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She Came Home

She decided to come home. 

It was time to change her life. 

She let go of the old roles and rules that tried to tame her. 

 She slowly and purposefully began to trust her own divinity. 

She didnt read a book or consult the oracles on how to come home. 

She just finally could no longer stand not being authentically her divine self. 

She shed her skin, like a snake, revealing a freshness that was rough but precious. 

An inner smile shone through her eyes.   She did a happy dance, laughed and twirled in utter abandon. 

The divine feminine world she prayed for opened like a magnificent morning glory. 

This newfound joy insisted on her total engagement. 

 The earth, the moon and the stars opened their arms and welcomed her home. 

 By Dr Sondra Joyce 

Secrets to Divine Feminine Magnetism

Retreat Facilitator, Dr Sondra Joyce
Dr. Sondra Joyce

Have you ever walked into a room and had every eye turn to look at you, similar to Julia Roberts in the movie Pretty Woman?  Or, have you experienced observing another woman’s presence that had that kind of impact?  Did you feel or think, “I want what she has!† Or, felt intimidated by her energy and power?  It is not just the beautiful women in the world blessed with curvy figures and gorgeous physical attributes, like Marilyn Monroe, that have the ability to shift energy.  No matter your size, color, or background, you can be charismatic and rich in your being and presence. 

The truth is, you can have amazing impact on your world without losing 20 pounds, without a low cleavage top, without what was once the typical feminine beauty model. You have the ability to create your unique magnetism by your presence, as you radiate love, sensuality, and self-mastery.   It’s all about your unique spark of feminine power that is only yours to reveal.  Women desire being with other women that bring out the spark in them.   Women love that feeling of spiraling upward with others they feel spiritually attuned to and have a shared purpose with.   

The aura around you is what entices others to engage.  Sensual, juicy energy is your most powerful tool when it comes to creativity, success, invention, thinking outside the box, and delicious impact on your world.  Embracing, exploring and experiencing the sensual you will have maximum impact and influence as you delve into your personal purpose. 

Below are simple ways to develop a charismatic and charming magnetic you: 

Be genuinely enthusiastic. 

Walk tall, poised and purposeful.  Engage in soft eye contact. 

Develop your sense of humor, smile easily, laugh when you feel the inner smile overcome you! 

Be authentic, speak and walk your talk. 

Listen to music that literally makes your heart sing!  I like Paul Hardcastle, especially his album Desire. 

Dance, move, sway, let your body flow.  Practice yoga, Qigong, Zumba with body and soul positivity.  

Breathe slowly and purposefully!  Literally, take time to smell the roses. 

Develop your sense of touch so that the energy of your heart radiates down your arms, into your hands. 

Ask a trusted friend for a divine feminine consultation.  What’s calling to you?  A new haircut, different colors?  What’s calling you inside, a special meditation or intention? 

Practice gratitude and praising others for their special qualities. 

Cultivate intimacy with yourself and others, remembering that true intimacy is in-to-me-see. 

 By Dr Sondra Joyce 

5 Simple & Innovative Self Care Tips

  1. NOT ONLY STOP AND SMELL THE FLOWERS, TREAT YOUR SELF TO CUT FLOWERS

According to research at Rutgers University, nature and flowers make us happy and cultivate inner qualities like peace, joy and serenity by triggering the release of serotonin which elevates our mood.  Look for colors and scents that inspire you.

  1. TAKE A WALK EVERY DAY FOR A MINIMUM OF 30 MINUTES

Getting yourself outside is great for your pineal gland or 7th chakra.  Try singing or humming while you are walking or stretching your upper body.  Or walk with a friend to implement the practice of accountability.  We are more likely to keep our commitments when companions are counting on us and walking together nourishes our friendships.
 

  1.  NOURISH THE KID WITHIN YOU BY BEING PLAYFUL

Increase your enthusiasm by fueling your passion for simple things, like stargazing, packing a picnic and sitting by a river, laughing, being silly, blowing bubbles, riding a bike, walking barefoot outside and dancing in the rain.

  1.  WATCH THE MAGIC OF THE SUNRISE AND THE SUNSET

This simple pleasure helps to reset your natural circadian or sleep rhythms.  It also increases our gratitude for the natural beauty of mother earth.

  1. JUST MOVE IT AND SHAKE IT WHILE DOING EVERYDAY ACTIVITIES AT HOME

Take opportunities to keep moving like walking while talking on the phone, doing a few squats while waiting for your morning coffee or tea, shrugging your shoulders up and down while on the computer, taking a 3-minute dance break every hour, stretching while brushing your teeth.

