Happenings in Joy Scout Club
Joy Scout Club (formerly Forced Joy Club) is a supportive & safe community helping to discover what’s possible after partner loss, where we explore the space between the life you had and the life you want. The purpose is to feel less alone, provide a safe and judgment-free space to share stories and resources, and create meaningful connections that help navigate the complexities of grief.
This page will be updated regularly with the most current events.
April Theme: Play
April in the Club is about Play — not as something frivolous, but as a way of reconnecting with delight, curiosity, and the parts of ourselves that still want to feel alive.
After loss, life can become heavy, serious, and painfully practical. Play can feel unfamiliar, unnecessary, or even inaccessible. And yet, play is often how joy first begins to return — not as a huge breakthrough, but as a laugh, a spark, a moment of silliness, a tiny surprise.
This month, we’re exploring what it means to make room for lightness again and leaning into whimsy by allowing ourselves to notice what still feels good, weird, beautiful, funny, or fun.
Our Field Assignment invites you to go on a Tiny Joy Treasure Hunt. Pick one day and spend it looking for small moments of delight — in nature, in town, around your neighborhood, or even inside your home. The goal isn’t to manufacture joy or turn it into something profound. It’s simply to go looking for it. A really good pastry, a dog in a raincoat, sunlight on the floor, a song at the perfect moment — tiny joy still counts.
To support this, this month’s resource is Joy Bingo, a playful prompt card designed to help you notice and collect moments of delight throughout the month. You’ll receive one pre-filled Bingo card with simple joy prompts, plus one blank card to create your own. Use it as a game, a gentle nudge, or a reminder that joy doesn’t have to be big to matter. Can you get Bingo before the month is up?
And all month long, we’ll be doing the Joy Still Exists Challenge together — posting one moment of joy each day, no matter how small. This challenge isn’t about positivity or pretending everything is okay. It’s about witnessing the little flickers of life that still show up, and reminding each other that even now, joy still exists.
April isn’t about ignoring your grief — it’s about remembering that delight still belongs too.
April Events
Joy Still exists challenge: All month long
I know finding joy can be a struggle. Some join the club specifically for that reason. The purpose of this challenge is to encourage ourselves to find the tiny, daily joys that exist, even on the really hard days (and yes, sometimes those joys are teeny, tiny). By doing this as a group, we can give each other ideas for finding joy, both big and small, and create a virtual catalog that we can come back to on days when we are struggling. And as an extra incentive, there will be prizes.
COMMUNITY CHAT: TO stay or to Go: April 1
Because of the nature of our relationship with our partners, having to rebuild most, if not all, aspects of our lives after they die is unique to partner loss. And regardless of one's individual circumstances, all widows eventually have to contend with the question: TO STAY OR TO GO? In this group discussion, we'll talk about some of the biggest choices we have to make after losing our partners as we begin to rebuild our life: what to do with their belongings, where we want to live, and how our professional life aligns (or doesn't) with who we are post loss.
Get Shit Done Accountability Hour: April 3 & 17
In grief, there are a million tasks to get through. And we can spend weeks avoiding a phone call that would take 5 minutes to make. Maybe it brings up trauma or maybe you're just too exhausted to care, but whatever the reason for avoiding, let's support each other and check off one (or more) items from our dreaded to-do lists.
Craft & Chat: April 8 & 29
Led by one of our members, we gather in community to tap into our creative side. Crafting can be meditative, healing, a positive way to release pent-up energy, and frankly, fun! All crafts and skills welcome.
Writing Circle: April 10 & 24
Many of us use writing as a way to cope with our grief, whether it's rage journaling, working on a memoir, writing poetry, or something in between. Join us as we support one another in this practice.
Happy/Crappy Hour: April 14
Show up as you are to these virtual get-togethers that allow us to get to know each other better and connect over our shared (happy & crappy) experiences. From casual conversation to themes (like show & tell), these unrecorded sessions give us a safe space to vent, hold space, and celebrate the tiny wins in grief.
