What My Mother Knew About Joy

Whatever lifts the corners of your mouth, trust that.---Rumi

When I was 22, my mother dragged me and my sisters to a ceremony in Chicago. It was a sweltering day, traffic was hell, and we arrived dressed in skirts and jackets, crabby as all hell and completely resistant to whatever "woo-woo" concepts we thought we'd be subjected to. The ceremony focused on themes of community, support, unity, and "birthing into new stages of life." We rolled our eyes.

Then came the exercise: we had to crawl through the legs of other women.

Not gracefully. Not symbolically. The women made it deliberately difficult, forcing us to plow through, to fight our way through those human canals. It was absurd. It was uncomfortable. We were ready to kill our mother.

And then — we couldn't stop laughing.

Despite our anger and resistance, we laughed until our bellies hurt.

I hadn’t thought about this in forty years, but this month I turn 63. It's my first birthday without my mother. How surreal that the woman who gave me life is not here. As I step into this new chapter, into the role she once held, I realize that I have to be the leader. I have to carry the wisdom forward. 

I understand now what that ceremony was really about. The wisdom my mother was trying to pass on is this: sometimes you have to be pushed through the birth canal to remember that joy is waiting on the other side. And in these pressure cooker times we're living in, laughter and joy aren't luxuries — they're how we survive.

The Science of Joy as Medicine

Scientists in Israel conducted a remarkable study that reveals just how powerful our emotions are. They placed a participant's blood under a microscope and watched as bacteria moved freely while the immune system's macrophages lay dormant, essentially asleep on the job. Then they showed the participant a funny movie — and the macrophages suddenly woke up and began actively devouring the bacteria.

Here's the stunning part: the blood sample was in a separate room from the participant. Somehow, the shift in emotional state affected the blood at a distance. When researchers showed horror clips instead, the opposite happened — bacteria multiplied and even began attacking the weakened macrophages.

Our consciousness doesn't just influence our own immune system; it affects our loved ones too. Since families share bloodlines, our emotional states can impact their health even across continents. 

How to Cultivate Joy

We're heading into a new chapter energetically, and we need faith right now. We need tools. The most powerful one? Meeting the breath.

Conscious diaphragmatic breathing creates a wave-like movement within the body that activates the lymphatic system, triggers the parasympathetic rhythm (our rest and digest mode), and supports the glymphatic system that cleanses the brain. When we breathe deeply and fully, we increase oxygen, balance our system, and protect ourselves from the stress that depletes us from the inside out.

But when we consume upsetting news, we breathe shallowly. Fear literally takes our breath away — CO2 rises, our system becomes imbalanced, and we weaken. Worry, fear, and anger are the emotions that block laughter and prevent us from healing from the inside out.

The practice is simple but profound: place one hand on your chest and one on your belly. Breathe so that only your belly hand moves. Let the diaphragm create that wave. This is how to keep your energy light, your immune system strong, and your family healthy in the midst of chaos.

The Wisdom Is Laughter

Life will push you through impossible canals. The traffic will be terrible, you'll be dressed wrong, you'll resist everything. But if you can find ways to think outside the box and do silly things, if you can choose trust over fear and meet your breath in the pressure cooker, you'll discover what my mother knew all along: laughter and joy are the path forward.

Our mental state impacts not just our health, but the well-being of those we love. So this month, as I turn 63 and step into the wisdom my mother embodied, I'm choosing to lead the way she did — toward laughter, toward breath, toward the joy that waits on the other side of every birth canal.

This is my power. This is the wisdom I'll carry forward.