Joy Is Vulnerable

Joy is not always easy. It is not always light, effortless, or something we simply stumble into. But it is something we can cultivate and practice. And that practice is not passive—it is a choice, a commitment, a risk.

Joy is vulnerable. It demands we drop the defenses that have kept us intact but also kept us distant. It asks us to be seen without pretense. To soften where we’ve been hardened. To risk love, connection, and hope—despite everything we’ve lived through that tells us to expect the opposite.

For those who have known loss, who have lived under systems that diminish, control, or erase—joy can feel dangerous. It can feel like walking blindfolded toward a cliff’s edge. We learn to brace for impact, to measure happiness in fleeting moments, to keep it just out of reach. Because what if we let joy in, only for it to be taken away?

But withholding joy does not spare us from suffering. It only guarantees that we never taste the fullness of life.

The real risk isn’t joy. The real risk is staying numb.

Joy is not an escape. It is not a distraction from grief or injustice. It does not erase what we have lost. But it refuses to let pain be the only story we tell. Joy reminds us why we fight, why we heal, why we reach for something beyond survival. It is a reclamation of everything that has been stolen, silenced, or buried.

And when we allow joy to take root—when it is no longer something we fear, something we must defend, or something we believe we have to earn—something shifts.

Joy no longer needs a reason. It is not a fleeting moment to chase, but a state of being to return to. A presence that exists beneath and beyond circumstances. It does not rise and fall with what happens to us. It simply is.

This is the arc of healing. When joy is no longer a risk, but a refuge. When it is not a prize, but a homecoming.

So, will we let ourselves risk joy? Not just for a moment, but as a way of existing. Not just as a reaction, but as a foundation.

Because maybe, joy is not just vulnerable. Maybe joy is inevitable.

And maybe it’s time to let it stay.