The 21/90 Rule for Changing Your Life!

Dear sisters, a positive change becomes a habit when you commit to a personal goal for 21 straight days.

Once you have established the habit it is important to continue your journey for the next 90 days. It’s the 21/90 rule for success!

You have the power to change your life! It takes perseverance, commitment, and support, and that’ is why attending a wellness retreat could be the next best step to finally handling the inner and outer weight that has been holding you down for far too long.

It is time to lose it!  Physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Let’s face it, taking 21 days away from your life does not fit most schedules! However, you can start building this support the day you sign up for www.magicalmidlifemojo.com. You can engage in a program that supports the 21/90 rule! Making the rest of your life the best of your life! Let’s set up a discovery call!

Contact Sondra Joyce.

sondra@sondrajoyce.com 970-749-6120

How I Found Bliss by the Sea

Colorado is a stunning yet land-locked state. I feel so blessed to have been born here. Our family was poor financially but we were rich in love, laughter, teasing, and compassion. We experienced an abundance of sunshine, tall majestic mountains, wandering streams and colorful wildflowers.

I grew up with seven brothers and sisters. We each got two pairs of shoes a year that I would covet. One pair was fancy for church, and the other was a pair of tennis shoes. We did all kinds of crazy things to stretch the food budget. Sometimes we would have a few cans of soda, divide them up among all of us and add water. We didn’t mind. We were thrilled to share a watered down version just to taste a soda.

As you can probably imagine, family vacations were rare. I remember two; Glenwood Hot Springs and the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes park. These were both 2-day mountain adventures that we all loved. Eventually, I got a scholarship and went off to college. I met people from around the globe and developed an intense case of wanderlust. I had a real thirst to travel the world and especially to experience the ocean.

I bought a 1956 rambler my freshman year that I named Fubsy. As soon as we finished with spring semester three girlfriends and I headed to California. We were determined to make the 21-hour drive without stopping and go straight to the ocean. I will never forget the “Bots Dots” quotation marks on the California freeway that kept me going at 5 a.m. and stopped me from drifting as my determination took me to the sea.

We went directly to Santa Monica beach. I parked the car, took off my shoes and ran directly into the water, clothes and all! I was splashing, laughing and falling over into the waves. I tasted the salt water on my tongue. I will always remember the feeling of the water enveloping me. I was, and I am, totally touched, from my outer skin to my inner soul, when I am at the ocean.

After that first experience, I started to find my sense of purpose. I vowed I would be on a beach at least once a year for the rest of my life, and have lived up to that promise tenfold.

Sometimes our oceans are proverbial and sometimes they are literal. When we reach midlife, our sense of purpose may change. We may feel like we’re treading water instead of running down the beach. We may feel like it’s time to find a new beach and dive in.

Of course Fubsy is long gone, but my love of the ocean lingers, and has profoundly impacted both my personal and professional life. My deep passions include personal coaching and facilitating women’s groups such as the Bury Your Weight in the Sand Wellness Retreat.

Wherever you are in this journey, isn’t it time to commit to your health, happiness and well-being? I can show you how.

Live, Love, Engage Podcast Interview

The following is an introduction of an interview conducted for me, Sondra Joyce,
from Gloria Grace Rand on her podcast, “ Live, Love Engage†in September, 2021:

“Dr Sondra Joyce and I met through a mastermind program several years
ago. Sondra is a great mix of honing both her business and transformational
skills. She’s a property manager for a health and healing complex. She
has 40 years of combined experience as a therapist/coach with a bachelor’s
degree in social work, a master’s in psychology, and a DA in coaching and
counseling. Sondra has a healing and wholistic background. She was the first
massage therapist in Fort Collins, Colorado and opened and operated the first
spa there for 17 years! She is an author, mastermind facilitator and has led
transformational retreats in Mexico for women for years. Sondra, tell us all about
your exciting endeavors in helping women in midlife.â€

I am passionate about learning and expanding my horizons so am always taking
classes, courses, trainings, and hence so many degrees. And, as I look back
over my life, the number one thing that I’ve been passionate about is
transformation and personal growth since I was a very, very young person. So
that is my core, regardless of any degrees or trainings. And because of that
core commitment, I am super passionate about helping other people. My tribe is
helping women in midlife make the rest of their lives the best of their lives!


