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The year 2020 hasn鈥檛 been one to remember鈥攊n fact, for a lot of people, it has been . The , along with and , has brought anxiety, heartbreak, righteous anger, and discord to many.

Amid such suffering, people need some joy.

As a in day-to-day life, I believe that joy is an incredibly powerful companion during suffering.

Speaking at Funerals, Teaching Joy

This is more than academic work for me. In late 2016, less than a year after I was hired to be on a team researching joy at Yale University, three of my family members unexpectedly died within four weeks: my cousin鈥檚 husband, Dustin, at 30 by suicide, my sister鈥檚 son, Mason, at 22 of sudden cardiac arrest, and my dad, David, at 70 after years of opioid use.

While researching joy, I was speaking at funerals. At times, even reading about joy felt so absurd that I almost vowed to be anything but joyful.

In 2020, many people can relate to this.

I want to be clear: . Happiness tends to be the pleasurable .

Joy, on the other hand, has a mysterious capacity to be felt alongside sorrow and even鈥攕ometimes, most especially鈥攊n the midst of suffering. This is because joy is what we feel deep in our bones when we realize and feel connected to others鈥攁nd to what is genuinely good, beautiful, and meaningful鈥攚hich is possible even in pain. Whereas happiness is generally the effect of evaluating our circumstances and being satisfied with our lives, joy does not depend on good circumstances.

An Illumination

A couple of days after my cousin鈥檚 husband died, a small group of family members and I were shopping for funeral items when the group decided to go to the place where Dustin had died by suicide. It was getting dark, and the sun had almost set. As we were taking in the landscape, we suddenly noticed a star above the trees. Standing next to one another in a line, we looked across the sky, and one of us asked whether any other stars could be seen. There were none. We realized that there was just this one exceedingly bright shining star in the sky.

Gazing at the star, we felt as if Dustin had met us there, that he鈥檇 allowed that single star to be seen in the sky so that we would know he was all right. It was not the kind of relief we wanted for him. But for a few minutes, we allowed the tragedy of what had occurred in this very space just two days before to hang in the background, and we instead focused on the star. We were filled with a kind of transformative, quiet joy. And we all gave ourselves over to this moment.

As noted in his 2007 book , 鈥渏oy is an illumination,鈥� the ability to see beyond to something more.

Similarly, , Stanford professor and author of the 2013 book , describes joy as a feeling that 鈥渁ccompanies a realization of our relatedness.鈥� What Noddings meant by relatedness was the special feeling we get from caring about other people or ideas.

Joy is also the feeling that can arise from sensing kinship with others, experiencing harmony between what we are doing and our values, or seeing the significance in an action, a place, a conversation, or even an inanimate object.

When I teach about joy, I use an example from my family to explain this. When my sister looks at a Mason jar now鈥攚hether in someone鈥檚 hand filled with tea or bursting with flowers on a friend鈥檚 coffee table鈥攊t reminds her of her son Mason. It is not just an object she is seeing, but a relationship imbued with beauty, goodness, and meaning. It gives her a feeling that can be described only as joy.

We cannot put joy on our to-do lists; it does not work that way. But we can find ways to prepare ourselves for joy. 鈥淕ateways鈥� to joy help us to become more open to it.

Gratitude involves bringing to mind the good that is in the world, which makes rejoicing possible. The feeling that follows contemplating nature or art that we find inspiring is often joy, as these are experiences that help people feel connected to something beyond themselves, whether to the natural world or to others鈥� feelings or experiences. Since 鈥渉ope,鈥� as has said, is 鈥渢he anticipation of joy,鈥� writing out our hopes helps us to expect joy.

Three Types of Joy

In my book, , I identify multiple kinds of joy that can be expressed even in today鈥檚 troubled times.

Retrospective joy comes in vividly recalling a previous experience of unspeakable joy. For example, we can imagine in our minds an occasion when we helped someone else, or someone unexpectedly helped us, a time we felt deeply loved 鈥� the moment we saw our child for the first time. We can close our eyes and meditate on the memory, even walk through the details with someone else or in a journal and, often, experience that joy again, sometimes even more acutely.

One kind of joy, too, is redemptive, restorative鈥攔esurrection joy. It is the feeling that follows things that are broken getting repaired, things that we thought were dead coming back to life. This kind of joy can be found in apologizing to someone we have hurt, or the feeling that follows recommitting ourselves to sobriety, a marriage, or a dream we feel called to.

Futuristic joy comes from rejoicing that we will again glimpse meaning, beauty, or goodness, and seemingly against all odds feel that they are connected to our very life. This type of joy can be found, for example, through singing in a religious service, gathering at a protest demanding change, or imagining a hope we have being realized.

Amid a year in which it is not difficult to stumble onto suffering, the good news is that we can also stumble onto joy. There is no imprisoned mind, heartbreaking time, or deafening silence that joy cannot break through.

Joy can always find you.

This article was originally published by . It has been published here with permission.