info@queerjoytherapy.com
114 Maitland Street, Toronto
info@queerjoytherapy.com
114 Maitland Street, Toronto
We are living in an era where we are forced to witness genocide in real time—on our phones, in our feeds, in the eyes of our grieving communities. The rise of fascism, surveillance, and dehumanization is no longer theoretical—it’s embodied, normalized, and global. For many of us—especially those who are queer, racialized, neurodivergent, or displaced—despair is not just a feeling. It’s a lived reality. A response to histories we carry and injustices we cannot unsee. And still, we love. Not because we are naïve, but because we understand that love—radical, grounded, mutual, and justice-oriented love—is the only real antidote to despair. bell hooks reminds us: “A culture that is dead to love can only be resurrected by spiritual awakening.” This resurrection does not come from institutions. It comes from us. From how we treat each other. From how we hold grief. From how we continue to hope in the face of overwhelming odds.
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Writer's information:
Yijia is a proud Queer Asian therapist, based in Tkaronto (colonially known as Toronto)
Transformational love is not rooted in romantic fantasy or capitalist consumption. It doesn’t perform sweetness while avoiding truth. Instead, it asks something of us: accountability, integrity, and a deep commitment to mutual care. It is the kind of love that says, I will not abandon you in your suffering—and I will not abandon myself, either.
This love is political. It’s spiritual. It’s relational. It lives in the small gestures that resist erasure—checking in on a friend, feeding a comrade, saying no when we are depleted. It lives in our capacity to build collectives, to name our boundaries, to love ourselves fiercely while refusing to look away from injustice.
bell hooks writes,
“Do not expect to receive the love from someone else you do not give yourself.”
To give ourselves love—genuine, healing love—is to refuse the lie that we are only worthy when useful, agreeable, or quiet.
Hope is not passive. It’s not a glossy optimism that ignores pain. Hope is a discipline. A practice. It’s the act of making food when you’re too tired, showing up to protest even when your voice is trembling, choosing to speak truth even when the room is hostile.
In my work as a trauma therapist, I’ve witnessed how people reclaim their lives after devastation. Not because they are superhuman, but because something—someone, somewhere—loved them back into themselves. Hope blooms in those sacred connections.
Erich Fromm once wrote:
“The principle underlying capitalistic society and the principle of love are incompatible.”
Capitalism teaches us that we are only valuable when producing, performing, or competing. It isolates us, monetizes our pain, and turns relationships into transactions. It tells us there’s never enough: not enough time, not enough love, not enough safety.
Transformational love says: There is enough when we care for each other. When we resist together. When we let go of the illusion of individual survival and turn toward collective thriving.
When we choose love, we are not avoiding the horrors of the world—we are facing them with courage and tenderness. We are refusing to let them define our capacity to care. Love does not erase grief, but it gives us a reason to carry it.
We are not powerless. We are aching, yes. But we are also awakening. Our spiritual practice—whether rooted in land, ancestors, poetry, or prayer—can remind us: we are not alone.
We get to choose the kind of world we build, breath by breath, boundary by boundary, story by story.
If you’re reading this and feeling tired, heartbroken, or numb—I want you to know that your feelings make sense. This world can be brutal. But you are not broken. You are human. You are still capable of love that heals, love that resists, love that transforms.
Ask yourself:
We cannot afford to give up on love—not now. Not ever.
Because when we love with our whole being, even in the face of despair, we remember who we are. And we become part of something greater than our fear.
