Accessing Your Joy in Tricky Times

The power of our collective sovereignty.

An overhead shot of a small sample of the 2017 Women’s March. Reddit.

Back in early November of 2016, Trump had just won the presidency and two good friends heard rumors of a women’s march that was supposedly happening the day after the inauguration in DC. They had never been to a march and asked me if I wanted to go.

I had been to protests in DC on and off for over 30 years. And to be honest, I don’t love marches, so I was dubious.

“Are you sure it’s really happening?” I asked. Yes, they were sure. I looked it up. Hmm, it did seem real.

“Well,” I said, “if we go, I want us to reserve a hotel room close to the march asap. I’m too old to sleep on some church floor with a million other strangers and step over people on the way to a horrible communal bathroom.”

So we looked up hotels near the Washington Mall. It was inauguration day weekend so everything was really expensive. We got what seemed to be the last available room in the city at an outrageous price, but at least we were divvying up the bill.

We took the train down to DC on inauguration day itself. As we stepped outside of the metro station closest to our hotel, we saw a few lonely vendors hawking Trump paraphernalia standing around by themselves with no one to sell their swag to.

They all raised their heads hopefully as we emerged from the elevators, took one look at us, and sank back down into their chairs.

As we headed over to our hotel, the streets were strangely empty. There were more police than people. Barricades were set up but with no one to hold back. Where were the throngs of MAGA celebrators?

When we got to the hotel, it was actually full of Trump supporters who were attending the inauguration ball that night. We didn’t realize we had booked a room in a hotel so close to the ball venue.

But as we walked around the bar and lobby area, I was surprised by how dejected and downhearted they seemed. I was baffled—they had won, after all. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’m not sure I would have believed it. No excitement. No sense of victory. Zero joy.

But that hotel was also full of women in their pink hats—all smiling, laughing, waving, and giving a thumbs up to other women they could tell were there for the same reason—bonding with strangers in excitement about the march the next day. We, the ones who had lost the election, were exuberant, upbeat, and energized. It was powerful and contagious.

When we went out that evening to hunt down a little dinner, it was the same—excited women all over town wearing their pink knitted hats and cheering each other on while glum-looking Trump voters in tuxes and gowns moped over to the Inauguration Ball.

A Joy Ride

The next day, when we arrived at the Mall for the protest march, I had never seen so many people. We literally filled the entire permitted area designated for the march itself. There were so many of us, there was nowhere to march to because we filled the marching space from start to finish.

As is typical, the rally part went on too long, the speeches were repetitive, and, I must say, often a little sanctimonious. It was very cold and we weren’t sure when the actual marching was gonna start or even where we’d go if it did. As yet another speaker took their turn at the mic, people were getting antsy. My sister, who lived locally, told me she was gonna go home. But then we saw a bunch of people who seemed to be marching somewhere on their own, so we just joined them.

From then on, it was pure magic. Everyone started to move. The power, joy, and exuberance I felt the night before filled the waves of marchers as we chanted, sang, and wended our way out of the permitted area toward the White House. The police just leaned back and watched. I’d never seen police at a protest look so relaxed.

The joy and excitement was palpable. It was, hands down, the most life-affirming, empowering protest march I had ever been to. At the end, I thought, “First time protest marchers are now ruined for every other march they ever attend. How can this ever be topped—or even matched?”

I was so grateful to have experienced this in person. And of course, there were huge rallies and marches that day in cities all over America—and the world—filled with the same empowered, loving, and joyful vibe.

Fast Forward to 2025

As we all know, the last six weeks have been so wrenching that looking ahead can feel daunting. It makes that march in 2016 feel like a dream from another time.

But as I was struggling this week to keep my heart focused on the very biggest picture, I kept thinking about that wonderful day in DC and the possibilities of the untapped power of human energy. I’ve never been in such a large crowd where the overwhelming vibration was joy. It was fascinating to witness—and feel—its effect directly.

And right now, there’s a giant lack of joy in so many of us. And while joy cannot be faked, we need to remind ourselves that joy is not simply an emotion. Joy is not happiness, for instance. It’s much larger and more profound. Happiness is like a microcosm of joy—a personal avenue into joy perhaps, but not the thing itself.

And yet, most people were not filled with joy back in 2016 either.

Everyone at that march was horrified at the election results—that’s why they felt compelled to attend a protest. But somehow, the container of that event allowed a joy to bloom forth—because, I believe, it was the expression of hundreds of thousands of people standing in their sovereignty together.

Hundreds of thousands of people filled with the true sense of their own dignity and their right to be respected, take up space, and be themselves.

One factor that helped make that possible was that we were buoyed by the knowledge that Trump had lost the popular vote. That knowledge gave us the conviction that fueled our courage and a sense that our values were the values of the majority.

This time, because the media acted like Trump won by a landslide in the days right after the election, we were just in shock. Stunned that a majority of Americans seemed to have chosen a man openly hawking autocracy. (Of course, once they counted all the votes, we found out that more people voted for Kamala Harris and third parties combined than voted for Trump—so there was no landslide. And you might want to read this article on how criminally successful the vote suppression and negation tactics were in almost every red state.)

And yet, the nagging feeling that our “resistance” needs an infusion of joyful creativity follows me around. If we could tap into that joy of The Women’s March, we’d find our real power.

I believe we can do this and that we must do this. AND I have a fun idea about how you and I can jump-start that joyfully creative change-making momentum in our own little corners of the world—together.

I’m super excited about this idea. But I want to work out a few kinks first, so I’m going to share it with you in next week’s newsletter.

In the meantime, I’d love to know your thoughts about accessing joy, how you’re coping in our political climate, or your own memories of any political activism you’ve participated in that felt special or empowering.