Yoga Therapy with Julia Warren: April 15
Join Julia Warren, C-IAYT, in our monthly series to support our nervous system through breathwork, yoga, and somatic healing. Julia brings a gentle, embodied approach to healing, rooted in lived experience and a deep belief that we can integrate our grief in a way that makes space for a beautiful, meaningful life after loss.
MAKE YOUR OWN BINGO CARD: APRIL 22
Join Sophie and create a bingo card of your own! This can be filled with personal growth challenges, tiny joys, or mini self-care dates. Together, we'll brainstorm items to fill in the boxes and have fun creating our own cards for the season. If you’re feeling less creative, use the template we created to fill in your card.
Yoga Asana with Julia Warren: April 28
Join Julia Warren, C-IAYT, for a 60-minute movement-based yoga asana class for all levels. Many of us struggle to hold ourselves accountable and make space to do something we KNOW feels supportive to our mental, physical, and emotional health. Let’s put an hour on the calendar to move our bodies together. No prior experience needed with yoga.
Field Assignment Reflection: GO ON A TINY JOY TREASURE HUNT: APRIL 30
One of the purposes of the Field Assignments is to challenge ourselves to step outside of our comfort zones a bit. And the beauty of doing that inside the club is having a community of people to encourage and cheer each other as we attempt to do that. In this monthly conversation, come share your reflections on the most recent field assignment — how it felt, any resistance you had, what came up, etc. During this gathering, we'll be discussing the Marxh Field Assignment: Go on a Tiny Joy Treasure Hunt.
PAST EVENTS
March Theme: Choice
March in the Club is about Choice — not the kind that feels forced or performative, but the quiet, steady reclaiming of your own internal voice.
So much of widowhood is shaped by what we didn't choose. And yet, even inside a life shaped by force, there are still decisions available to us — small ones, honest ones — that begin to rebuild trust with ourselves.
This month, we’re exploring what it means to consciously choose the life you want now — and just as importantly, what you don’t.
Our Field Assignment invites you to say no to something you’re doing out of obligation or habit — and say yes to something you genuinely want or feel curious about. To practice choosing instead of continuing by default. We’ll reflect together on what it stirs up and what shifts when you permit yourself to decide differently.
To support this, this month’s resource is the Choice Clarity Guide, a reflective workbook designed to help you sort through your yes and no with intention. Inside, you’ll find prompts to clarify what still fits, what feels heavy, and where you may be ready to choose in a new direction — without pressure to have it all figured out.
Our Community Chat, “To Date or Not to Date,” brings this theme into one of the most loaded choices many widows face. Whether you feel curious, resistant, partnered, or nowhere near ready, this conversation is about reclaiming the power to decide what you want — and what you don’t — when it comes to love moving forward.
March isn’t about reinventing your entire life. It’s about remembering that even now, you still get to choose.
March Events
Breathwork & Sleep Workshop: First 4 Mondays
In this four-week series, Erin Browning, MA, CCC-SLP, founder of Evolved Therapy, will guide us through a compassionate, body-based approach to reconnecting with breath after loss. Erin helps participants gently notice patterns of tension in the jaw, tongue, face, and chest, and explore how breath and sound can support emotional waves and deeper rest. Each session structure includes a brief moment of finding presence, a teaching on the body, breath, and emotional connection, a gentle guided practice, and time for quiet reflection and optional questions.
Speaker Series: Ashley Nelson, Learning About Grief: March 3
This month, we’re joined by Ashley Nelson, founder of Learning About Grief and author of The Identity Reset: A Guide to Discovering Yourself After Loss, Change, and Survival. A two-time widow before age 35, Ashley brings both lived experience and professional insight to the complex reality of identity after loss. Her work centers on what happens when the version of you shaped by partnership, roles, or stability no longer fits — and how to gently rebuild a sense of self without pressure to “move on.” Together, we’ll explore identity not as something you lost, but something you are allowed to rediscover and redefine on your own terms.
