What YYZ is teaching me about Presence, Joy, and the Energy we bring into a room

After three passes through Toronto Pearson Airport in a row, I’ve started to wonder if the airport is becoming my spiritual teacher. #YYZ.

Which is not a sentence I ever expected to write.

Normally, airports feel rushed, transactional, overstimulating. Places where people aggressively power walk while eating a protein bar and quietly resenting humanity.

And yet, lately, something different has been happening.

The first moments were small.

Most recently, there were no lineups. The Air Canada staff were warm and funny. Security was oddly pleasant. At one

point, I arrived at a broken movator and instead of feeling irritated, I just thought, “More steps for me today!”

Who even am I?

Later that night, while boarding a very delayed flight, I joked to the woman at the gate that I didn’t really look like my passport photo because I had just gotten bangs.

Without missing a beat, she looked at me and said, “Well, you look beautiful.” And the interesting thing was, I actually believed she meant it.

The second experience stayed with me even more.

Earlier this month, my Uber driver and I started talking about the state of the world. He told me how many of his recent conversations with passengers had felt heavy. People divided. Disconnected. Even avoiding family because of differing views.

It stayed with me.

As I got out of the car, I made a quiet decision: I was going to go into the day with love.

And then things shifted, not dramatically, just humanly.

A security agent smiled and said: “If you smile, your line moves. If you complain, you remain.” The entire line was smiling along with her.

I somehow ended up saying “Vegemite” in an Australian accent to a Nexus officer who burst out laughing. And for the rest of the day, interactions felt lighter. Softer. Easier.

The most compelling airport moment came a few months ago.

A mother and her daughter were ahead of me in line at airport security. They were wearing matching tracksuits. The little girl was about five years old and completely adorable.

At one point, the mother had to go back through the scanner, leaving the little girl standing briefly on the other side waiting for her.

When her mother came back through, the little girl ran straight into her arms.

Then she turned to the security officers.

She touched her chest with both hands, spread her arms wide, and said loudly:

“I love you! I love you!”

Just like that, the entire line softened. People started smiling. Even the officers laughed.

For a moment, the tension that usually lives in airport security disappeared.

I think it touched me even more because I was boarding a flight to the UK to see my father, who is living with dementia.

Sometimes the smallest moments shift everything. And lately, these moments seem to keep finding me, not because life has suddenly become perfect or because the world is suddenly lighter.

Joy and pain still exist side by side (yes, I hear Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock in my head as I write that :-).

But I am beginning to think that presence changes things, not in a magical “manifest your reality” kind of way but in a more deeply human way.

The more open I feel, the more openness I seem to encounter.

The more present I become, the more present other people seem to be with me.

The softer I move through the world, the softer the world sometimes feels in return.

I’m not suggesting the universe is reorganizing airport logistics on my behalf, but I am starting to think people respond differently when we move through the world differently.

Around the same time, my sister, Marea Kavanagh, was featured as a “Glow Getter” in Chapel Hill Magazine, a feature highlighting people who bring light simply by how they show up. And honestly, it captured her perfectly.

Not because she’s perfect (she would want me to make that very clear), but because she has this grounded, present way of being that makes people feel more like themselves when they’re around her. She’s also deeply fun, which I think is underrated as a life skill.

Reading the article made me stop for a moment because what they described is something we see all the time at Camp Joy.

Women arrive tired, overwhelmed, disconnected from themselves, and then something shifts.

They soften. They laugh more easily. They settle back into themselves.

Not because we have some magic formula, but because something powerful happens when people feel safe enough to exhale. I’m starting to think presence may be one of the most undervalued things we offer each other.

Not performance. Not perfection. Not carefully curated versions of ourselves, just genuine presence, the feeling that someone is really there with you.

My sister has always had that quality. So did our mother. They both have this ability to look directly at someone in a conversation and be fully in it. No scanning the room. No waiting for their turn to speak. No performing interest while mentally writing a grocery list. And every time, people leave feeling seen.

I think that’s part of what we’re all craving right now: not more productivity hacks or another optimized morning routine, just spaces, conversations, and people that help us feel more like ourselves again.

Maybe that’s why Camp Joy feels the way it does. Maybe that’s why certain dinners become unforgettable. Why strangers become close quickly. Why some people change the energy of a room simply by entering it.

Lately, I’ve been trying to choose love a little more often. And so far, it seems to be meeting me right back.

And honestly, no one is more surprised by these realizations than I am. When we started Camp Joy, I thought we were creating something women needed. What I didn’t expect was how quickly and deeply it would change me too.

It turns out I may have needed it even more than our campers.

With love,

Monique