Medicinal Joy

We underestimate the power of solidarity in womanhood.

Women often move through the world carrying far more than anyone realizes. We operate from heart, emotion, intuition, memory, responsibility, and soul. We hold families together, show up for work, comfort friends, study late into the night, care for children, aging parents, partners, and patients, and somehow still carry ourselves forward.

And because many of us become exceptionally good at functioning, the world often mistakes our strength for endless capacity.

But strength without replenishment becomes depletion.

Sometimes we become so accustomed to being “fine” that nobody notices how exhausted we are beneath the capable exterior. We cry privately, pull on our big-girl pants, and continue because there is often no one else willing or able to step in.

Last night reminded me how deeply women need one another.

I attended She Dances… for good, a fundraising dance event supporting various women's causes. On the surface, it was music, lights, dancing, laughter, and celebration. But beneath the event itself, something far more primal was happening:

Women were witnessing women.

For three hours, I danced with an extraordinary group of women from every walk of life. We laughed until our faces hurt. We embraced. We shared accomplishments and struggles. We encouraged one another without competing, fixing, or controlling each other.

That part struck me deeply.

We loved each other simply through presence.

No one needed to perform perfectly.

No one needed to prove their worth.

No one needed to shrink.

The music pulsed steadily through the room like blood moving through veins. Bodies moved freely. Joy painted itself across faces not for husbands, clients, coworkers, customers, or social media — but for themselves.

And perhaps that is what made the evening feel sacred.

There was a moment during the night when the music paused, and one of the organizers spoke about the charities being supported, including ovarian cancer research. I watched women quietly reach for one another. Hands touching shoulders. Arms linking together. Knowing glances exchanged between strangers who were somehow not strangers at all.

There is something profoundly healing about being fully seen without needing to explain your wounds.

As I stood there, I realized the evening was never truly about dancing.

It was about restoration.

The dance floor became a safe place for women to lay down the invisible emotional armour many of us wear every day. For a few hours, we were not solely caregivers, workers, mothers, students, partners, or survivors.

We were simply human beings celebrating life together.

And for me personally, after a brutal week of nursing school filled with quizzes, tests, studying, responsibility, and worry, the evening felt like oxygen.

Not avoidance.

Not irresponsibility.

Medicine.

Joy is not the opposite of responsibility.

Joy is often what allows us to continue carrying it.

I left realizing something important:

Women do not only heal through therapy or solitude.

Sometimes we heal shoulder to shoulder on dance floors, laughing beneath flashing lights while music reminds our nervous systems that we are still alive.

And maybe that kind of joy is not frivolous at all.

Maybe it is survival.

Maybe it is fuel.

Maybe it is love in motion. 💕