Field Assignment Reflection: TAKE YOURSELF ON A SOLO DATE: March 4
One of the purposes of the Field Assignments is to challenge ourselves to step outside of our comfort zones a bit. And the beauty of doing that inside the club is having a community of people to encourage and cheer each other as we attempt to do that. In this monthly conversation, come share your reflections on the most recent field assignment — how it felt, any resistance you had, what came up, etc. During this gathering, we'll be discussing the February Field Assignment: Take Yourself on a Solo Date.
Get Shit Done Accountability Hour: March 6 & 20
In grief, there are a million tasks to get through. And we can spend weeks avoiding a phone call that would take 5 minutes to make. Maybe it brings up trauma or maybe you're just too exhausted to care, but whatever the reason for avoiding, let's support each other and check off one (or more) items from our dreaded to-do lists.
Yoga Therapy with Julia Warren: MARCH 10
Join Julia Warren, C-IAYT, in our monthly series to support our nervous system through breathwork, yoga, and somatic healing. Julia brings a gentle, embodied approach to healing, rooted in lived experience and a deep belief that we can integrate our grief in a way that makes space for a beautiful, meaningful life after loss.
Craft & Chat: MarCH 11 & 25
Led by one of our members, we gather in community to tap into our creative side. Crafting can be meditative, healing, a positive way to release pent-up energy, and frankly, fun! All crafts and skills welcome.
Writing Circle: March 13 & 27
Many of us use writing as a way to cope with our grief, whether it's rage journaling, working on a memoir, writing poetry, or something in between. Join us as we support one another in this practice.
COMMUNITY CHAT: TO DATE OR NOT TO DATE: March 18
This month is all about choice, so in this month's community chat, Dana and Sophie will lead a conversation on dating. We'll chat about reasons to date (and not to!), how to begin dipping your toe in the dating pool, and share our own personal experience with dating (and not dating). Whether you're in a relationship, considering dating, or feeling confident that the solo life is for you, we hope you join us in this casual and free-flowing talk among the safety of this community.
Book Club: H is For Hawk: March 19
This month’s book will be H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald. Heart-wrenching and humorous, this book is an unflinching account of bereavement and a unique look at the magnetism of an extraordinary beast, with a parallel examination of a legendary writer’s eccentric falconry. Obsession, madness, memory, myth, and history combine to achieve a distinctive blend of nature writing and memoir from an outstanding literary innovator. (And also now a movie with Claire Foy!)
Yoga Asana with Julia Warren: MARCH 24
Join Julia Warren, C-IAYT, for a 60-minute movement-based yoga asana class for all levels. Many of us struggle to hold ourselves accountable and make space to do something we KNOW feels supportive to our mental, physical, and emotional health. Let’s put an hour on the calendar to move our bodies together. No prior experience needed with yoga.
February Theme: Self Love
February in the Club is about self love — not as a goal post, but as a practice of meeting yourself with compassion. For widows, self love can feel complicated, tangled up with grief, guilt, and the quiet question of whether we’re allowed to choose ourselves again.
This month, we’re exploring self love as something lived — through presence, gentleness, and small acts of care — rather than something we’re supposed to achieve.
Our Field Assignment invites you to take yourself on a solo date, not to prove independence or enjoy every moment, but to practice choosing yourself with intention, even when it feels uncomfortable. For many of us, being alone on purpose can surface grief or resistance, and that discomfort doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong — it means you’re touching something real.
To complement this, this month's resource is a Solo Date Planning Guide, designed to gently help you decide what kind of time with yourself might feel supportive right now. This guide is here for anyone who feels unsure, anxious, or overwhelmed by the idea of spending time alone. It offers gentle prompts and ideas to help you choose something that feels supportive right now.
Later this month, our speaker series deepens the theme with mindfulness coach Sam Gutowski’s mini retreat, Meeting Yourself with Compassion in Grief, which offers space to pause, breathe, and meet yourself without pressure to fix or move on. Through guided meditation and gentle practices, this session explores how compassion — not self-improvement — can be a powerful form of self love in grief.
