The The I had the loveliest conversation with an old friend the other day.

It's ironic that it was lovely because she and I are both going through some tough things.

She, a divorce, and for me, cancer treatment.

She and I have been friends for years, but have also lived in different cities for much of that

time, so have gone long stretches without speaking. We reconnected around my diagnosis,

and just after she shared the news of her impending divorce,

so have been sending each other encouragement throughout the last few months.

What made our conversation so healing the other day, though,

was that we were able to laugh about the painful and awful things that have happened recently.

There is a certain beauty in accepting what is happening and just

laughing about it all for a bit with someone else who can really, truly understand and hold space for you.

While I don't wish these kinds of life challenges on anyone, we all have to face hard things in

this life. And when they come, it's good to have some tools in your back pocket

for how to handle them. An author I've worked with in my audiobook narration work reached out to me

and said that she helped both of her daughters through breast cancer, and that the key that helped

them all was, ironically, finding the joy and laughter. It seems such a strange thing, to try to find

something to laugh about in the face of grief or fear or pain, but I promise you that joy is there

sitting side by side next to pain. I remember when my dad was in hospice and close to passing, my mom and sister and I shared

some of the most unexpected belly laughs. It's like our bodies need to balance the scales.

Sorrow and joy are opposite sides of the same coin. Meditation also helps us reconnect with joy in hard times. When you slow your thoughts,

you also slow your reaction to the thoughts. And it's in our reactions that we can get stuck.

If you can make it a practice to let the thoughts come and go without reacting to them while you

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