There comes a point in healing when the question is no longer:

“How do I protect myself?”

The question becomes:

“Do I trust myself enough to enjoy what feels good?”

For many Black women, joy is not innocent.

Pleasure is not neutral.

Ease feels suspicious.

Happiness has often arrived with conditions, warnings, or consequences. So even when safety is present, the body hesitates. The smile tightens. The laugh cuts short. The dance stays contained.

This is not because joy is unfamiliar.

It’s because joy has been policed.

How joy became something to manage

Black women’s joy has historically been treated as:

• Excessive

• Disruptive

• Sexual

• Improper

• Dangerous when expressed freely
  

Movement becomes “too much.”

Laughter becomes “loud.”

Pleasure becomes “inviting something.”

So the body learns to negotiate joy instead of surrendering to it.

Be happy—but quietly.

Feel good—but don’t show it.

Enjoy yourself—but don’t let anyone notice.

That is not joy.

That is containment.

Pleasure does not require permission

This matters deeply:

Joy is not a reward for good behavior.

Pleasure is not something you earn by being careful.

You do not need:

• To justify your happiness

• To explain your enjoyment

• To make your pleasure palatable

• To shrink your delight so others feel comfortable
  

Pleasure is not reckless.

Joy is not irresponsible.

They are life forces.

Reclaiming pleasure as sovereignty

Pleasure without apology is not about performance or provocation.

It is about inhabitation.

It looks like:

• Letting music move your body without monitoring it

• Laughing fully without scanning the room

• Enjoying beauty—your own or others’—without attaching consequence

• Feeling good without immediately asking, “What’s the catch?”
  

This kind of pleasure is quiet but radical.

It says: I am allowed to feel good in my body.

When joy brings up fear

Sometimes joy doesn’t feel light at first.

Sometimes it brings grief with it.

Grief for:

• The girl who learned to dim herself

• The woman who confused safety with smallness

• The body that learned to brace instead of open
  

If joy brings tears, that is not failure.

That is release.

Let the body learn that pleasure does not always end in harm.

A practice: letting joy be brief and real

Joy does not have to be permanent to be powerful.

Try this:

• When something feels good, let it last 10 seconds longer

• Do not narrate it

• Do not capture it

• Do not share it

• Just feel it
  

Say internally:

“This moment is allowed.”

That is enough.

Pleasure is not a performance for others

This is crucial:

Your joy does not exist to be consumed.

Your pleasure does not need an audience.

It is not there to:

• Prove confidence

• Attract desire

• Signal healing

• Inspire anyone else
  

It is there because you are alive.

Choosing joy as an act of self-trust

Joy without apology is not loud rebellion.

It is quiet certainty.

It is trusting:

• Your body to know when it is safe

• Yourself to leave when it is not

• Your right to feel good without explanation
  

It is letting pleasure be yours again.

Not managed.

Not justified.

Not negotiated.

Just lived.

A closing truth to carry

Joy does not make you careless.

Pleasure does not make you complicit.

Feeling good does not require a defense.

You are allowed to enjoy your life.

Fully.

In your body.

Without apology.