February Events
Field Assignment Reflection: February 4
One of the purposes of the Field Assignments is to challenge ourselves to step outside of our comfort zones a bit. And the beauty of doing that inside the club is having a community of people to encourage and cheer each other as we attempt to do that. In this monthly conversation, come share your reflections on the most recent field assignment — how it felt, any resistance you had, what came up, etc.
Get Shit Done Accountability Hour: February 6 & 20
In grief, there are a million tasks to get through. And we can spend weeks avoiding a phone call that would take 5 minutes to make. Maybe it brings up trauma or maybe you're just too exhausted to care, but whatever the reason for avoiding, let's support each other and check off one (or more) items from our dreaded to-do lists.
Yoga Therapy with Julia Warren: February 11
Join Julia Warren, C-IAYT, in our monthly series to support our nervous system through breathwork, yoga, and somatic healing. Julia brings a gentle, embodied approach to healing, rooted in lived experience and a deep belief that we can integrate our grief in a way that makes space for a beautiful, meaningful life after loss.
Writing Circle: February 13 & 27
Many of us use writing as a way to cope with our grief, whether it's rage journaling, working on a memoir, writing poetry, or something in between. Join us as we support one another in this practice.
Craft & Chat: February 13 & 25
Led by one of our members, we gather in community to tap into our creative side. Crafting can be meditative, healing, a positive way to release pent-up energy, and frankly, fun! All crafts and skills welcome.
Speaker Series: Meeting Yourself with Compassion in Grief with Sam Gutowski: February 19
Sam Gutowski, mindfulness coach, will be leading us through a virtual retreat titled Meeting Yourself with Compassion in Grief. As we all know, grief can feel overwhelming, isolating, and impossible to navigate, especially when the world seems to expect you to move on.
This mini retreat offers a gentle, honest space to pause, breathe, and be exactly where you are. Together, we will explore what mindfulness truly is and how it can support you through grief, not by fixing or removing the pain, but by helping you meet yourself with greater compassion. Through guided meditation, reflection, and simple embodied practices, you will be invited to sit with what is present, soften self-judgment, and learn ways to carry your grief with more gentleness.
Yoga Asana with Julia Warren: February 24
Join Julia Warren, C-IAYT, for a 60-minute movement-based yoga asana class for all levels. Many of us struggle to hold ourselves accountable and make space to do something we KNOW feels supportive to our mental, physical, and emotional health. Let’s put an hour on the calendar to move our bodies together. No prior experience needed with yoga.
Self-Love Portrait Workshop with Sophie: February 26
A creative exercise to support emotional well-being, personal growth, and self-love by providing a visual way to connect with our inner self.
You will be guided to draw a simple self-portrait and create affirmations branches that allow you to identify and reinforce positive beliefs about yourself, especially in areas where you may need support and encouragement.
It’s a simple but grounding exercise that will help reduce feelings of being lost, as we visually map out aspects of our personality, core values, and aspirations. This creative process serves as a tangible reminder of our strengths, guiding us towards a sense of direction and self-acceptance.
January Theme: Remembering
January in the Club is about remembering — not as a way to stay in the past, but as a way to move forward with intention.
Widowhood can make it feel like everything has been split into before and after. This month, we’re exploring a softer truth: not everything from before has to be left behind. Some things still belong to you — your love, your values, your ways of being, your memories — and remembering is how we decide what comes with us.
Throughout January, remembering will show up in a few gentle ways.
Our Field Assignment invites you to pause and orient yourself — where you are now and what from the past still fits. This assignment is about choosing what you want to carry forward — from who you were, who you loved, and the life you lived — into what’s next. It’s not about hard answers, it’s about exploration and curisotiy.
Before we look forward, we look back. Not into grief, but into a life that was lived, shared, and loved. That’s why this month’s resource is a Memory Map workbook, designed to help you tend to the tangible reminders of your life and your love. Think of it as giving memories a place, so they don’t have to live scattered in your mind.
Later this month, our speaker series, led by Kiera Liu, will build on this theme by focusing on organizing photos of our late spouses. This guided workshop will help you document key stories and memories of your life together. The goal is to help you identify what memories matter most right now and create a system to begin preserving them.
