“Love and Light” Versus Joy

Joy is important to our future, but I think we confuse it with Toxic Positivity

Over the past five years, we've heard a lot about "toxic positivity" and "spiritual bypassing." We know they're bad. When someone is deploying these tools, they are doing it largely to avoid difficult issues and feelings. They're taking the trappings of positivity and spirituality and using them as a way to evade the work of spirituality. People are hip to this fact and you sometimes hear people say "love and light" in a tone dripping with sarcasm and disdain, mocking the toxic positivity crew and their chirpy use of this phrase.

I'm not a fan of toxic positivity. I'm a big believer in being honest with yourself about negative feelings and about being diligent about doing your "shadow work" and being brave about engaging with the parts of yourself that are maybe more difficult to embrace. Hiding from the truth, about yourself, about your situation, about your feelings and experiences is no way to live. The weight of what you are hiding from eventually catches up with you and the fallout is never pretty. It's not wrong to cast a gimlet eye at people who tell you to "look on the bright side" when things look bleak.

That said, when things do look bleak, Joy (yes, with a capital "J") becomes an essential element.

What specifically do I mean by Joy?

Joy is not the same thing as being happy. It is not a feeling, it is not a sensation. Joy, in my mind is a state of being. I liken it to the difference between weather and climate. Weather is what the sky does on a day to day basis -- one day is cloudy, the next is sunny, the one after might be rainy. Climate is the overall status of the area -- A warm climate versus a cold one will have different range of temperatures, a different range of weather elements that happen over the course of the seasons. If weather is what happens day to day, climate is the result when those day to day experiences are stacked together.

Joy is dancing in the street, even though you’re on your way to an oncology appointment. Photo by Andre Hunter on Unsplash

Happiness is a fleeting state of mind. You can be happy one minute and sad the next. Joy is a more sustained state of mind, where a person is able to maintain a positive outlook, an ability to sustain hope and optimism, even when the circumstances around them might not be conducive to that state of being.

No one is ever happy all the time. The people who act like they are, are lying. That's why the "love and light" crew is so full of shit. A person who appears to be always, unfailing happy is either lying to themselves or lying to you. They are pretending or avoiding, or perhaps both.

But Joy is different. Joy is a baseline understanding in the center of your heart that the capacity for happiness exists, even if you aren't feeling happy right this minute. It is the belief that even though life has ups and downs, being in this life is a net positive. It's a commitment to the journey of life, not only this individual moment, but all the ones that will come after. It's an expectation that life will be what you make of it, and you will make of it the best that you can, and that it will be enough.

One can have joy even in an incredibly dark moment. It's why sometimes we find ourselves able to laugh in a moment where something deeply sad is going on. It's the ability to sing in the middle of tragedy. It's that moment when beauty catches you off guard and you go from being lost in grief to being lost in wonder. But it is critical that these lighter expressions are authentic. Simply feigning being okay is not Joy. It is masking.

Right now, Joy could not be more important. As we're watching with horror as trust is broken, norms are violated, freedoms are eviscerated and people are suffering, it's important to be honest and serious about what's happening. It's bad out there, people. Objectively bad. Right now, your commitment to making the world and your corner of it a better place to live in could not be more important. And everything is happening so fast that it's exhausting. We are many of us in a state of continuous shock and high alert that is wearing us down and making us strung out, with paper-thin patience and lots of heavy emotions. People are correctly noting that resting is important right now.

But in addition to rest, we also desperately need Joy.

And the problem is, it's very easy to feel guilty when you indulge in Joy. With all that there is to do, and all of the people who are in very real pain and alarm, isn't it callous and privileged to engage in activities that are Joyful? How can I be laughing with my friends about an old joke over dinner when outside these walls the world is in turmoil? How can I enjoy sex with my wife when we're both so wrapped up in the demise of our democracy? Isn't securing a livable healthy future for our kids more important than scheduling their play dates right now?

Here's the thing: right now Joy is as important as calling your Congressional representatives. It's as important as giving money to the ACLU. It's as important as caring for your transgender friends. Joy is how you keep going so you can do all those other things. Joy helps you keep connected to the reason you're fighting so hard for what's right. With all the things depleting our energy right now, Joy is something that allows us to recharge. Joy gives us more energy by being the thing we are fighting for.

The struggle however, is real. If you're lost in the sauce of trauma and depression and anxiety, making room for Joy takes time and effort and can feel like climbing a steep hill with lead boots on. And it's important that the Joy be real, not some put on spiritual bypassing that is more about masking feelings than about recharging emotionally. That's the difference ultimately -- Joy feels ALL the feelings. Joy doesn't pretend the fear and the anxiety and the sadness don't exist. They do exist, and those feelings deserve space as much as any other feelings. Joy merely allows for the idea that no one set of emotions needs to completely occupy the field of our feelings. In the midst of a bout of sadness, we can find a moment to laugh. In the midst of a moment of deep enjoyment and connection, there can be a moment of fear for the future.

Joy understands that life is made by stacking moments upon moments, and those moments can be wildly divergent from each other. The human experience is broad in scope, and encompasses great happiness and deep despair. And it's not imperative that the negative feelings be in charge. You can acknowledge those feelings without letting them drive the train.

Joy is the belief in a better future, and the relentless commitment to our humanity, to the things that make the future better. Joy gives us a glimpse of where we're trying to go. That's why it's essential. It's hard to create something that you have no affirmative vision of. The moments in which we live in Joy is the moment that we make a window into the world as we are hoping it to be -- a world where people feel free, and cared for, and where there is enough for everyone to thrive. We need to know how to create that world now in flashes, if we are ever going to create it on a sustained basis in the future.

So gather your community not just for the purpose of fighting back, but for the purpose of cultivating Joy. Gather your personal resources not just to support resistance, but to support Joy in your life and in the life of others. Be intentional about it, and conscious of it. And for the love of all that is holy, don't you dare feel guilty about it.

As you contemplate your role in resisting the evil that threatens us, remember to include Joy in your plans, and be as committed to your Joy as you are to resistance.

Fight the power. And then get up and dance.

Blessed be, witches!