You Are Allowed to Feel Joy

IS IT SELFISH TO FEEL JOY WHEN OTHERS ARE SUFFERING? IS IT WRONG FOR PART OF US TO FEEL HAPPY WHEN PART OF US FEELS PAIN?

All the words in the section below are written by Mandi Em at Healing For Hot Messes. She is a fabulous trickster witch teacher. I highly recommend EVERYTHING she creates and expresses.

Mandi says:

1: First, let's do a "belief audit"

• Is suffering the price of awareness?

• Is suffering the "proof" of empathy?

• If you obtain joy and happiness, is there less available for others?

• Is being happy a privilege you haven't "earned" yet?

• Is it selfish to feel joy when others are suffering?

• When you are suffering, does it ease your suffering for others to turn away from their happiness?

• Does bypassing your own circumstances create a tidy balance in the net sum of suffering in the world?

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2: Let's talk about 'EXPERIENTIAL BYPASSING"

Do you feel a deep guilt, despair, or fear of enjoying your life?

--> You might be stuck in something called "experiential bypassing."

--> Experiential bypassing is when you avoid joy, pleasure, or excitement because the world is too fvcked up up, and you feel like being happy is irresponsible, lacks empathy, and makes you look like an a$shole

--> Experiential Bypassing is the subconscious rejection of joy, aliveness, and pleasure because the world is burning, and you think your suffering is noble or helpful or required.

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3: Some HARD TRUTH

Denying yourself joy doesn't improve the world—it only depletes you.
Constant alertness to suffering doesn't prevent it—it only prevents your thriving.

There will always be suffering. There will always be chaos. There always has been.

Does that mean you are never allowed to exhale? To laugh? To dance? Who told you that your happiness must be earned?

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4: Tough Truth for Hard Times

Delaying joy until the world's problems are solved is self-sabotage. ("I'll allow myself happiness when things improve" or "I'll pursue my desires after conditions change")

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5: Believe it or Else

If suffering could save the world, the world would be saved by now.

Bypassing your pleasure doesn't heal the World's pain.

Suppressing your vitality doesn't eliminate despair.

Feeling heavy doesn't make the weight of the world lighter.

How much of a positive impact are you able to make when the world is on fire and you're burning down with it?

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6: Is this a symptom of a "core wound"?

Has your nervous system been trained to distrust happiness?

# Maybe, for you, happiness always meant disappointment was on its way to you.

# Maybe you were raised to believe caring equals suffering.

# Perhaps you were rewarded for self-sacrifice and seriousness. Maybe you got praised for being "responsible" and "selfless."

Do you flinch at joy? Reject ease? Sabotage the good? Because some part of you thinks you don't deserve it?

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7: Breaking the spell

Joy is NOT a betrayal. It's fuel.

Aliveness is NOT ignorance. It's power.

You can simultaneously hold awareness of difficulty AND happiness. Grief AND gratitude. Anger AND pleasure.

You were never meant to carry only one side of the story. Life contains multitudes of contradictory truths.

SEEMINGLY CONTRADICTORY THINGS CAN BE REAL AT THE SAME TIME.

What if joy isn't selfish?

What if your happiness is not a betrayal, but a rebellion?

What if, instead of sinking into the weight of the world, you became a living antidote to it?

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8: Joy is not the absence of chaos and suffering.

Joy is proof that chaos and suffering don't have to be the only things that exist.

Joy doesn't mean ignoring pain. It means refusing to let pain be the only thing that exists.

It means keeping the light on.

You are allowed to feel good. Even now.

Especially now.

Joy is not the opposite of suffering. It's makes survival worth it. Will you let yourself have it?

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9: OK. So now what?

STOP waiting for permission to live.

STOP treating your happiness like it's a limited resource.

STOP viewing joy is a sin.

START sinking into the felt experience of your life and your circumstances with reckless abandon and deliberate, intentional compassion.

START recognizing your power.

START letting yourself experience the fullness of the multidimensional perplexing mixed bag of blessings and bullshyt that we call life.

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MANDI EM wrote all the words in the section above. Here are ways to find out more about her:

Mandi Em on Instagram

Mandi Em’s Feral Self-Care Project

Mandi Em's Trickster Alchemy Guide

Join FROLIC, the Feral Self-Care Collective

Mandi Em on Threads