I have the words “joy on joy on joy” tattooed on my arm. Years ago I decided that I wanted to live life guided by the mantra: Find Joy, Create Joy, Share Joy. My tattoo reminds me to keep choosing joy. I’ve learned that choosing joy isn’t always easy, but it is worth it.

If I could bottle up the joy I find, create, and share, and just sell that online so people could feel pleasure, safety, empowerment, and peace, I absolutely would! But joy isn’t for sale as a product for purchase. Joy is a practice. In my work as a Divorce Doula and Certified Sex Educator, I help people through the obstacles in life that are keeping them from being able to find joy, create joy, and, share joy.

As a Divorce Doula, I draw from my own experience with break-up and divorce to hold space for folks going through an incredible life transition. I offer the empathetic guidance and emotional support I knew I needed to be a safer, healthier, happier mom and woman. Sometimes our relationship is the obstacle to joy, so I provide doula care through all the stages of divorce: considering separation, the divorce process, and post-divorce life. I help people return to their whole selves so seeking joy is a possibility.

I became a Certified Sex Educator because I believe we all deserve access to pleasure centered, accurate, comprehensive sex education. When we can learn about our bodies, sex, sexuality and relationships in an inclusive and shame-free way, we can have conversations and take actions that make the world kinder, safer, and more just. I truly believe that access to pleasure and sex information is key to living in healthier, happier bodies, and creating a more equitable society. This is a pathway to justice. And fear based, inaccurate sex education or lack of spaces for these conversations is a huge obstacle to joy. So I offer parents and other adults an opportunity to unlearn harmful sex ed, and get a sex re-education. I support parents so they can have shame-free, caring conversations with their children.

I also provide pleasure mentoring for all adults that want to explore intentional joy and prioritize their pleasure. It isn’t joy in a bottle, but perhaps something greater. It is delighting your senses, discovering the joy within, learning to create it for yourself, and sharing it with our community and the people we are most intimate with.

I find joy in the scent of jasmine, watching baseball, hearing my children laugh, taking in the majesty of the ocean, walking with friends, experiencing live theater, the bond I share with my mom, random chats with strangers, the taste of dark chocolate and sea salt, memories of being with my family in Malta, and the warm weather we get in San Francisco in October.

In my experience as a mother, early childhood educator, coparent, daughter, sister, friend, and human, it’s been the sharing joy part that I love the most. I do this work, and I am passionate about care because my favorite type of joy is witnessing people flourish in and because of it.