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What's Joy Got to Do With It?
Awakening Joy in Troubled Times
Wednesday, September 30th, 2026 from 9:00 to 10:00 am PST
Free for WCMI Members!
In an era of collective uncertainty and daily exposure to difficulty — our own and others' — many of us find our capacity for joy quietly eroding, treated as a luxury when it may be closer to a necessity. This is especially true for those who spend their days caring for others, including mindfulness-oriented clinicians. Drawing on Buddhist psychology and evidence-based mindfulness practice, Dr. Larry Cammarata invites participants to reconsider joy: not as a fleeting positive mood, but as an embodied willingness to meet present-moment experience — including its difficulty — without resistance. Through guided reflection, brief experiential practices, and group discussion, participants will explore joy in three registers: as the fuel that sustains contemplative practice, as a diagnostic signal of one's relationship to the present moment, and as muditā — one of Buddhism's Four Immeasurables and the sympathetic joy that connects us to one another, including the bond between clinician and client. Participants will leave with simple, portable practices for recognizing joy that is already present, even amid the real demands of daily life — whether at home, in relationship, or in clinical work — in troubled times.
Dr. Cammarata is the Director of Training for East Bay Mindfulness Center. A clinical psychologist with over 40 years of experience, he draws on formal Buddhist studies, the practice of the Chinese martial art of Taijiquan, and involvement in the performing arts of improvisation, dance, music, and storytelling.
What's Joy Got to Do With It?
Awakening Joy in Troubled Times
Wednesday, September 30th, 2026 from 9:00 to 10:00 am PST
Free for WCMI Members!
In an era of collective uncertainty and daily exposure to difficulty — our own and others' — many of us find our capacity for joy quietly eroding, treated as a luxury when it may be closer to a necessity. This is especially true for those who spend their days caring for others, including mindfulness-oriented clinicians. Drawing on Buddhist psychology and evidence-based mindfulness practice, Dr. Larry Cammarata invites participants to reconsider joy: not as a fleeting positive mood, but as an embodied willingness to meet present-moment experience — including its difficulty — without resistance. Through guided reflection, brief experiential practices, and group discussion, participants will explore joy in three registers: as the fuel that sustains contemplative practice, as a diagnostic signal of one's relationship to the present moment, and as muditā — one of Buddhism's Four Immeasurables and the sympathetic joy that connects us to one another, including the bond between clinician and client. Participants will leave with simple, portable practices for recognizing joy that is already present, even amid the real demands of daily life — whether at home, in relationship, or in clinical work — in troubled times.
Dr. Cammarata is the Director of Training for East Bay Mindfulness Center. A clinical psychologist with over 40 years of experience, he draws on formal Buddhist studies, the practice of the Chinese martial art of Taijiquan, and involvement in the performing arts of improvisation, dance, music, and storytelling.