Joy as a non negotiable
The Search for Joy.
Man, I wish I had a way to tell you guys about the process that is this weekly blog. Basically it starts by reminding myself that it's okay to share my voice, and learning to accept that it's nearly impossible to include every caveat on a general topic — and then try not spend all of Friday completely spiraling about it.
As you can imagine, my thoughts, the topic, the message, changes 100 times between Saturday and Thursday night. This week though, what kept returning was the concept of joy.
I recently saw my friend Liz — yes, the same Liz I'm co-hosting and facilitating Grieving Heights with — for a psychic embodiment session to help process through another pregnancy loss.
This is the first time I’m sharing about this loss publicly, and it feels like I went ahead and just ripped that bandaid right off.
I met with Liz, searching for answers and desperate to release some of the grief that I had been carrying. The message that came through, in order for our spirit baby to return to us, I have to return to joy. Specifically, sharing joy with my inner child. So for weeks now, the concept of joy has been living in the forefront of my brain. What does that even mean? What does it actually look like? WHERE AND HOW DO I EXPERIENCE JOY? *she screams into the void*
It came up in sessions this week too — returning to joy despite the grief. Then Wednesday happened and I had the privilege of seeing The Laugh Therapist in action, and honestly, I got my answer. Even the way he brands himself is funny: "not licensed, just medicated." I'm honestly a little mad that I've been out here living my life without knowing his content exists. The way he brings levity into the heaviest situations — PTSD, trauma, marriage — and the jokes, you guys. The genius blend of funny and dark. Like my wife cares more about the dog than me energy. I was sitting there just laughing, like full body laughing, the kind where you forget for a second that we’re gathered to talk about vicarious trauma and caregiver burnout, because In those moments, we got to laugh about both. He partners with his wife Trish, and they call themselves partners in recovery, and that just lights me up. As a caregiver and wife to an Army infantry combat veteran, it was honestly a relief to experience military trauma through light, laughter, and love. That's what joy looked like this week. Real, specific, laughing-at-something-dark-because-what-else-are-you-gonna-do joy.
I’ve come to lean, there will always be something. Something to navigate, negotiate, or grieve. Most things in life cycle, the hard times, the good times, the seasons, the moon, menstrual cycles, the astros. The only thing constant is change, right.
Currently, and I say this as someone who is very much not an astrologer, we are in a moment of endings and shifts all stacked on top of each other. The New Moon in Pisces just asked us to dissolve, to release, to feel everything we've been quietly carrying. Pair that with Mercury retrograde dragging up old feelings, old grief, even old versions of ourselves that we thought we'd already dealt with. So if the week felt heavy or foggy or emotionally all over the place in a way you couldn't quite name — same. Your nervous system has been doing a lot of heavy lifting trying to keep you regulated.
The exhaustion is your release. The confusion is recalibration.
On March 20th, the Sun moves into Aries — the Astrological New Year, the Equinox, the zodiac hitting reset. Mercury goes direct the same day, and that fog finally lifts. Things that felt stuck, start to move again.
And just as things start to settle, things shake up again. I have to remember, we are all, constantly, in some version of the dissolve. There will always be something ending, something beginning, we’ll forever be in some process of getting clear and letting go.
If I've said it once, I've said it 100 times, and I'll say it at least 100 more:
adulting is freaking hard.
Especially in 2026. Shit’s a mess out here.
It feels like we’re constantly talking about the heaviness, the trauma, the pain, the suffering. I don't entirely know why, honestly. I mean, I think I do. It started when we realized Instagram was free marketing and making money online was actually possible. The online coaching boom kicked off and with it came a shift toward vulnerability online. So what did people do? They started filling the internet with their personal Odyssey’s. I get it. I do it too. I’m doing it right now. But fuck, if it isn't exhausting to be constantly surrounded by the heavy. I know I'm not out here posting jokes, and this week has honestly made me ask myself: why not? Why not more light? Why not let the funny version get a little more time in the spotlight? She’s funny.
It doesn't all have to be so serious all the time.
Because joy is not the opposite of grief. It’s not a reward you earn by suffering enough first. It's not what you get to feel when the hard stuff is finally over. Its our birthright. You can be in the inbetween, the transition of the season, in the recalibration, in the not-yet-knowing — and still experience joy.
So that's what I want to encourage for you this week, this year, this lifetime. Make joy a non-negotiable. Even when it's hard, even when it's uncomfortable, even when you want to sit in your suffering just a minute longer to validate your pain — joy, laughter, and lightness get to exist alongside all of it. Watch something funny. Read something that makes you snort. Let yourself laugh at the dark stuff sometimes, because honestly, what else are you gonna do.
Humor and laughter truly are medicine. And we gotta take our meds fam — everyday.
