Lately, I’ve been trying to figure out what is joy and what is happiness. Are they the same thing? How should I be attached to it, do I deserve happiness or is it just something that exists where we find it? Like In a cup of tea, or a moment with dear friend. I do know that with anxiety always lurking, I find joy when I am in moment. I’m not thinking of the past or the future, but in the now.
How do you tell yourself that you deserve happiness and joy? Be in the moment today and feel some joy.
For me, joy is like a deep feeling of gratitude for major elements of my life beyond the circumstances. For example, even amidst the rivers of tears in the last year and a half, I’ve found great joy due to finding a community of like-hearted people, here and in other spaces, to work with, struggle with, and create with, after a lot of uncertainty in the last few years in my professional life.
I call it Black Joy because I am Black and it is the joy that I have been familiar with my whole life. It is the joy that I have learned from Black people. It is the joy created through our collective healing — our laying down of burdens, to be picked up and shared by our people, our community. This is not joy in spite of suffering — a mask put on to hide pain, an armor put on to push through pain. This is an embrace, holding and soothing us in our suffering. This Black Joy, is joy created through our being together. This Black Joy reminds me that I am not alone, that trouble don’t last always, that I am held and carried forward by a power beyond what I can comprehend.” -Kimberly Quinn Johnson
Kimberly Quinn Johnson invites us all into this particular joy she feels as a Black woman. How can you find joy in collective healing today?
Joy can be big–for example, the birth of a child. Joy can also be small things to be happy about–seeing an old friend, watching a bird eat, seeing a color filled sunset, wearing new warm socks on a cold day. Be sure to take the time to embrace the joy you feel in the smaller things in life
Find small joys today.
In recent years, I have come to embrace joy as an act of resistance. There is so much evil and sadness out there and it was through reading and following Black activists that I realized that we can’t get lost in the idea of finding joy wherever we can.
How do you resist the evil and sadness of our world?
