My goal with Life After Losses has always been to show that joy and happiness are still possible—even after loss. As a society, though, we don’t talk enough about how hard it is to feel joy again after loss.

Not because it’s physically hard. But because it’s emotionally foreign. Joy feels risky. It can feel undeserved. Sometimes it even feels like a betrayal—to the person we lost, to the pain we’ve carried, or to the version of ourselves that’s been in survival mode for so long.

But I recently came across a quote that made me pause:

You’re not healing to better handle trauma, anxiety, or depression. You’re used to those. You’re healing to be able to handle joy—to accept happiness back into your life.

That truth resonated—it helped me reframe parts of my own journey. I had spent so long bracing against the next wave of pain, preparing myself to survive whatever came next, that I didn’t realize I wasn’t prepared for the good. I had built emotional calluses around my heart to protect it from breaking again—but they also made it hard for anything beautiful to get in.

When you’ve lived in grief long enough, pain becomes familiar. We learn its rhythms. We adjust to its weight. In a strange way, it becomes a comfort zone—one we didn’t ask for, but one we know how to manage. It’s our new normal. There’s a reliability to it: if I expect the worst, I won’t be caught off guard. If I keep joy at arm’s length, I won’t have to lose it.

But healing isn’t about becoming a better griever. It’s not about learning how to endure more. It’s about allowing something new—and yes, something vulnerable—to take root.

Healing is about joy.

That may sound completely insane to you if you’re still in the thick of grief, if you’re still waiting to make it through the next day without breaking. But at some point in your journey, this shift happens. And when it does, it can feel confusing, even disorienting. The heart wants to open, but the mind says, “Not yet. It’s not safe.”

Finding joy doesn’t mean your grief is over. It means your heart is making room for more. It means you’re learning to live with the fullness of your feelings—and of the human experience—and that includes light.

I remember a moment, months after my first loss, where I laughed without thinking. It caught me off guard. And almost immediately, I felt this wave of guilt. How could I laugh? How could I enjoy this moment when everything had changed? But that moment of laughter wasn’t a betrayal of memory or of my grief. It was a breakthrough. It was a reminder that I was still alive. Still capable of feeling something other than pain. Still human.

We sometimes think of joy as a reward, or as the end goal of healing. But what if it’s also part of the process? What if joy is the tool, not the prize?

I believe we’re meant to live in joy and happiness by default. Yes, bad things happen. Joy and happiness are overshadowed sometimes, but those things that bring you joy and happiness remain, whether you notice them or not.

Letting joy in doesn’t erase what you’ve been through. It doesn’t dishonor your loss. It doesn’t mean you’ve “moved on.” It means you’re giving yourself permission to fully live again.

It’s not easy. Joy requires vulnerability. It means trusting that good things can happen again—and trusting yourself enough to receive them.

If that feels impossible, you’re not alone. That’s why we practice. That’s why healing isn’t a destination, but a series of small choices we make in the pursuit of happiness.

I’d like to offer you a simple practice to take with you this week:

Each day, try noticing one moment of joy. It doesn’t have to be big. A song that moves you. A breeze through the window. A small laugh you didn’t expect.

When it happens, pause. Let it in. You don’t have to do anything else. Just let yourself feel it.

That’s healing.