I am having an out-of-body experience. I am watching myself, as if from above, enjoying one of those picture perfect family moments. It is mid lockdown 2020 and the four of us, my husband and I and our two small boys are on the trampoline in our garden, just bouncing, laughing and playing. No agenda, no ‘busy-ness’ to attend to, just four people enjoying each other’s company. I didn’t think moments like this existed outside of the movies, and for one nano-second I allow myself to embrace it, before cruelly, inevitably, obviously I yank myself out.
“This cannot last”. I tell myself. “Be careful, don’t get used to it. This isn’t reality. Who are you to be enjoying yourself with so many people suffering out there for God’s sake??”
I scurry off the trampoline and go and do the dishes.
BrenéBrown, author, Ted-talker and lecturer, says that joy is the most “terrifying and difficult” emotion out there. Why? Because we are so scared that it is going to get taken away from us, we don’t allow ourselves to embrace it fully.
Fast forward to later that evening when my two children are sleeping peacefully, I do my nightly ritual of checking in on them and kissing them goodnight. “Another day gone by”, I think, “another day that they are happy and well and safe”. And then I frantically inwardly berate myself for having that thought, as though by thinking it I am setting off some violent alarm that alerts the powers that be: “she’s happy! Hang on a moment… that’s not allowed!! Better do something about that!!!” Somehow I convince myself I have tempted fate and this brief, precious moment of contentment will come crashing down about my ears; as inevitably as day turns to night.
Why do we do this? Why do we self-sabotage so much that eventually joy feels like an abstract concept? Something we flirt with from time to time, but ultimately have no idea how it reallyfeels?
In this current day, with the overload of media influences and imagery, I don’t believe that we humans feel we deserve to be happy. Our brains are conditioned to think of life like an episode from a soap opera where: as soon as all characters involved are in a stable, secure environment, cue the upheaval of the storyline and inevitable drama, most likely involving death, destruction and disorder.
We need to remember, however, that real life is not an episode of Eastenders, it is not scripted for ratings and to “dress rehearse tragedy” ultimately does not help us appreciate and respect the things that do bring us joy.
The thing that I have learned, however, that does allow us to truly appreciate the beauty that surrounds us is to stay in the present moment. As soon as we “time travel” to a tragic imagined future, or to a difficult past memory, we are not embracing the present and all that it brings.
Brené Brown suggests that the only way we can truly experience and embrace joy is to be genuinely and deeply appreciative of each moment that we are blessed with, to practise gratitude and to fully submerge ourselves in each experience.
So can we settle into that joy and allow ourselves to feel it fully, with a mighty FULL STOP at the end of the experience, rather than the succeeding “but what if?” For, if the worst wereever to happen, would we really want to look back and think that we had always been so anxious about the ‘what if’ that we never stopped to really appreciate the true beauty around us?
So, my new plan for those picture perfect family moments? Believe in them, allow them, experience them and ultimately don’t judge myself on them. It’s OK to be content… it really is.
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