I get a lot of juice and joy out of seeing somebody being in one state and then
moving to a different place in their lives that serves them. I also am a total
renegade. I don’t know why that is, but I’m always on the leading edge of new
thought and unconventional thinking. Examples include starting the Colorado
Wholistic Health Network before people new about “health†food, studying Feng
Shui with a French architect when most people were totally unfamiliar with the
term which helped me create healthy and happy homes, helping to start and live
in Heartwood Cohousing and being the first Eco Broker in my area.


Transformation and new thought is what I thrive on. It’s led me down many
creative paths.


In my psychotherapeutic studies, I worked to create a program for myself that not
only including traditional therapeutic approaches, but also Jungian Dream Work,
and personal work with the top health and healing experts in their respective
fields. I was studied Tantra with Margo Anand and Charles Muir, the Passionate
Marriage with Dr. David Schnarch and worked with Gay and Kathleen Hendrick’s
Body Centered Psychotherapy, to name just a few.

While therapy may approach healing old wounds as a catalyst to moving forward,
coaching is a bit of a different approach. Questions are what’s happening now?
Where do you want to go? How can I help you get there? It doesn’t mean not
addressing a past healing trauma. But it’s a different take on life. Helping people
move forward to a more passionate life is my desire.


In the last 5-10 years, I have become devoted to the joys and challenges of women in midlife., and just what those challenges and joys are. Once a woman has gone
through menopause, and is past the initial stages of nurturing a child, there is a
new world that opens. I’m so excited about this, because it’s a world where there
can be a lot of movement and transformation, but there also can be some really
difficult times.


I’m a joyful person and I was faced with some new challenges such as my mom
passing away, going through midlife myself, experiencing bodily changes and
weight gain, and looking at my legacy and what my life will be like going forward.
My son moved out and now is contemplating moving out of state and we’re
extraordinarily close, so I, like many other mothers, have been experiencing
empty nest syndrome. Those are just a few of the challenges that I was dealing
with.


There are many, many more. What helped me was taking the stance that I am
100% responsible for my life. I am 100% responsible for my health. I’m 100%
responsible for my happiness. And that led me to taking better care of myself and
letting go of what no longer serves me. I made a declaration that my health, my
happiness and my transformation was and is the most important aspect of my
life. And I will do whatever it takes to create that energy for myself, and anybody
else who wants to come on the journey with me.


I think all of us have an aspect of us that people allude to. For me, people often
say I have a radiant presence. I looked at a picture of myself with a girlfriend of
mine and was horrified! Where was my spark? Where is the radiant being that is
me? My friend challenged me. She was worried about my health, being
overweight, not attending to my spiritual being and not exercising like I used. She
also touched a nerve asking me what it would be like to leave your son too early
in this life when he needs you. She asked what is the next 20-30 years going to
be like for you if you don’t take care of yourself?


If you or anybody is worried about a friend or a family member’s health and
wellbeing, take that stance that she did with me. It was October of 2020. I
decided that I needed to get out of my environment and create some time alone
and really face my own music or static.

I went on a retreat in Mexico with a health plan I created for 3 weeks, then
decided that in the middle of the pandemic, I could be here in this very healthy
environment, so I stayed for another 3 months. I was outside, eating organic
food, walking and eventually running on the beach, and decided to commit to
weighing myself every day and tracking that, meditating, practicing yoga and
water aerobics, journaling, having accountability partners, engaging in therapy
and generally shaking my life up! I still worked at least 4 hours a day in the
afternoon, but the mornings and evenings were dedicated to me.


I took a scale with me and did not weigh myself until I got there and guess what?
I needed to lose a minimum of 40 pounds! That seemed unfathomable to me.
As Mary Oliver says in one of her poems, I saved the only life I could save which
was my own, though voices tried to pull me in different directions.


I’m not a nutritionist. I’m not a weight loss expert. I am someone who decided I
needed to save my life, and implemented various techniques based on research
and was successful. I lost 40 pounds and feel fantastic.


Most of the women I know are passionate and amazing women who offer
tremendous value into the world. It’s difficult to take a deep look at a picture of
yourself on Facebook or look into the mirror and realize that it’s time to leave
behind an old part of yourself. The weight is there for a reason. It’s much deeper
than calories in and exercising, although that’s a part of it. After menopause, the
change in hormones really come into play.


When I returned home, I grabbed two 20 pound weights, I put them on my hips,
and I walked around with that weight, and I felt what it was like for my body to
carry those 40 pounds. And then I put them on top of my shoulders and felt what
I call the emotional weight that was weighing me down.


