back alley and handed me a golf club and said, here you go.

Like, get it out. 

Jessica Fein: oh my God. Talk about a good friend. We thought the Neil Young friend was good, but this guy. 

Dana Frost: Yeah,he was the best, um, still is the best. And that's what I needed. I was feeling [00:21:00] all kinds of things that I didn't know how to express at the time, and I needed to just physically release it from my body.

And so that was the inspiration for the Smash Kit. I don't know how many people will actually. Put together and go to that extreme. But if I were to receive a box that was a starter smash kit and instructions telling me that it's okay to be angry and all of these things, it would make me smile. And ultimately that's what it is.

It's something that's not flowers, lasagna, you know, all of these things that are lovely and help everything helps. But I think it's something that's unique, acknowledges the feelings that maybe aren't acknowledged enough and puts a smile on your face. Definitely. 

Jessica Fein: Even just thinking about it puts a smile on my face.

Now, let's talk about another one of your products that I personally think is just awesome, and also something I could never, ever, ever wear because it is a sweatshirt that says, "Fuck fine." So you know me and the other people who share my last name aside  tell us, what do you mean by that? [00:22:00] What's the matter with fine?

Dana Frost: Yeah, this was from a journal entry I wrote early on that was really vulnerable. I never intended to share it. And it wasn't until a couple years ago, so this was years after Brad died, that I finally publicly shared this post. And it was all about how often we just are asked how we're doing and we just say I'm fine.

And I clearly wasn't fine. My life was ripped apart in every possible way. It's just the way that ends the conversation. We don't ask for more. It shuts it down. And sometimes we need that. We don't wanna, you know, go into detail with every random person we run into in the grocery store. But I realized that I'd spent so much of my life during difficult moments of just saying, I'm fine when I really wasn't fine.

And so, I wanted to normalize not being fine and having those conversations and being able to say that when we needed to and never thought, I mean, the way it resonated with people I never could have predicted, and that's how it ended up on a t-shirt and a sweatshirt, and I. I don't wear this [00:23:00] out in public.

For what it's worth, I am uncomfortable. But the idea behind it I am very proud of and I hope that spreads of, we don't always have to be okay when life is horrible. 

Jessica Fein: You know, I'm so struck by it because you're saying we don't have to be fine. It's okay if we feel a lot worse than fine and we should be open about that.

But I also think that sometimes. If we are feeling in whatever situation, fine, maybe that's an indication that we ought to be striving for something more. And what I mean by that is I was in a specific job and I realized that after a while, the very best I could say at the end of the day was it was fine.

Hmm. And that was an indication to me. I wanted better than fine. So I love it because what we're saying is it's okay if you're not fine, but also maybe sometimes we ought to look for the thing that's gonna be bigger, better, brighter, because fine, at the end of the day, you know, that's not [00:24:00] necessarily what we wanna strive for.

Dana Frost: Yeah, and I had somebody else that bought a sweatshirt and she said the same thing. She sent me a note and said that it was her reminder that she didn't wanna just accept fine. And sometimes in grief we are, we're just kind of maintaining and that's okay for a period of time, but at some point, We do wanna be better than fine.

We wanna live big, bold, full, beautiful lives. And I love that. That's the interpretation that several people have taken because I think that's so beautiful, especially as I continue moving forward. And life, you know, shows up in all kinds of unexpected ways. It's such a beautiful take of like going from early grief to getting to a little bit of a healthier space in my life and handling the loss and feeling like, okay, now I want the best, most beautiful life.

Jessica Fein: Yeah. I love that. I love that we can wear it at different times and it can mean different things. Another thing that you have is the book of stories, and I'd love to hear about where that came from.

Dana Frost: Yeah, this was the first thing I created that I guess made me a [00:25:00] legit business, and it was because I truly wanted, when everyone was like, what can I do?

How can I help you? I just wanted to hear stories about Brad. I wanted people to come and sit down with me and talk about Brad because that is the thing that most of us are afraid to do. We don't wanna bring up the person we lost. We don't wanna risk making someone sad if they're having a good day, and.

You know, it's such a misconception that talking about the person we lost is ruining the day versus the opposite, which I think is the case for most of us, is we want you to talk about them. We want you to, to show that you remember them, that you're thinking about them. And so the book of stories came because I just wanted stories.

It was a total selfish call out of, if you have a story, if Brad impacted your life. I, I wanna hear about it, and I created a book and I tested it just on myself and have a beautiful book of stories about Brad, and I think it will always be the thing that I love the most out of what I [00:26:00] create, because just hearing from other people from strangers, the impact of getting to hear stories.

From a different version. So if it's their husband, if it's a partner, if it's a child, you know, we have all of these other people whose lives were affected by this person, and they all have a different version of that person. And so we get to have glimpses of them through this book. And I hate that so many people need this and want this, but every single time I get something of how meaningful I hear back from them of how they got to learn a different version about the person they lost, it just is so special to me.

Jessica Fein: How does it work? So if somebody orders the book of stories, like what do they do? How does it work?

Dana Frost:  So they get a link that they share with all of their friends and family, and it's really easy. They just share a link. And then anyone who wants to share a story, clicks on it, puts their name, shares their story, and then I have a backend kind of spreadsheet.

So each individual book goes onto its own spreadsheet. 

