“We get the pleasure of being our own mountains. Sometimes there’s peaks, sometimes there’s valleys, but at every point keep your gratefulness.”
Jade
Bright Lights/Young Lives is a special project within our Grateful Voices video series which aims to uplift the personal stories and reflections of young people, aged 16 – 30 years old. The series is made up of short-form documentaries featuring young adults from a variety of backgrounds talking about what it means for them to live gratefully, how they embody this commitment, how gratefulness was awakened in them, and why they believe it matters and can make a difference in our world. The intention of these stories is to demonstrate the reality and relevance of Grateful Living across a diverse, inclusive continuum, and to share the insights, grateful perspectives, and rich sense of possibility that so many young people hold. In this short video, we hear from Jade Javon.
Video Transcript
Hey, I’m Jade Javon. I teach the tools that saved my life, which look like yoga, meditation, and breath work, to people who are like me, so mostly Black and Brown women. I’m 30 years old.
What superpower would you want?
I feel like I already have a superpower, and I’m still learning and working it out, but if I had to hone in on any superpower, it would be to melt the coldness — the ice — that so many people, at least where I’m from, feel around their heart, energetically. I would somehow have superpowers to melt the ice around their heart and make everybody more loving, more impactful, and just kinder.
I love yoga and meditation for my own personal practice, but as I start to engage with it in other folks, it doesn’t always resonate, it doesn’t always look the same for them, it doesn’t always have the same level of impact. Being able to stay resilient is finding that gratefulness in every moment, seeing what is the impact for me, how does it make me a better human, a better teacher, and a better community member to the society that I hope to add value to.
What’s one word to describe your journey?
It would be overflow. My whole life I’ve been experiencing this and I’m just getting the language to describe this overflow. If it’s love, if it’s emotion, if it’s currency, if it’s abundance, if it’s even parts of my valleys, overflow all the time of things. Learning right when my cup is full has been my sweet spot of my existence.
One thing that led me towards my journey in yoga and meditation was the passing of my father. That was a huge catalyst in my life to help push me towards the things that served me, that made me feel comfortable, joyful, and really more like my true and authentic self.
What I want to say to a teenager, a youth watching this, is to practice gratefulness every step along in the process. We get the pleasure of being our own mountains. Sometimes there’s peaks, sometimes there’s valleys, but at every point keep your gratefulness.
My hope for the future of the world is the same hope I have for myself, that I can continue to evolve and that somewhere, somehow, I continue to be my most authentic self, more like me.
Bright Lights/Young Lives has been executed in honor/memory of the extraordinary life of Julia Burke, who lived her passion for life out loud. Funding for the series came from The Julia Burke Foundation. The videos were produced by Greg Corbin and edited by Jordan Francis. The Grateful Living Team oversaw the project with grateful hearts.
Visit Grateful Voices to see more stories about living gratefully.
Joy and pain dwell in close companionship within me. once when life seemed impossible to live a leaf in my pot plant unfolded before my eyes and opened a space within me to want to live. Even today I saw the babies out of their incubators lined up in a hospital in Gaza with no hope of survival and realised that millions of people are awakening to the horror of war and its impossibility of ever creating the harmony we want. If I do not let myself feel the pain, I cannot feel the joy. At times I need to remind myself, but generally both are within me. Listening to the symphony brought much together within me. Thank you.