So here is my question to you. What is weighing you down? What’s keeping you
up at night? Are you stressed out about money? Health? Relationships? Work?
Children? Climate change? Politics? Or not being the highest and best version
of yourself that you know you can be? Whatever’s keeping you up at night, those
stories that you’re telling yourself repeatedly is likely the old energy that’s playing
in your mind, that is the inner and outer weight that is holding you back from a life
of purpose and joy.


I don’t have any idea what your body is supposed to look like. I think we’re
changing our ideas about bodies all the time. Because not every body needs to
be skinny or look a certain way. It isn’t a one size fits all approach. And I don’t
think that any woman should feel like there’s a certain weight that they have to be

or they can’t be happy or healthy. However, when facing personal factors such
as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, a large weight gain, depression, lack of
energy or sleep, stress over personal factors, then what are you going to do
about it? Do you want to be healthy and happy? Are you willing to do what it
takes? I wanted my radiant self-back! Do you?


Shedding the physical pounds goes hand in hand when you are also releasing
emotional weight. I kid you not, it took a lot of perseverance, and 100%
accountability and having a team of people that I was accountable to make this
happen.


Since I said I was going to get up at 6:30 in the morning and walk the beach, I
did, even when I didn’t want to. Everyday I went to yoga class. I think what
happens when you commit 100% you create an internal muscle, a spiritual
muscle along with your physical muscle. And that spiritual muscle just pumps out
the energy that says I will do whatever it takes to be that healthy, happy person
that I want to be, no matter what. And so that spiritual muscle gets stronger
inside of us. And then that’s how we can let go of things that no longer serve us
and that tend to get piled on in midlife.


I’ve always been somebody who has a successful business, whether massage,
owning a spa, real estate, property management or therapy. But I’ve also always
been involved with an aspect of transformation. The transformational part for me
after being in this experience was creating the retreat Bury Your Weight in the
Sand to assist women in what’s weighing them down.


Even though I’m in landlocked Colorado, I’m a beach person. I would gather one
or two special shells on my morning walk while in Mexico, wash them and put
them in the sun. I charted my weight. When I would lose a pound, I would take
one of the shells with me on my morning walk down to the beach. Ceremony
time! That pound had served some purpose, So I said,†Thank you, thank you for
your service. And I needed you, but now I’m letting you go, so goodbye. I lost
you, and I’m not going to find you.â€


How many many times we have said “I lost weight!†“I lost 15 pounds!†Only to
find those pounds again and again. I want to stop that cycle, and deal with the
root cause as to why it’s been happening anyway!

The retreat is about letting go of what no longer serves us as women. It will be
offered a couple times a year. It’s an intimate gathering with 4-8 women, working

together, supporting each other with a commitment to losing what is weighing us
down and to let it go. The retreat includes cultural events and many fun activities
as well as plenty of personal time. I’ve led several workshops in my life. I’ve
created many ceremonies and ritual. I’m really excited about what I have
planned for women who decide to take this step and join me.


There are multiple places on my website to sign up for Healthy Habits, coaching
or to fill out a questionnaire to be considered for the retreat. I will be hosting
zoom calls to talk about what your needs are. I’m super excited about
connecting with the women who want something new in life, wanting to transform
body and soul. Let’s make the rest of your life the best of your life. That’s my
tagline!

Nobody knows how many years we have left! Nobody. The time is NOW to get
focused on taking care of yourself and being your best self ever by changing
habits and transforming what is weighing you down. There is a lot that we can do
together and I’m here for you.


Please connect here, emails sondra@sondrajoyce.com, or text/call me at 970-749-6120

May the rest of your life be the best of your life. Together we can create magic!

The wellness retreat in Mexico that will change your life

Let go of what’s weighing you down and challenge yourself for ten days or longer at our luxury transformational retreat. 

Ideal for women who want to unplug from the chaos of their daily lives and re-center their body’s and minds. Amazing transformation is possible through an immersive, results-oriented weight-loss and wellness retreat. Join other midlife and senior women in a tropical paradise practicing low-impact activities such as restorative yoga, meditation and walking. 

Your host and retreat guide, Dr. Sondra Joyce, is a transformational coach who empowers women in midlife to make the rest of their life the best of their life. 

The retreat includes beachfront accommodations including meals, a results-oriented wellness program, spa treatment, cultural exploration, and many other other goodies. Upon completion of this wellness retreat in Mexico, guests feel both physically and mentally transformed.