Jessica Fein: I love that. You know, it's interesting. My sister [00:27:00] died when she was 30 and she had a one-year-old. And this was before, there could just be like a link, you know, this was while ago, and at the funeral, somebody, I don't even remember who asked everybody who was there to write a letter about my sister for her daughter, who again, was 1 at the time. It's exactly what you're describing. And people sent in pictures and just amazing stories. And you know, her doctor had one take and her college roommate had one take. And her sister, me, you know, everybody had these different stories, but it painted a full picture for her daughter, you know, and it was just, it was a gorgeous thing.

And I think that what you're doing with that is so incredibly special.  

Dana Frost: Thank you. Yeah. And that's what I feel like those are the most meaningful to me when I see it, where people have little kids. And who lost a parent and won't grow up knowing them. And so it's such a wonderful way to get, to have this keepsake, have this book of all of these stories about their mom or their dad, and you know, their babies.

They're 3, 4 or [00:28:00] 5, and they'll get to always look back and have a picture of what their parent was and who they were. 

Jessica Fein: Is there a time limit on how long, because I'm just hearing about this. I'm thinking, gosh, I've even loved that from my dad who died in 2014. Do you feel like people need to get that within a certain time of their loss?

Or have you had people who years afterwards have thought, I'd really still love to reach out to the people who knew him because maybe they're getting older.  

Dana Frost: I had someone who, it was a hockey team, college hockey team, and it was their 50th anniversary of winning like whatever championship, and their captain had passed away years and years and years and years ago, I mean, probably shortly after this, so almost 50 years ago.

And it to this day, is one of my favorite books I've ever created because the stories are just so magnificent. I think it's quote unquote easier. And the immediacy because people are willing, they feel like it's something they can do to support in that immediate time where we're all desperate to help somebody.

 But [00:29:00] I think you could do it at any point, and it just might require how you frame it to friends and family, um, and maybe a little bit more encouraging to pull a story out. But I don't think there's a timeline. I think it's however you want it to be. 

Jessica Fein:Well, I  love what you said because there is such a time period when people are desperate to do anything, and so this gives them something to do.

It's actually what you're doing is really a gift, not only for the person who orders it, but for all the other people who are probably relieved that there's some way that they can do something meaningful. Like you said, it's a lot better than a lasagna, which I'm a big fan of lasagna, so there's nothing wrong with the lasagna.

But in addition to the lasagna, the story, let's say, has a longer shelf life than the lasagna likely does. 

Dana Frost: Exactly, exactly. 

Jessica Fein: What else does your community, we've talked about the products, but tell us about the community.

Dana Frost:  I feel like I have the most lovely community of people that has slowly built over the last six years of people that have followed my journey, and the people have found me all kinds of grievers.[00:30:00] 

Grief adjacent people who are looking to support people and the internet can be a scary place, and I feel so lucky that it just feels like you come into this world and it's supportive. And I do have a private membership community that is closed off of social media for people who really wanna have a safe.

Face to connect and talk about their grief in private, because I think social media is a good outlet for a lot of us, but we don't always wanna talk openly in front of strangers about what we're really feeling. So I feel like I have these two communities. I have this little one that's my private community, and then the the Instagram community and the Facebook and mailing list and all of these other people who are just going through their own journey and relating to each other in all kinds of different ways.

And it just proves to me, How similar we are, even if our experiences are different, even if our loss is different, that at the end of the day we're all humans trying to make it another day and hopefully find a little bit of joy in the process. 

Jessica Fein: At the beginning of our [00:31:00] conversation, you said that you were, always an optimist. You had always been somebody who was about joy and looking at the bright side and somebody who was full of hope and very upbeat with everything that's happened to you, do you still feel like you are that person or do you feel like you've changed? 

Dana Frost: Hmm, what a good question. I still consider myself an optimist.

However, I'm much more real about. The possibility of life not going my way, and I don't mean that in a negative way. I think it actually makes me live a fuller life in the now. Instead of waiting and knowing that life is short in a real sense of that word, instead of this concept that's out there that we all talk about, but don't really think about.

You know, I think about death every day, and that might sound strange to somebody, but it's possible. I've seen it go from life is perfect and beautiful and wonderful to my husband is dead, and it can change in an instant, [00:32:00] and I'm so aware of that. So I still think I'm optimistic, but I'm also very realistic of this is limited.

Jessica Fein: So if people are interested in finding these products or in joining your community, how do they find 

Dana Frost: you? So everything is on ForcedJoy project.com. You can find links to the community, the products, all of it's right there. 

Jessica Fein: Thank you so much, and I'm definitely gonna be going there and ordering several of the products.

I'm just so grateful to spend this time with you, and I love watching what you're doing and everything that you're offering. It's so needed and so valuable. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us.

Dana Frost: Oh, thank you so much. I love everything you're doing, and I've loved listening to your podcast, so just felt so honored to be asked to be a guest on it.

Jessica Fein: Well, thank you. 

Well, my first takeaway from my conversation with Dana is that I might need to order a lifetime supply of Smash Kits, but here are my other takeaways. One, joy and grief and anger can all live together. It's about making [00:33:00] the room to accept joy when it comes in and not feeling negatively about that.

Number two, one way to find joy is through childlike wonder, what are the things that without all the constraints of being an adult and life experience, just open your eyes in wonder and awe. 

And number three, fine is not something to aspire to. If you're in the depths of despair, it's okay that you're not fine.

But on the flip side, when you're outta that dark place, you might wanna strive for more than just fine. 
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Don't forget to follow and rate the show. Talk to you next time.