January Events
Happy/Crappy Hour: January 6
Show up as you are to these virtual get-togethers that allow us to get to know each other better and connect over our shared (happy & crappy) experiences. From casual conversation to themes (like show & tell), these unrecorded sessions give us a safe space to vent, hold space, and celebrate the tiny wins in grief.
Craft & Chat: January 8 & 28
Led by one of our members, we gather in community to tap into our creative side. Crafting can be meditative, healing, a positive way to release pent-up energy, and frankly, fun! All crafts and skills welcome.
Get Shit Done Accountability Hour: January 9 & 23
In grief, there are a million tasks to get through. And we can spend weeks avoiding a phone call that would take 5 minutes to make. Maybe it brings up trauma or maybe you're just too exhausted to care, but whatever the reason for avoiding, let's support each other and check off one (or more) items from our dreaded to-do lists.
Yoga Therapy with Julia Warren: January 14
Join Julia Warren, C-IAYT, in our monthly series to support our nervous system through breathwork, yoga, and somatic healing. Julia brings a gentle, embodied approach to healing, rooted in lived experience and a deep belief that we can integrate our grief in a way that makes space for a beautiful, meaningful life after loss.
Writing Circle: January 16 & 30
Many of us use writing as a way to cope with our grief, whether it's rage journaling, working on a memoir, writing poetry, or something in between. Join us as we support one another in this practice.
Winter mood board workshop: January 20
As we enter a new year, let's be intentional about what we hope for, not for the entire year (that can be too overwhelming), but for the season. We’ll spend an afternoon chatting and creating the mood we want to bring in this winter. No experience or creative ability required.
Speaker Series: Remembering Your Person Workshop with Kiera Liu: January 21
Join Kiera Liu, photographer and memory keeper, as we spend an hour remembering your loved one and reframing the stories that connected you. When we lose our partner, photos and stories are all we have left, making it vital to organize them in a meaningful way.
This guided workshop will help you document key stories and memories of your life together. The goal is to help you identify what memories matter most right now and create a system to begin preserving them, with continued support available beyond the workshop should you so choose.
Book Club: Remarkably Bright Creatures: January 27
Hosted by one of our members, escape reality and join us in the JSC book club! Our next book will be Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, a charming, witty, and compulsively readable exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope that traces a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus. (And soon to be a Netflix movie with Sally Fields!).
Past Club Events
When you join the club, you don’t just get immediate access to all future events, gatherings, and resources — you also get access to the entire backlog since the start of the community in January 2023.
If you’ve been curious about joining, but want more insight into what’s available, here is everything you get immediately (with more added every single month).
A Community Forum
With the Joy Scout Club Membership, you get access to a community forum to connect in real time and see how others navigate grief, find joy, and handle the speed bumps along the way. Think old-school chat room style, where you can pour your heart out anytime, day or night.
