From Issue 111 — Children of the Urf
Joy is not always loud. Sometimes it arrives like sunlight, quiet, ordinary, and somehow enough to soften the sharp edges of a hard day. I used to think joy was something you found after you earned it, after the checklist, after the milestone, after the next accomplishment. Over time, I have learned something simpler and far more freeing, joy is something we can practice, and we can build spaces that help it find us.
When life has felt heaviest for me, I have returned to what is still available. Not the grand plan, not the perfect timing, just what is true in the moment. There was a season when I stopped asking, “What am I missing?” and started asking, “What do I have?” And my answer was the same every morning, I had the sun. The sun made me smile every single day. It reminded me that even in the darkest moments, light returns. That is not poetry to me, it is a pathway back to myself.
Staying rooted, for me, has always meant staying close to nature. Not as a luxury, but as a practice. A few minutes outside, a hand on the bark of a tree, the pause you take when wind moves through branches, these are small acts, but they recalibrate something in the body. They return you to your senses, they widen your breath, they invite your shoulders to drop. They make space.
That same intention guided a decision we made at Dr. Hauschka Skincare USA when we created our home office. In 2018, we bought an old church and reimagined it as a workplace built for openness, collaboration, and care. As the space transformed, I kept thinking about what it feels like to move through a day without a window, without a glance of the outdoors, without that simple reminder that the world is bigger than your inbox.
So, we designed the office so every person could see outside. Every seat has a window. Every person has access to nature with a single lift of the eyes. It is a small structural choice with a human impact. It says, “You belong here, and you deserve light.”
We also reclaimed and repurposed the old wooden pews from the church, honoring their history instead of discarding it. We used the wood to adorn our walls, a reminder that beauty can be carried forward, that what once held people in community can still hold us, even differently. That is part of what joy looks like to me, respect for what has been, care for what is, and attention to what might still become. It took a village to realize this type of vision, and I have to thank my dear friend and architect, Everardo Garcia. His guidance and intuitive skills reinforced the idea that we can imagine and create beautiful spaces for community and gathering.
This understanding deepened during a conversation I had on The Giving Garden Podcast with Dr. Emiliana Simon-Thomas, the Science Director of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, and one of the leading researchers on compassion, gratitude, and prosocial happiness. She said something that stayed with me, joy is not something we simply stumble into, it is something we cultivate through connection, kindness, and meaningful relationships.
We talked about The Big Joy Project, a global citizen science initiative that invites people to complete simple “micro acts” of joy each day for seven days. I loved that they made it small on purpose. As Emiliana explained, many approaches to happiness ask for a dramatic overhaul, but most people are already carrying full lives. The invitation is not to become someone else; it is to make a tiny swap. Seven minutes that might otherwise go to scrolling can become seven minutes of awe, gratitude, or connection.
She also shared research that challenged the culture of achievement so many of us are trained to follow. Happiness is not only about circumstances. A meaningful portion of well-being is shaped by what we do, how we behave, how we walk through the world each day. That framing felt like relief. It means we are not powerless. We have choices, even when life is complicated.
One of my favorite practices she offered was a “gratitude one, two, three,” say thank you, name what the person did, acknowledge the effort, then name the goodness it created. It can be a text, an email, a reflection while looking out a window. It is quick, but it changes the temperature of your inner world.
If I have learned anything as a leader, a mother, and a person still practicing her way towards joy, it is this, joy needs room. It needs the spaces between meetings, the light through a window, the walk that is short but honest, the moment you choose kindness when stress is begging you to rush.
Start where you are. Open a window. Step outside for three minutes. Send the gratitude text. Look for sunlight. Build one small corner of your day that welcomes joy in, then return to it again tomorrow.
To learn more about The Big Joy Project, listen to our podcast The Giving Garden Podcast on YouTube.
To learn more about Dr. Hauschka Skincare, visit drhauschka.com
