{"id":364,"date":"2026-09-03T05:31:46","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T05:31:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entredeserts.com\/?p=364"},"modified":"2026-09-03T05:31:48","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T05:31:48","slug":"shared-joy-mudita","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entredeserts.com\/fr\/shared-joy-mudita\/","title":{"rendered":"This Summer, My People Bloomed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shared joy is the kind that bursts. The kind that multiplies. The kind that, I have come to believe, is what we are here for.<\/em>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The summer my people bloomed<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This summer, three of my friends shared news that made my heart burst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first is expecting a baby. A deeply, quietly, fiercely wanted baby. Life opened up to her in a certain way within the last two years. She wasn’t sure she would ever become a mother, and yet today, this is exactly where she should be. She is being careful with her joy, holding it gently, not daring to celebrate too loudly yet. But I know how much this has been wished for. And hearing her tell me, something in my chest simply opened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second has spent her entire adult life single. Not by accident, not by circumstance, but by choice. She knew what she wanted. She held her standards high and refused to lower them, even when the world told her she was being too picky, too selective, too much. And then, recently, she met him. She told me she is so glad she always knew what she was looking for, because when he appeared, she recognized him immediately. The perfect one. For her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third has spent years searching for a chalet. Not just any property, but a specific feeling, a haven of peace, a place in nature that would be hers. She is someone who works incredibly hard and has a tendency to forget herself in the process. And this summer, she found it. She gifted herself a place in nature where she will finally, truly, be able to rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are the kinds of moments that don’t always come with a party or an announcement. Sometimes they are big and visible: a baby, a love, a home. Sometimes they are quieter: a personal best in the water, a piece of art finally finished, a decision to go back to school, a promise made to yourself and kept. All of it deserves to be received. All of it deserves someone in your corner who bursts with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I received each of these pieces of news and felt something I can only describe as overflow. Their happiness didn’t just make me smile. It filled me up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

The feeling that has no English name<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In Buddhist philosophy, there is a concept called mudita<\/a><\/em>. It is often translated as sympathetic joy, but that translation doesn’t quite capture it. Mudita goes deeper than simply being happy because someone else is happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mudita, properly understood, is the recognition of goodness in another person; their patience, their courage, their integrity, the way they have lived, and the joy that arises from seeing that goodness rewarded. It sees the connection between how someone has shown up in their life and the good that has come to them as a result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My friend who waited her whole adult life for love and never once lowered her standards. My friend whose life cracked open in ways she couldn’t have imagined, and who is now exactly where she should be. My friend who worked hard for years, kept showing up, and finally gave herself permission to rest. Mudita is not just happiness for them. It is a deep appreciation of the path they walked to get there, and a joy in seeing that path lead somewhere beautiful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is considered one of the highest forms of love<\/strong> in Buddhist philosophy. And I think most of us, in our best moments, already know how to feel it. We just don’t have a word for it in English or French.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which is interesting in itself. Many cultures across the world have found a way to name or express this feeling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"cactus<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In Arabic culture, joy is rarely experienced alone. Farah<\/em> \u2014 happiness \u2014 is inherently collective. When your family celebrates, you celebrate. When your neighbour receives good news, the whole street feels it. The happiness of one belongs to all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Spanish, alegr\u00eda<\/em> carries the same communal weight. Qu\u00e9 alegr\u00eda!<\/em> \u2014 what joy! \u2014 is said as naturally for someone else’s news as for your own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In African Ubuntu<\/a> philosophy, the principle is clear: I am because we are. Which also means: your joy is part of my joy. Your flourishing is part of mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in English and French, there is no single word for this feeling. Perhaps that says something about individualism in the Western world. The quiet assumption that happiness is personal, private, separate. That we each tend our own garden and don’t much concern ourselves with the neighbours’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe it’s time we invented one. I’ll leave that to you. What word would you give it? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

What shared joy actually feels like<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It doesn’t feel like watching someone else’s happiness from a distance. It doesn’t feel like a conscious choice or an effort of the will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shared joy doesn’t just expand. It bursts. It multiplies in every direction, spilling into the room, into the day, into people who weren’t even part of the original news. When I heard these pieces of news, I felt it physically. My heart exploded. I smiled before I even realized I was smiling. My whole body got excited, as if the happiness needed somewhere to go and decided to come through me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is louder than joy lived alone. Fuller. More alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes I think this is precisely what we are meant to be on this planet for. Because joy was never meant to be felt by one person at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Happy<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My friend’s baby, so wanted, so carefully held. My friend’s love, so long waited for, so clearly recognized when it finally arrived. My friend’s chalet, so patiently searched for, so quietly deserved. These are not my stories. But they live in me now, warm and real, because they let me in and I let myself feel it fully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is what community is for. Not just to show up in the hard moments, but to receive the good ones too. To be the person someone calls when they have news that matters. To be trusted with someone’s fragile, precious joy before they are ready to share it with the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is an honour. I don’t take it lightly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

On not being jealous<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I want to say something honest here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mudita is considered one of the most difficult emotional states to truly cultivate. Because we live in a world that quietly teaches comparison. That someone else’s pregnancy, someone else’s love story, someone else’s chalet, is somehow related to our own timeline, our own worth, our own luck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It isn’t. It never was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone else’s happiness is not a comment on yours. It is simply its own thing, beautiful and separate, available to be celebrated without any reference to where you are in your own story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

The community that holds us<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I grew up in a Tunisian family where news, good or bad, belonged to everyone. A pregnancy was not just the parents’ joy. It rippled outward, through aunts and cousins and neighbours, through phone calls and meals and tears and celebrations that lasted for days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"community\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The people who can receive your joy as their own, those are your people. Hold them close. Be that person for someone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your joy is my joy. And mine is yours. Because joy was never meant to be felt alone.<\/em> <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shared joy is the kind that bursts. The kind that multiplies. The kind that, I have come to believe, is what we are here for. The summer my people bloomed This summer, three of my friends shared news that made my heart burst. The first is expecting a baby. A deeply, quietly, fiercely wanted baby. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[171,34],"tags":[156,189,200,25,187,199,198,164],"class_list":["post-364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philosophy","category-simple-living","tag-community","tag-connection","tag-happiness","tag-intentional-living","tag-love","tag-mudita","tag-shared-joy","tag-ubuntu"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/entredeserts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_7703-scaled.jpeg?fit=2560%2C1920&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entredeserts.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entredeserts.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entredeserts.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entredeserts.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entredeserts.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/entredeserts.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":380,"href":"https:\/\/entredeserts.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions\/380"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entredeserts.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entredeserts.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entredeserts.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entredeserts.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}