Redefining Joy From Another Point of View

I left Seattle on December 31st, 2025. Somewhere over the Pacific or Indian Ocean, the New Year arrived without fanfare.

Cabin lights were dim. Most people were asleep. The airplane and I were both liminally suspended between time zones. Between cultures. Between years.

I was crossing the world with an intention written clearly in my journal and in my heart. My word for 2026 was joy.

Everything about January had been carefully designed around an intention of joy. I knew my body was still recovering. But something compelled me forward. Back to Ayurveda. Yoga. A retreat at a 104-year-old ashram. Gentle healing by the sea. Kerala. Lonavala. A long-planned Nonviolent Communication training. It was a return to India – with an intention of joy.

I believed I was ready.

In fact, I was not.

The flight made that clear. The discomfort I had been living with for months became undeniable. My hip and knee protested persistently. Pain has a way of stripping away denial when there is nowhere to escape and nothing to distract you.

Everything Shifted

In Mumbai, it became a daily negotiation between my mind and my body. Bombay has a way of pulling you in. The sea. The smells of food. The relentless pulse of humanity. The chaos. It was all there. My mind wanted to experience the city. My body refused to cooperate.

I began to doubt whether going to the yoga and Ayurveda retreat made sense. Still, I stubbornly held on. I mean, this pain is exactly why retreats and healing modalities exist after all, right?

Then, the MRI results arrived.

Unclear language. Clinical phrasing. Alarming words. I did not fully understand them, but knew enough to feel uneasy.

I spoke to the doctor at the retreat center. Their response was immediate and firm: Please don’t come. Go to a local hospital instead.

And just like that, everything shifted.

The carefully curated month of joy dissolved into hospital corridors, blood tests, scans, waiting rooms. India, which had always been about family visits, shopping, shopping, and more shopping, food indulgences, and rich history, suddenly became something else entirely.

The joy I had carefully designed for myself was no longer accessible to me.

In Bangalore, I found myself surrounded not by yoga teachers but by doctors and therapists. By people who cared for me. By experts who made time for me. By the two young massage therapists who worked with me gently and attentively.

Tanu and Sreelakshmi, Ayurvedia Massage Therapists

Their laughter filled the room. Their compassion flowed naturally.

Joy was showing up.

Just not in the way I had designed.

From Another Point of View

One evening, I walked — slowly and with effort — to a café near the sea in Mumbai. I was alone. Around me, tables of young women laughed loudly and unapologetically. I watched them, feeling just a little sorry for myself, and remembered that being alone does not mean you can’t find joy.

That’s when a woman walked in wearing a bright, orange t-shirt. She sat beside me, waiting for a friend. The text on her shirt, written upside down, read: “From another point of view.”

We began talking. Ritika Bajaj is a storyteller and founder of Indian Storytellers Pvt. Limited. A showrunner. A creative director. Curious. Present. She invited me to tell my own story. And to question the story I was telling myself. Our interaction and the phrase on her shirt stayed with me long after that evening.

It became a theme. An invitation. A grounding thought for uncertain times.

Redefining Joy

I’d started the year with a very specific definition of joy.

• Joy was travel.

• Joy was learning.

• Joy was spiritual immersion.

• Joy was carefully curated healing experiences.

• Joy was something I could design. It was something I could control.

But January had other plans for me.

Instead, joy arrived in unexpected forms:

• In Flight Attendants looking out for me.

• In hospital Care Coordinators intervening on my behalf.

• In Doctors who took time to explain without rushing.

• In Surgeons who confirmed without criticizing.

• In Therapists whose laughter softened my fear and whose gentle manipulations helped me feel better.

• In hotel Staff who adjusted meals to meet my dietary restrictions without being asked.

• In dear family who have held me in their graces.

My intention for joy was not lost; instead, the definition of joy had been expanded.

I had confused joy with control and design.

I had equated joy with execution and accomplishment.

I believed that if I aligned the right experiences, in the right order, in the right place, at the right time, that joy would follow.

But that’s not the way joy works.

Joy was not lost in the retreat I canceled.

It was found in the care that was conferred to me.

Joy was not found in pushing through the pain.

It was found in surrendering to it.

I am continuing to let this experience redefine my sense of joy, of health, of wellness, and compassion.

Are there ways you can expand your definition of joy?