🤩Get Free: Don’t Defer Joy

Hey Get Free Fam, 

Happy Friday and happy December! We are on the slip and slide to the end of 2025. Can you believe that? I also realized that we are six months into the Get Free Guide. If you are new here, it is a place for discovering and tackling our daily freedoms — the little ways we get free that hopefully contribute to our bigger goals: the personal, physical, spiritual and financial. We’re a community of folks trying to make it through, so if you feel alone, you’re not. We’re in this together and we don’t gatekeep! If you have questions, comments or wisdom to share, drop us a line: [email protected]

Before we dive in, one final mention for The Get Free Guide’s Your Body, Your Numbers event tonight (Dec. 5) in Los Angeles! A big thanks to Octavia’s Bookshelf for offering the space, AfroLA for creating our resource guide and our guests, health educator Stephanie Capps and Marcus McDuffie owner of Aion Training who will be answering your questions about the different numbers associated with our bodies. Get yourself informed ahead of 2026! Click on the link below and RSVP. See you there!

So, how are we getting free this week?

The word that has been with me this week is joy. Right now in my office I’m looking at two objects that have reminded me to center joy all year: a piece of paper with some overall 2025 goals, with one of the objectives listed as “Do Something Fun!!!! (very important - look at the number of exclamation points!) 

Then on my whiteboard I have a picture from last Christmas with my mum which is joy in and of itself, but my sweater literally says “Joy.” Sometimes you’ve just got to be really on-the-nose with things. 

Joy also got me thinking about the things we do that put a smile on our faces; our hobbies (I almost laughed and said “what hobbies?!” but let’s roll with it); time with friends, music, new adventures, all the things, but no one knows joy like young kids. The way they play HARD and find joy in the most mundane things. My kid would play with dried beans and shakers filled with rice for HOURS. He also had a thing for moving potatoes from one cupboard to another for a while. He would laugh his head off like it was the best thing in the world. 

Cats are the same. There’s nothing my jobless feline likes more than an empty box she can jump in and out of. Or turn on the heater and she rolls around in the airflow, just happy. But buy her an actual toy and she’s very “meh” about it. Go figure. #cats

So what’s the point I’m making here? As adults, play, and by extension joy, can be hard to build into the day-to-day. We work through the list of to-dos, but joy is either a low priority or a once-in-a-while thing. So that’s the Get Free part: making space for joy, and not just for the holidays. 

Getting free this week

One way I found joy this week is through an IG series I’m calling the Get Free Challenge or the Free-stival (I don’t work in marketing for a reason, y’all.) I know it’s ridiculous — I am a very ridiculous and unserious person — but I had this idea that it would be great throughout December to post little ideas of things you can do to set yourself up for 2026; micro Get Frees between now and the end of the year. So check it out on Instagram if you’re looking for a giggle. There may or may not be some plastic antlers on the page…

What are some things you can try?

1. Make a list of things you would like to try or things that pique your interest. Know someone who does the thing you’d like to sample? See if you can go with them. Not sure you want to commit? Book one session. Not sure where to start? Ask a friend for a recommendation. Be curious!

2. Go with a buddy: If you really don’t like doing things by yourself, enlist a friend. Have an adventure buddy so you’re not doing things alone.

3. Calendar it: We get overscheduled, over-calendared, over-busy. But if you put it on your calendar, you might actually get around to doing it. I remember listening to Nicole Walters on her podcast a year or so ago. At the beginning of the year, she schedules time away —  planning in her breaks so they don’t get overrun with work and calendar invites. We can apply the same thing to joy and play. Just like you calendar a meeting or a doctor’s appointment, you should calendar your fun. (Side note: for real, schedule your physical, vision and dental appointments for 2026!) 

4. Play your music. LOUD: There is nothing better than blasting some GOOD tunes and singing along (or, terrorizing the young adults in your life with some musical and dance education. It’s only right!) My favorite thing is rolling up to carpool with the bass on max and the music cranked. Clean edits, of course. For the children…)

So tell me: before the end of 2025, how are you planning your joy? What might you like to try? What have you tried in the past that lit you up inside? Email us at [email protected], or you can fill out this form.

🚀Get Your Life: Things to read, listen to, enjoy🚀

📚What I’m reading: Talking about joy, there’s nothing better than reading a good book! Last week I picked up two new ones from Octavia’s Bookshelf, including Simply More by Cynthia Erivo.

🍿What I’m watching: It’s the holiday season so it’s time for The Grinch!

🎵 Soundtrack for the week: In the week Spotify’s Wrapped dropped (squarely a 90s fan - on brand) I’m grooving to Tuxedo’s Do It. Wasn’t in my top five, but one that will be put into rotation for the rest of the year

✨ If you’ve got a recommendation for the Fam, please share! ✨

THANKS FOR READING!

If you got something out of this issue of The Get Free Guide, give us a follow or a shout out on Instagram and share the love with a friend. We don’t gatekeep around here!

See you next Friday!