If you feel like joy is elusive this holiday season, you’re not alone.
2025 was a particularly trying year for the planet, the country and for Los Angeles in particular. Over the past 12 months, we have witnessed homes destroyed by fire, families broken apart by ICE, a surge in anti-trans hatred, and mass layoffs across the entertainment and media industries, leaving thousands unemployed in our city.
It’s enough to plunge even LA’s sunniest optimists into despair.
“It’s hard to be happy in this world where people are treated terribly,” a friend told me recently. “Now is the time to get serious, take note and act.”
I understand where she’s coming from, but without moments of joy to fill my cup, I feel exhausted and useless. When I actively seek joy by skipping around my synagogue, dancing to Abba at my Italian social club, or stopping to appreciate the warm glow of a winter sunset, I am better able to meet the challenges that lie ahead.
The American Psychological Association defines joy as “a feeling of extreme joy, pleasure, or exultation of the spirit arising from a sense of well-being and satisfaction.” Although joy has not received the same attention from psychology researchers as the more muted emotion of happiness, there is evidence that joy can lead to increased creativity and greater psychological resilience.
It is also an emotion that does not need to be tied to our external experiences.
“Some people think all the conditions have to be right to feel joy: I have to feel good, I have to love my family, I have to not have lost someone,” said Rabbi Susan Goldberg, founder of Nefesh, a Jewish community in Echo Park. “That’s not true. It’s a choice and it’s a practice.”
I spoke with Goldberg and other faith leaders in Los Angeles about how we can seek and practice joy this season, whether you’re religious or not.
Reframing joy
It may seem callous or selfish to seek joy when we know so many people are suffering, but Thema Bryant, a psychologist and pastor at First AME Church in Los Angeles, doesn’t see it that way.
“We can feel more than one thing at the same time,” she said. “And it’s healthy to give ourselves space and permission to feel whatever comes our way this time of year.”
This holiday season, many of us have good reason to feel grief, fear, anger, and disappointment. At the same time, we can still enjoy gathering with family or friends, eating our favorite Christmas foods, or attending a candlelight service on Christmas Eve.
None of this means that we ignore or dismiss our own pain or that of those around us. Bryant said choosing despair as an act of solidarity does not help people who are suffering. And allowing yourself to experience joy in the midst of struggle can also be an act of liberation.
“The purpose of oppression, hatred and discrimination is to disconnect and dehumanize us,” she said. “It’s an act of resistance to say, ‘I’m not going to give all my peace to those who try to stress me out.'”
Deliberately include joy in your routine
So what does it look like to find joy in the midst of anxiety?
In Nefesh, of which I am a member, this seems like jumping.
The community of Nefesh has experienced a lot of suffering this year. Several members were directly affected by the fires that ravaged Los Angeles in early 2025, queer and trans members considered leaving the country in the face of growing hatred, and those with ties to Israel grappled with the devastation and violence in that region. Clergy and congregants have also been on the front lines in the fight to prevent families from being separated by ICE, and this spring the community was shocked by the unexpected death of Goldberg’s mother, a beloved member, parent educator and activist.
And yet, despite all of this, every week Goldberg stands before the congregation and literally jumps for joy as we welcome Shabbat.
“Our tradition says it’s six to one,” she said. “Six days a week of making, repairing, doing, and Shabbat is the seventh day where we are literally commanded to rest and also be joyful. You can think of the centuries when it seemed impossible for the Jewish people to have joy and pleasure, and yet that’s what we discovered.”
Look for “glows”
If faith community isn’t your thing, Bryant has a few other ideas on how to seek joy in difficult times. “The term that comes to mind is ‘glimmers instead of triggers,'” she said.
If “triggers” are reminders of painful moments, “glows” are a simple pleasure that can spark joy and help invite it into our lives, she said. This might mean taking a walk, going to the beach, calling a friend who always makes you smile, relaxing in a bubble bath, or rewatching a favorite movie.
“Community can bring joy,” Bryant said. “Or cuddle your pet. Service and volunteering can be a joy too.”
I recently saw a “glow” in action when a friend sent me an adorable video of her daughter when she was little. My friend had just rewatched the video on her phone after spending eight hours in the hospital with her stepfather who was in the middle of a scary health issue.
“This is a ridiculous disaster,” she texted me. But even in the midst of a crisis, she was able to experience a glimmer of joy in reliving this sweet moment with her daughter.
“Joy, joy, joy,” she wrote. “Wherever we can find it.”
But don’t rule out the darkness
Authentic joy can also look like human connection and solidarity, said Francisco Garcia, an Episcopal priest who co-leads the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles’ Sacred Resistance Ministry and has ministered to many people whose loved ones have been taken by ICE.
“There is an element of knowing that we are not alone in our pain and our fear and our anxiety that can be a source of some semblance of joy,” Garcia said. “Finding those sources of daily gratitude that are not fake or forced, but born out of real conflict and struggle, is a beautifully human thing.”
As we enter the Christmas season, Garcia emphasized that the Christmas liturgy is an annual reminder that joy is possible even in the darkest of times, and that the two often go hand in hand. He highlighted the practice of Advent, a time when practicing Christians prepare for the arrival of God’s son.
“Light and darkness are part of the celebration,” he said.
It reminded him of a verse from Psalm 30:5: “Weeping may endure through the night, but joy comes in the morning.” »
“It’s a hope that joy will come, not a guarantee,” Garcia said. “And that in itself is an act of faith. That joy will come in the morning.”
