How to Allow Joy During Tough Times

I was only 14 when my dad died. Instead of sitting in biology class, I was with my family in a funeral parlor sharing memories about my dad’s life.

Sitting next to my sister and my cousins, I felt overwhelmed with sadness. And then my cousins did what they do really well. They shared a silly memory of my mom and dad from a holiday gathering and we all couldn’t help but giggle.

It was such a weird feeling. To be at such a low point but also to be laughing. It was confusing but it felt right.

I’ve been thinking about that conflicting duality a lot lately. How can we be feeling such grief and also feel joyful at the same time?

That is how life goes. A good life isn’t only happy. A good life experiences all the emotions - grief, anger, joy, fear, wonder, and more. We cannot avoid the so-called negative feelings without also eliminating the good ones. (Side note: I don’t believe there are any negative emotions, but that is a topic for a different newsletter.)

When we try to numb out the negative feelings because we don’t want to feel them, we also dull our experience of joy. We cannot selectively get rid of feelings.

And on the flip side, how can we allow ourselves to feel joy when we’re also in pain? It almost feels like a betrayal to allow joy when we’re hurting, so how to we let in the good?

Joy isn’t a betrayal, it’s a celebration of being alive. And being alive is about experiencing all the feelings. We can celebrate that we’re alive even when we’re going through something hard. We can be grateful for being able to be here and knowing that we have things that we care about.

And sometimes, when we experience joy when we’re in a tough time, it can feel even greater than normal.

We don’t have to hold onto anything so tightly that we can’t allow other feelings to come in. Holding onto anger, despair, or sadness will only create more of those feelings. Imagine holding your feelings in your hand and squeezing your fingers closed into a fist. When you are gripping with your fingers closed, you are blocking anything else from coming in.

But, if you were to relax your hand and open your fingers, you allow your current emotions to flow through. Not only can those feelings flow, but new ones can come in. The grief or anger may come back in waves along with other feelings, or it may morph into something else. But please do not block yourself from feeling everything that life has to offer.

If you were to allow it, and not resist it, what can you open yourself up to? What can you accept into your life and experience? How can it be a continued celebration of this one and precious life that you are living?

I’d love to hear how you’re feeling and what you’re going through. Feel free to hit reply and share your thoughts with me. And if you have someone in your life that needs to hear this message, would you do me a favor and forward this to them? We will get through through this together; you do not have to go through it alone.