Joy, Grief, and the Light I’m Learning to Hold
A few weeks ago, I was watching an astrology and birth chart Q&A — the kind of thing I often turn to for deeper insight. These tools have helped me understand myself more intimately over the years, and they continue to shape both my inner and outer journey.
In this particular session, someone shared that your Midheaven — the energy you’re here to embody in the world — is something you be, not something you do. And when you allow yourself to be more of it, you become more visible.
Mine holds Gateway 58, known as the Joy archetype. At one point, the host lightheartedly said to someone, “Girl, just be Joy and you’re good.” It made me laugh — and something about it cracked open a space in me. For the past several weeks, I’ve been playing with this energy of Joy. Strengthening it in my body. Practicing it through movement and breath. Letting it become more familiar.
And then… grief showed up.
Big, rolling waves of grief. At first, I thought maybe joy triggered something scary in my nervous system. That each time I expanded into joy, something came up to distract or derail me. But after a few rounds of this, I started to see more clearly: the more I opened to joy, the more I also opened to grief.
It wasn’t sabotage — it was expansion.
I’ve heard people say that our emotional capacity grows both ways. If we want to feel joy deeply, we have to be able to feel grief deeply too. I’ve known that for a while, but I felt it in a new way this time. Like my system was learning to hold a bigger spectrum. And the more I allowed both, the more whole I felt.
There’s been a part of me that’s feared being seen in my joy — as if it’s too much, or it makes me vulnerable. Like I’ve been shielding my light in subtle ways, holding my breath, covering my mouth. But this dance between joy and grief? It’s helping me take the cover off. Let the signal out.
The waves are still intense. But after each one, I feel something new: softness. Integration. A sense of stitching myself back together. The joy feels more rooted now — not as a performance or peak, but as a quiet truth I’m learning to live from.
In the joy and the ache,
Anne
