If you happen to really feel like pleasure is elusive this vacation season, you’re not alone.
2025 has been an particularly punishing 12 months throughout the planet, the nation and for Los Angeles particularly. Up to now 12 months, we’ve witnessed properties destroyed by fireplace, households damaged up by ICE, skyrocketing anti-trans hate and big layoffs throughout the leisure and media industries leaving hundreds in our metropolis unemployed.
It’s sufficient to plunge even L.A.’s sunniest optimists into despair.
“It’s arduous to be completely happy on this world the place persons are being handled terribly,” a pal mentioned to me not too long ago. “This can be a time to be severe, take discover and take motion.”
I perceive the place she’s coming from, however with out moments of pleasure to fill my cup, I really feel depleted and ineffective. Once I actively search pleasure by leaping round at my synagogue, dancing to Abba at my Italian social membership or pausing to understand the nice and cozy glow of a winter sundown, I’m higher capable of meet no matter challenges are awaiting me.
The American Psychological Affiliation defines pleasure as “a sense of utmost gladness, delight or exultation of the spirit arising from a way of well-being and satisfaction.” Whereas pleasure has not acquired the identical consideration from analysis psychologists because the extra toned down emotion of happiness, there may be proof that pleasure can result in elevated creativity and higher psychological resilience.
Additionally it is an emotion that doesn’t should be tied to our exterior experiences.
“Some individuals suppose all of the situations should be proper to expertise pleasure — I’ve to be feeling OK, I’ve to love my household, I’ve to haven’t simply misplaced somebody,” mentioned Rabbi Susan Goldberg, founding father of Nefesh, a Jewish group in Echo Park. “That’s not true. It’s a alternative, and it’s a observe.”
I spoke with Goldberg and different religion leaders in L.A. about how we are able to search and observe pleasure this season, whether or not or not you’re spiritual.
Reframe Pleasure
It could really feel insensitive or egocentric to hunt pleasure after we know so many are hurting, however Thema Bryant, a psychologist and minister at First AME Church in Los Angeles, doesn’t see it that approach.
“We are able to really feel multiple factor on the identical time,” she mentioned. “And it’s wholesome to present ourselves house and permission to really feel all of the issues that come up for us presently of 12 months.”
This vacation season, many people have good motive to really feel grief, concern, anger and disappointment. On the identical time, we are able to nonetheless take pleasure in gathering with household or pals, consuming our favourite vacation meals or attending a candlelight service on Christmas Eve.
None of this implies we’re ignoring or dismissing our personal ache or the ache of these round us. Bryant mentioned selecting despair as an act of solidarity doesn’t assist people who find themselves struggling. And permitting ourselves to expertise pleasure within the midst of wrestle may also be an act of liberation.
“The aim of oppression, hatred and discrimination is to disconnect us and dehumanize us,” she mentioned. “It’s an act of resistance to say, ‘I’m not going to present all my peace to those that are working to emphasize me out.’”
Purposefully embrace pleasure in your routine
So what does searching for pleasure within the midst of anguish appear to be?
At Nefesh, the place I’m a member, it seems like leaping.
The Nefesh group has skilled loads of ache this 12 months. A number of members had been straight affected by the fires that tore by Los Angeles firstly of 2025, queer and trans members have thought-about leaving the nation within the wake of accelerating hate and people with ties to Israel have grappled with the devastation and violence in that area. Clergy and congregants have additionally been on the entrance traces of the struggle to maintain households from being separated by ICE, and this spring the group was shocked by the surprising dying of Goldberg’s mom, a beloved member, dad or mum educator and activist.
And but regardless of all this, every week Goldberg stands in entrance of the congregation and actually jumps for pleasure as we welcome Shabbat.
“Our custom says it’s six to at least one,” she mentioned. “Six days every week of creating, fixing, doing, and Shabbat is the seventh day after we are actually commanded to relaxation and likewise be joyful. You may take into consideration the centuries the place it appeared inconceivable for the Jewish individuals to have pleasure and delight, and but that’s what we now have discovered.”
Search for ‘glimmers’
If spiritual group is just not your factor, Bryant has a couple of different concepts on search pleasure in difficult instances. “The time period that involves thoughts for me are ‘glimmers as a substitute of triggers,’” she mentioned.
If “triggers” are reminders of painful moments, “glimmers” are a easy pleasure that may set off pleasure and assist invite it into our lives, she mentioned. Which may imply taking a stroll, going to the seaside, calling a pal who all the time makes you smile, enjoyable in a bubble bathtub or rewatching a favourite film.
“Group can convey pleasure,” Bryant mentioned. “Or cuddling along with your pet. Service and volunteerism may also be a pleasure.”
I not too long ago noticed a “glimmer” in motion when a pal despatched me an lovable video of her daughter as slightly woman. My pal had had simply rewatched the video on her cellphone after spending eight hours on the hospital together with her father-in-law who was within the midst of a daunting well being occasion.
“It’s a ridiculous catastrophe,” she texted me. However even within the midst of the disaster, she was capable of expertise a glimmer of pleasure by reliving this candy second together with her daughter.
“Pleasure, pleasure, pleasure,” she wrote. “Wherever we are able to discover it.”
However don’t shut out the darkness
Genuine pleasure may also appear to be human connection and solidarity, mentioned Francisco Garcia, an Episcopal priest who co-leads the Sacred Resistance ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles and who has ministered to many individuals whose family members have been taken by ICE.
“There’s a component of understanding we’re not alone in our ache, concern and nervousness that may be a supply of some semblance of pleasure,” Garcia mentioned. “Discovering these sources of each day gratitude that aren’t pretend or pressured, however born out of actual strife and wrestle, is a fantastically human factor.”
As we enter the Christmas season, Garcia famous that the Christmas liturgy is an annual reminder that pleasure is feasible even within the darkest instances, and that the 2 usually go collectively. He pointed to the observe of Creation, a time when observant Christians put together themselves for the arrival of the son of God.
“The sunshine and the darkness are a part of the celebration,” he mentioned.
It reminded him of a line from Psalm 30:5: “Weeping might endure for the evening, however pleasure cometh within the morning.”
“It’s a hope that pleasure will come, not a assure,” Garcia mentioned. “And that itself is a leap of religion. That pleasure will come within the morning.”
