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Unite for Joy!

Join us on June 2 for a global celebration of JOY. This feature length documentary shares the wonderful friendship between the Archbishop Desmond Tutu and His Holiness The Dalai Lama, and shows how you can live a more JOYOUS life.
Pat Mitchell

Pat Mitchell

3 Min Read

Unite for JOY - Global screening June 1 at 5 pm

In these deeply troubled times, now, more than ever, we are all in need of an antidote to despair. The lived experiences of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and His Holiness the Dalai Lama serve as an amazing example of the power of JOY in the face of adversity, and the JOY of their friendship is a sustaining force for all of us.

Please consider joining me and more than 300 million others around the world on Thursday, June 2nd, for a unique event that will lift your spirits and restore your faith in the healing power of JOY — a worldwide screening of the documentary film Mission: JOY – Finding Happiness in Troubled Times.

The film, a conversation between the two great global leaders and good friends, is being shared on Facebook on Thursday, June 2 at 8 PM ET / 5 PT — FREE for the world.

RSVP at missionjoy.org/UNITE for reminders!

I will be joining the global screening by sharing the film stream on my own Facebook page, along with many others around the world who are inviting our followers to join the screening by going to our personal Facebook pages.

Some of you may remember that I wrote about this documentary and the accompanying Big Joy Project in my first newsletter post of 2022. As I said at the time, the film is wonderful, inspiring and memorable. It captures how these two great men — each survivors of pain and suffering in their own lives — came to embrace so fully both the ancient wisdom and the new research about the nature of joy. It explores how joy contributes to our mental, emotional and physical well-being and how we all might access more joy, no matter our circumstances.

Also important to remember is that alongside caring, compassion, and a sense of personal well-being, joy is essential to creating a better world. “It helps no one if you are sacrificing your joy because others are suffering,” Archbishop Tutu says in the film. “We people who care must be attractive, must be filled with joy, so that others recognize that caring, that helping and being generous are not a burden, they are a joy.”

I believe this film is also a great gift to the world. 

I hope that you will share this link to invite your friends, families and co-workers. Thank you for your help sharing JOY and compassion when our world needs them most.

Onward!

– Pat

Author(s)

  • Pat Mitchell

    Pat Mitchell is a lifelong advocate for women and girls. At every step of her career, Mitchell has broken new ground for women, leveraging the power of media as a journalist, an Emmy award-winning and Oscar-nominated producer to tell women’s stories and increase the representation of women onscreen and off. Transitioning to an executive role, she became the president of CNN Productions, and the first woman president and CEO of PBS and the Paley Center for Media. Today, her commitment to connect and strengthen a global community of women leaders continues as a conference curator, advisor and mentor. In partnership with TED, Mitchell launched TEDWomen in 2010 and is its editorial director, curator and host. She is also a speaker and curator for the annual Women Working for the World forum in Bogota, Colombia, the Her Village conference in Beijing, and the Women of the World (WOW) festival in London. In 2017, she launched the Transformational Change Leadership Initiative with the Rockefeller Foundation focused on women leaders in government and civil society. In 2014, the Women’s Media Center honored Mitchell with its first-annual Lifetime Achievement Award, now named in her honor to commend other women whose media careers advance the representation of women. Recognized by Hollywood Reporter as one of the most powerful women in media, Fast Company’s “League of Extraordinary Women” and Huffington Post’s list of “Powerful Women Over 50,” Mitchell also received the Sandra Day O'Connor Award for Leadership. She is a contributor to Enlightened Power: How Women Are Transforming the Practice of Leadership, and wrote the introduction to the recently published book and museum exhibition, 130 Women of Impact in 30 Countries. In 2016, she served as a congressional appointment to The American Museum of Women’s History Advisory Council. She is writing a memoir, Becoming a Dangerous Woman: Embracing a Life of Power and Purpose, that will be published in 2019. Mitchell is active with many nonprofit organizations, serving as the chair of the boards of the Sundance Institute and the Women’s Media Center. She is a founding member of the VDAY movement and on the boards of the Skoll Foundation and the Acumen Fund. She is also an advisor to Participant Media and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mitchell is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Georgia and holds a master's degree in English literature and several honorary doctorate degrees. She and her husband, Scott Seydel, live in Atlanta and have six children and 13 grandchildren.