Welcome to "Conscious Movie Reviews."
I'm your host Joy Davis and here to review the drama, "Joy."
Growing up in a complicated family life, Joy Magnano had her own in-house Personal
Success Coach.
Her grandmother Mimi would plant the seeds of love and encouragement so she can grow
up to be a successful matriarch.
They had a special bond.
Many successful people have someone in their corner like Joy's grandmother who would
hold the space of their greatest potential so they can unfold beautifully into it.
Through pre-birth agreements called Soul Contracts, a particular individual can be
born into a family for the sake of creating balance and order across the generations.
In Joy's case, it's to restore the strong, matriarchal energy that is common in Italian
women.
It may have been broken when her mother Terri chose to live a reclusive life, watching soap
operas all day.
She was not fit to raise Joy, but groomed her to be the caretaker out of selfishness.
Steeped in family drama, Joy loved them all.
She kept them close - so close that it was a madhouse.
There were her two children to raise, Grandma Mimi who stayed
upstairs, a recluse mother in her bedroom glued to the TV, and ex-husband Tony camped
in the basement due to unemployment, then forced to share space with Rudy, his
difficult ex-father-in-law.
Joy is the classic, dutifully devoted Caregiver.
She was practical, responsible and dependable to a fault.
Her self-sacrificing tendencies came with a cost, having to defer any dreams.
And like the typical Caregiver personality, she would put herself in the victim role,
adding to the household drama.
When there's emotional enmeshment like this, it's very difficult to develop a strong sense
of Self.
Boundaries are either permeable or non-existent, so it's hard to say "no" when family feel
entitled to take from you.
They subscribe to the idea of what's yours is mine, becomes ours.
Issues around family relate to the root chakra - an energy center located at the base of
your spine.
When imbalanced, it can show up as having loose boundaries with others, unhealthy loyalties
to allow family to lean on you too much, excessive people pleasing, blocks in creativity, feeling
mistrustful, and lacking in confidence and self-esteem.
There are many methods you can use to balance the energy flows of the root chakra.
Dissatisfied with being a booking clerk for Eastern Airlines, Joy self-evaluates her
life to figure out how it all went wrong.
Chuck Spezzano, the creator of the therapeutic healing method called Psychology of
Vision, teaches that when there is career trouble, we're holding a grievance against
our father.
The masculine side is represented in our life's work and issues with Dad.
If you were raised to feel unsupported, unrecognized, and misunderstood by your father, it is similar
to being attacked emotionally.
"We can see our father's failure only if, at a very deep level, we wished him to fail...As
we forgive our father, give forth to him, our career blossoms and opens up for us,"
explained Spezzano.
As a child, Joy was a budding designer, creating paper cut-outs that was a source of wonderment
and power.
During a boat trip hosted by Trudy, her father's new girlfriend, their glasses of wine spilled
on the wood flooring of the deck.
She took the initiative to mop it up for everyone, getting glass cuts on her hands from wringing
it out.
The bloody experience sparked her inventive mind to come up with an ingenious,
self-wringing mop that was 10 times more absorbent and the head can be thrown in the
wash for re-use.
She called it "The Miracle Mop."
Joy excitedly understood the sales potential of her design.
It can be in every household of America.
The mop came to symbolize two things: Joy's need to clean up her own life by letting go
of unhealthy emotions and about domesticity as it relates to the work needed to keep her
family together.
Having Trudy, a wealthy Italian widow, as the financier and building the prototype at
her Dad's greasy order shop was fraught with lots of criticism and financial risks.
Even her competitive half-sister Peggy joined in the chorus of discouraging her mop idea.
They located a manufacturer in California to make the parts for low cost, but had to
pay $50,000 in royalty fees to a man in Hong Kong with a similar product.
Joy was convinced that the rewards would outweigh all the risks she's taking on.
As a family business, it was dysfunctional with no built-in support system to ensure
teamwork and solidarity.
What can work is if they consciously tried a Communal Business Management Style that
is well-suited for matriarchal cultures.
There's mutual commitment and strong common identity.
Everyone shares in the risk and rewards; there's lots of social interaction; and it centers
around a role-model, charismatic CEO who develops a strong strategy for the group to contribute
to a common goal.
With a prototype mop, Joy sets up her sales presentation in the parking lot of K-Mart
on the sly.
She learned that face-to-face marketing this way was a real pain to do and illegal.
Luckily, Joy's ex-husband gave her a referral to meet an executive at QVC, a cable channel
in Lancaster, Pennsylvania that can sell products nationwide through a telethon system.
She was given her first chance by Neil Walker.
He advised her to have an inventory of 50,000 mops that are readily available to sell.
The financial stakes were high!
Joy had to come up with $200,000 for the manufacturer to make the parts.
Taking out a second mortgage was the only way.
On the day of the broadcast, the sales actor fumbled in demonstrating how the mop was used,
resulting in no sales.
Fearing bankruptcy, Joy aggressively confronted Neill at QVC, insisting that she demonstrate
her own product.
He reluctantly gave her a second chance, resulting in close to 50,000 mops sold.
A turning point for Joy was when her grandmother Mimi died.
While at the funeral, she learned about her father Rudy allowing Peggy to meet with the
manufacturer in California.
Without Joy's consent, Peggy agreed to a $2 price increase per unit and gave them a check
of $20,000 to close the deal.
This would leave
Joy in debt by
$1 1/2
million dollars,
forcing her
into bankruptcy.
Out of anger, Joy
laid down
a strict boundary.
Peggy
cannot
make decisions for
her business ever
again.
She began to
realize her
potential as a fierce
businesswoman
and strong matriarch.
A
process of Soul
Retrieval
can help to get
your personal power
back.
Practiced by
Shamans,
they believe that your
Soul should be free
to travel
and retrieve
ancient wisdom
and lost power
to mend
your fragmented
Self.
Problems continued
when
the manufacturer
was found out
they they stole
her molds and
patents.
No longer putting up
with things,
she laid
the hammer down
on the owner
of the manufacturer
to pay her back
for the
fraudulent charges
or go to
court.
He had no rights
to her patent.
They settled
on the spot
in Joy's favor.
Starting from the
seeds of encouragement
she received
as a child,
they came to
fruition for Joy
to become the
family's
strong and
successful
matriarch.