Holding Space for Joy in a Heavy World

Making Room for Light Even When the World Feels Dark

The headlines streamed endless war and wildfires. My young patient had just learned her cancer had returned. Yet that evening, my five-year-old twins were shrieking with laughter, chasing each other through the house with sock puppets. I smiled with them. I also felt a heaviness in my heart. Joy and grief, sitting side by side at the table.

As a mother, an oncologist, and a human being trying to stay awake to it all, I often find myself exposed to multiple layers of sorrow: the suffering I see in clinic, the stories that unfold in faraway places. And yet—there is still joy.

My body can feel the weight of the heaviness. My shoulders carry the echo of difficult conversations, while my heart simultaneously lifts at the sound of my children's unburdened laughter. This tension lives in three distinct but overlapping spaces for me:

The Three-Dimensional Dilemma

Global conscience: How do we celebrate when there is so much suffering in the world? When children globally are starving to death?

Professional witness: How do we laugh after watching someone’s world collapse?

Parental responsibility: How do we model joy for our children without teaching them to ignore suffering?

These aren’t abstract questions for me. They are daily reckonings.

What My Patients Have Taught Me About Joy

Some of my greatest teachers in joy have been people whose lives were shaped by pain. Like the woman who planned her daughter’s wedding from her hospital bed, choosing centerpieces between rounds of chemotherapy. Or the man who told dad jokes through every single treatment session, bringing levity into even the heaviest rooms. Or the young mother who brought cupcakes to her final appointment, not to say goodbye, but to celebrate the resilience it took to get there.

They didn't choose joy instead of acknowledging their reality. They chose it alongside it. They showed me that joy is not a denial of truth, but a deep affirmation of life. Watching them taught me something profound: that people facing the unthinkable can still reach for beauty, and in doing so, they give the rest of us permission to do the same.

Children as Teachers Too

My children remind me of this lesson daily. They laugh from their bellies. They dance without apology. They find wonder and beauty in the everyday things—a puddle reflecting the sky, the way shadows move across the wall, the satisfying crunch of autumn leaves.

Children's ability to stay in the present moment, without getting stuck in the past or anxious about the future, helps them experience joy in its purest form. They haven't yet learned to carry yesterday's disappointments or tomorrow's worries into today's possibilities. And sometimes, I think they understand something many of us have forgotten: that joy doesn't erase pain. But it can soften it. It can coexist with it.

The Mindful Path Forward

There is a kind of joy that is awake, compassionate, and grounded. Not toxic positivity. Not escapism. But the kind of joy that allows us to face the world more fully, not less.

Mindfulness has taught me that we don't have to choose between grief and gratitude. We can hold both. We must hold both. They are not opposites. They are companions in this human experience.

A Practice to Cultivate Joy:

Notice one small moment of joy. Maybe it's the way morning light hits your coffee cup, or a text from a friend, or the feeling of your child's hand in yours. Don't justify it. Don't shrink it. Don't apologize for it. Let it exist fully, even if—especially if—the world feels heavy.

And then, notice where you feel that joy in your body. Is it a warmth spreading through your chest? A lightness in your belly? Does it start in your heart and radiate outward? Maybe it's a softening in your shoulders you didn't realize were tense. When you become familiar with how joy feels in your body—its particular signature, its gentle arrival—you can begin to recognize it more easily. You can develop a relationship with joy like a trusted friend, one you can turn to even in difficult moments.

Closing with Permission

When we allow joy to rise—even gently, even briefly—we are not turning away from the world’s pain. We are turning toward our own aliveness. We are saying: All of this is part of the human experience. And there is still joy.

Staying open to joy in a hurting world is a brave act of reverence—a way of honoring what remains, and a reminder that there is always something worth holding on to.

With love,