Monthly Speaker Series
Each month, we bring on a different expert or speaker to help provide guidance. These are hosted live for those who want to participate, and all replays are saved for those who wish to watch later. Past speaker recordings include:
Transforming from the Holy Shit to Holy Shift with Shea Petaja
Embodied Grief & Somatics with Julia Warren
Dating after Death with Tiffany Rampey
Releasing Grief & Trauma Through Yoga with Rylan Harrison
Kids and Trauma with Infant Mental Health Specialist Hannah Schottenfels
Mediums, Readings, & Energy Healing with Megan Winfrey
Writing a Book & Sharing Your Story with Emily Cave
Planning Your Best 3 Months with Diane Hullet
Dating a Widow from the Partner’s Perspective with Nathan Hamme
Grief Rituals with Ce'Ara Cannon
Coping with the Holidays with Shelby Forsythia
Parenting Yourself & Your Grieving Kids with Infant Mental Health Specialist Hannah Schottenfels
A Pretty Good Guide to Transformation with Pete Mclean
Write to Heal with Barri Leiner Grant of the Memory Circle
Finances 101 with CPA Lauren Furtado
Reconnecting to Your Intimate Self After Loss with Cathy Saputo
Writing and Publishing a Book with Jessica Fein
Enneagram and Grief with Shelby Forsythia
Traveling, Points, & Miles with Tiffany Rampey
How to Negotiate Friendships While Grieving with Shelby Forsythia
Sense of Safety and the Nervous System with Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor, Trisha Wolfe
Continuing Bonds with Marie-Claude Goudreau of Empowered Through Grief
Navigating School with Grieving Kids with California IB educator of the year, Ashley Hayball
Finding Joy After Loss with Dana Frost of Forced Joy Project
Mourning Pages with Barri Leiner Grant of the Memory Circle
Moving Forward after Loss with Susie Shaw, Founder and Executive Director of William’s Be Yourself Challenge
Using Breath to Support Stress & Sleep with Erin Browning
Intuitive Collage with Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor, Trisha Wolfe
Family Stress & The Holidays with Licensed Therapist, Rio Richards
Connecting with Loved Ones in Spirit with Alyse Dusseault
Member Grief Chat Series
You also get the opportunity to share your story, as well as listen to the stories of other grievers with our monthly member grief chats. This is a powerful way to connect and see how others are handling their own grief (and to recognize that we are not alone!). All conversations are recorded to watch later. Past topics have included:
Power of Community
Permission to Feel
Complexities of the Caregiver
Directness from Doctors about a Diagnosis
Staying Connected to Loved Ones
How Past Trauma Compounds Grief
Acceptance in Grief
How Grief Evolves Over Time
Traveling While Grieving
Grief in the First Year
Everyday Magic
Sibling Love & Loss
Evolution of Relationships (with Others and Ourselves)
Loneliness & Grief
Fuck Fine
Anxiety & Grief
Grief 10 Years In
Community Chats Series
Part of being in community is having a safe space to discuss the hard topics. Added in 2025, Community Chats are conversations between members, where we can share experiences, ask questions, and provide guidance. Some of the topics include:
Grieving with and without kids
When a widow starts dating
Signs from the other side
Death admin
Holidays: now & then
Somatics Library by Yoga Therapist, Julia Warren
Over 15 hours of recorded nervous system support created by Julia Warren, C-IAYT. Julia joins us monthly as a yoga therapist, mom of two boys, and widow who lost her husband, Doug, in 2021. She supports clients through yoga therapy, somatic-based practices, alongside nervous system support and education. Julia brings a gentle, embodied approach to healing, rooted in lived experience and a deep belief that we can integrate our grief in a way that makes space for a beautiful, meaningful life after loss.
Virtual Gatherings
A variety of gatherings, including:
Happy/Crappy Hours
Get Shit Done Accountability Hour (every other Friday)
Writing Circle (every other Friday)
Craft & Chat
Book Club, Movie Club, TV Club
Community Yoga
A Robust Resource Library
Updated each month, some of the current resources include:
Supporting Your Grief:
Grief bookshelf with lists for general grief books, books for kids, partner loss books, and books for the grief supporter (and more coming!)
List of articles on all kinds of grief
Tips for cleaning out a loved one’s closet
Tonkin’s model of grief
Ways to honor loved ones
Digital Grief Registry
Grief Literacy:
Ways to support someone grieving
What to say and not say
What to do and not do
How to help a grieving friend
Death Administration:
Passwords checklist
Password Tracker
Financial Checklist
Self Care & Healthy Healing:
Simple somatic healing practice
Ways to show yourself love while grieving
90 days of seasonal Forced Joy ideas
10-minute guided meditation
5-minute guided breath work
Upcycling grief books into art
A collaborative grief playlist
Regular Challenges
These “challenges” (we use that term lightly because grief is challenging enough), help us create community with others as we explore ways to heal and move forward in our grief. These challenges include:
30 Days of Forced Joy
30 Days of Nervous System Regulation
30 Days of Gratitude
And lots of extras
We are constantly evolving based on members’ needs. Along the way, we’ve had member panel discussions, accountability hours, art workshops, somatics, and more!