When Joy Is Real and Still Includes Grief
I’ve laughed with Mikayla on days filled with uncertainty. I’ve seen friends dance barefoot at
memorials, crying and celebrating in the same breath. That is joy - not the absence of grief, but its
cohabitant. Its shadow and its light.
Grief changed how I see the world. It made ordinary moments sacred. The warmth of sunlight on skin.
A familiar voice on the phone. The quiet exhale when you realize you’ve made it through the day.
These aren’t small things anymore they are everything.
I’m not grateful for the grief. But I am grateful for how it widened my heart. For how it deepened my
empathy. For how it taught me to stay present even in pain.
The Truth We Carry
Joy is not the opposite of sorrow. And happiness
isn’t proof of healing. Both can exist while the
ache still lingers. Our smiles might hide parts of
us but sometimes they also hold the whole story,
stitched together with grief, laughter, memory,
and love.
Maybe the goal isn’t to be whole in the way we
once were. Maybe it’s to carry the truth, all of it,
and still move forward with tenderness. I no
longer believe happiness is a destination. It’s not
something you earn by being productive or
positive. It’s something that flows, in and out,
when you start living in alignment with your truth.
We don’t need to chase happiness to prove we’re
whole. Sometimes, the bravest thing we can do is
stop running... and listen.
Healing didn’t come when the crises ended, it
came when I allowed myself to feel them fully.
To say, “I’m not okay,” and trust that it didn’t
make me weak. I had to unlearn the idea that
being strong meant being silent.
When I began telling the truth to myself and to
others something shifted. People met me
there. Conversations became softer, deeper,
more honest. Vulnerability stopped being
something to avoid, it became the bridge to
connection. And joy? It started returning in
new ways. Not as a reward for being okay, but
as a companion to all that was still tender.
Because beneath the noise, we might just find a
quiet kind of joy, the kind that doesn’t need to be
chased at all.
mikare.health
https://www.linkedin.com/company/mikare-health
https://www.instagram.com/mikare_health
SHE TALKS | 10