Hello Joy-seekers, meet Abbey Acevedo!
She is a narrator, writer, poet, YouTuber, and Reiki master! Abbey is embracing who she is and what she loves the most. She is truly shining her joy! We used to be coworkers and we've both gone through a very transformational spiritual journey over the past few years. Abbey and I reconnected recently and I wanted to feature her in my Spotlight on Joy series. If you are seeking inspiration and the ultimate pick-me-up while heading into the new year, you'll want to watch our full conversation in the video above!
Abbey has narrated two audiobooks, 365 Days to Self-Prosperity: Affirmations and Fulfillment and Awakening: A Contemplative Primer on Learning to Sit and even wrote a children's book about crystals, dedicated to her nieces and nephews! Her book focuses on the use of crystals as energetic tools for emotional support, empowering kids to explore their own emotions.
As a YouTuber, she has launched her New Age Coach channel, which delves into self and soul development, spirituality, and her own awakening journey. She also shares fun videos about her adventures, and inspirational videos that include her original poetry. Her beautiful mission through this channel is, "Lighting the Way for Those on Their Way to the Light."
Our uplifting conversation covered a variety of topics such as joy, self-love, self-exploration, manifestation, gratitude, divine timing, clichés, and empowerment. I am including Abbey's responses to a few of my questions below:
What does joy mean to you, and how have you rediscovered it over the past few years?
Joy to me is basically our birthright, and that's kind of a belief system that I've had to really work on through this journey over the last few years. With everything in the world, it's so easy to look at the negative, feel the stress. Everything is go-go-go, do-do-do, don't stop and rest...so those would be the opposite for me of joy, which also explains the definition of joy which is, whatever lights you up. It's going to be different for every single person because we're all unique human beings just having this human experience. So for me, joy is also synonymous to experience. Basically things that make us human, that lights up our senses, that get us to where time disappears and you know, we're in this kind of flow state, and we just are able to lose ourselves, which is ironically the way you find yourself in it. That's kind of what joy means to me. It's a process, but joy can be anything from just something as simple as laughing, to meditating, to doing things like cooking ,to just a state of being too. The journey that I'm on is really how to cultivate more of staying in that state of joy, that emotional state.
Your "Be Yourself" message is prevalent throughout your website and in the content you share. Tell me more about how you've learned to be yourself and an example of someone you've empowered.
Be is in my name (Abbey). And I actually just had that realization about a year ago on my journey as I'm learning to be me. I think that once you start becoming aware and you're taking time to learn yourself and you're more conscious and intentional about that, you'll start noticing all of these signs and synchronicities, and even words or people, that's right in front of your face the whole time. I was born with this name, but I kind of just came upon this realization. So that's part of the journey. But I think it's beautiful the way we have that in common with your middle name being Joy, and how important our name is to who we are. It's one way we identify with who we are, and as I'm on this journey, that prompted me to look more into my name. And Abbey is like a church or a spiritual development center or some place people go to learn more about themselves and kind of the spiritual awakening journey, so I find no irony or coincidence in the power of a name. That just shows how powerful words are too when we think of manifestation and how we speak up to ourselves, and about ourselves, to other people. I encourage everyone to go research their name!
My family...we have different belief systems when it comes to religion or just spirituality or kind of the way things work, and that's completely ok. It's actually been great for conversation and understanding our upbringing as children growing up, and siblings, and just how our whole lives have worked. I've noticed in them witnessing the growth that I've had over the last three years, like pursuing my dreams, publishing a book, stepping out of my comfort zone, being ok saying, "I don't want this anymore," letting my whole life crumble to the ground as they witness it, but still rising up and coming out on the other side, people take note of that stuff. And I'll say that I truly believe that one of my older sisters, as a result, has been activated on her own spiritual journey now. So, just by me going through this process naturally, being myself in my family unit, I can now see the impact it's actually having on my siblings, with one of them going through a spiritual awakening. Or my mom, who's not so inclined to admit that she's following along...but I'll sneak into her room and see there are crystals, or she's now reading Louise Hay, You Can Heal Your Life. They're paying attention and they're kind of coming in their own time. The message is really not trying to impact people so much, as the message is to really step into your own power, focus on your self-journey, and that will naturally and organically start to help other people do the same.
What is one message or one wisdom you would share with someone who is feeling stuck and not connected to joy?
I think intent is underrated. It's important to want to connect with joy. That goes back to the spiritual journey of having to dig deep and do some introspection. You may be having some limiting beliefs about: Do I deserve to be happy? Am I worth being happy? Do I forgive myself for any of the things that are stopping me from being happy? Do I honestly, from the bottom of my soul, think that I could be that millionaire? If your answer is "no" to any of those questions, you can want joy all you want, but you're never going to be matching the experience of joy, because you've got some things to work out to be able to accept joy. So you have to be open to joy and have the intent to want joy, but you also have to be open to kind of asking yourself some important questions and being open to receiving whatever answers you give yourself too, and being honest with yourself with the answers, because that's the journey.
I felt so inspired chatting with Abbey and it certainly raised my vibrations! And I realized even more how important it is for all of us to continue to find our Tribe for support and inspiration. We may often feel alone on our journey, but it doesn't have to be that way.
Shine on, friends!
Her children's book, "Hi, I'm Crystal": An Introduction to Crystals for Children is available on Amazon!
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