Choosing Joy
Joy has been a through line in my life and work,
thanks in many ways to my mama, who gave it to me as my middle name. Here is an evolving resource of ways to understand and choose joy as a mode of being.
At some level, none of us need a definition of joy because we have all felt the bliss of it.
Every language has a word for it.
Joy is an emotional cocktail of wonder and gratitude that we feel take over our whole bodies, even if we might be in pain.
It’s an experience that can come in an interrupt grief, physical pain, or even despair. Joy is muscular. It’s strong enough to break into the most armored physical or mental prisons.
Notice I didn’t include happiness in that cocktail of feelings. Happiness is flimsier than joy. Happiness depends on happenstance—whether what’s happening is immediately pleasurable.
But Joy glimmers alongside our darkest moments. It whispers an invitation to possibility.
Joy is a mode of being.
It’s a way you can choose to be in the world.
Joy
is our rebellion against
despair, injustice, disappointment.
It's sturdier than happiness,
and doesn't depend on happenstance.
It's a chosen way of being,
rather than a passing feeling.
It's the gift of gratitude.
It walks alongside grief, inviting us forward,
heartward.
We wish it through tears and prayers this year:
Joy
Joy to the world.
Some resources to ignite your joy:
The Joy Ride - a free ALTER indoor cycling workout to bring you through an arc of transformation into joy
The Evergreen Joy Alter Journeys Ranch Retreat - July 23-27, 2025
ALTER podcast episode: “Some Thoughts on Joy”
Some of my favorite books on Joy:
Hallelujah Anyway (everything by Anne Lamott!)
The Book of Delights & Inciting Joy
My middle name is joy.
A pillow my mama gave me
to fall into
the way we dive into
deep waters, bounce houses, bed at night,
a pillar to grow into,
a stance, a metric
to measure whether by—
which way, which risk, the heart’s weather.
Less the having accomplished or failed,
more the how,
the roses inhaled, wisdom gleaned,
an in-between instead of arrival,
a way of being,
a birthright
that might become a legacy
