The silent war on joy

What it says about our culture when genuine joy starts making people uncomfortable

When a genuine expression of joy becomes unpopular in a society, you know something has gone deeply off track.

Would you agree?

Over the last few years, I’ve noticed a subtle tendency within myself that the last few months of 2026 have illustrated even more deeply.

It’s a resistance to let life feel good. Or at the very least to fully express joy. To let that feeling be felt by every cell within me. Can you relate?

The subtle withholding of aliveness

I wouldn’t say it’s coming from a place of being afraid that if I embrace joy the “the other shoe is going to drop.”

I also don’t think it was a fear that I will lose touch with the feeling if I let it in.

I understand impermanence. I know things come and go, especially good ones.

Feeling joy through a clogged straw had become habitual instead. Almost like IV dripping life itself.

A prompt for you: The places in my life where I am withholding aliveness, instead of fully allowing it are…

Rationalizations that almost made sense

One of the rationalizations I told myself is that I hold space for so many people who go through challenging episodes, that sometimes it rubs off on me more than I imagine. I knew that wasn’t fully it.

Another thought that came to mind was that the world has gone through so many difficult things that maybe at an unconscious level, I internalized holding back on joy as an act of collective solidarity?

On a symbolic level you may think of it like being overly joyous when your sibling is crying right next to you. That doesn’t feel too good, does it?

Yet suppressing joy is not the kind of solidarity I want to stand for. Especially since I am not attempting to force feed it to anyone.

Then I noticed something that was very interesting last year. I started noticing that the posts I shared on social media that got the highest amount of people to unfollow, were the ones where I celebrated the launch of my book and getting married. That was interesting and did not surprise me.

Now, after 13+ years of sharing online, my self worth is not anchored on social media metrics. But I love to study consciousness. And having close to 10 times the amount of daily “unfollows” when I posted about these big milestones, was telling. To me it says a lot about where our consciousness is.

Genuinely expressing your joy is not toxic positivity

I am well aware that over the last few years, there’s been somewhat of a movement around disrupting what is called toxic positivity.

I relate to what people call toxic positivity as the pressure to be happy at all costs. It’s the denial of pain, the bypassing of grief, and the insistence on “good vibes only” when something inside is clearly breaking.

Toxic positivity silences pain. Joy does not.

Joy can exist alongside grief, fear, and uncertainty. The world does not need less joy. It needs less performance and more truth.

If I wanted to darken the world…

If I were truly evil and if I wanted the world to sink into something darker and more lifeless, here are a few things I would do…

I wouldn’t start with violence. I would start by disconnecting people from their joy.

I would make them believe joy is dangerous, selfish and naive.

I would make them suspicious of people who express it naturally, even when they aren’t boasting.

I would give them as many empty pleasures and shiny distractions as possible, so that they’d start confusing them with real joy… But ultimately these would only let them feeling more empty.

I would convince them they need to be flawless, healed, and spiritually “complete” before they are allowed to feel true joy.

I would whisper, Who do you think you are to feel joy when so many are suffering?

And I would make sure their conditioning reminded them of this relentlessly.

I hope you get the point by now.

I truly think suppressing joy is far more aligned with dark agendas than we tend to realize.

This is not an invitation to start bypassing

Let me be clear. This is not an invitation to deny the hardships that naturally come with life. It’s not an invitation to repress grief of to bypass the necessary work of healing and integration that is needed at times.

It is an invitation to remember why we do the work in the first place.

To live a more life-affirming, fulfilling, and joyful life, whatever that means for each of us.

Joy does not mean life is pain-free. In fact, those who are deeply in touch with joy are often the ones who have known pain intimately.

Joy is not a reward for finishing healing. It is a companion within healing.

Every time we reclaim our capacity to feel, every time we allow intimacy with life, we reclaim our capacity for joy.

Defend Your Joy

The invitation is simple, but not easy.

Defend your joy. Let it run through your veins. Make room for it deliberately.

Schedule daily appointments with it. Invite the child within you who remembers that life is not meant to be heavy all the time.

Make more time to laugh… even to the point tears flow. And release the need to think this is frivolous. It isn’t. This is alchemical. It is the type of holy rebellion the world needs most today.

Cultivate the bravery to not suppress your joy, even when the world subtly tells you that you should.

A few reflection prompts for you

Take a deep breath and ponder the following prompts. I suggest you complete them as spontaneously as possible.

• The last time I truly felt joyous was…

• How vulnerable truly expressing joy feels in my body is…

• I often feel tempted to repress my joy when…

• The thought of genuinely sharing my joy with others feels…

• People in my life I feel safe sharing joyful moments with are…

• Things that bring me a deep sense of joy are…

• One small thing I can do today to reconnect with joy is…

I am curious what came up for you as you read through this entire piece. I would love to read your thoughts below.

Thank you for being here.

In gratitude and reverence,
- Xavier

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** PS: If you’ve been feeling the call to start the year differently, you’ll want to watch for the next emails. Over the next few days, I’ll be sharing an invitation to a short experience designed to help you reset, soften the grip of old patterns, and start the year feeling more unleashed.

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