When Happiness Stopped Feeling Dangerous.

I noticed it on my morning walk one day this weekend.

We spent the long weekend together as a family. The five of us. This time, our eldest daughter’s boyfriend joined us. It was a first for us.

The sweetness of the weekend surprised me.

Not that it was perfect.

It wasn’t.

But I was so stressed anticipating the weekend. I was afraid of too many people sharing the same space. Of things going wrong. Of girls not getting along. Of the awkwardness of having a new person in our space.

There was also my brother-in-law with a woman friend, whom I barely knew.

Maybe I expected the worst. Maybe I took all the worst moments from the past and projected them onto this weekend.

The reality was better than I anticipated.

There was enough space.

There was enough love.

There was enough enjoyment.

As I walked that morning, I noticed something that felt new to me.

For much of my life, happiness felt fragile.

Whenever life’s moment felt especially sweet, a part of me would constrict in preparation for inevitable disappointment.

It’s like I didn’t trust life’s benevolence to enjoy beautiful moments fully. As though bringing all of myself to enjoyment might jinx them, somehow invite their disappearance. Like a part of me always had to stand on guard, not to be caught in relaxation when something would inevitably go wrong.

Perhaps you know that feeling.

As though relaxing into gratitude might tempt fate.

As though joy should always be held cautiously, in small doses, with one eye already looking toward the exit, partially experiencing the worst.

This weekend was different.

I simply let myself be happy.

…

One of the things I’ve been studying over the last few years is how profoundly our nervous system states affect our relationships, how we experience one another.

​My husband’s birthday was on Thursday, July 2. Some good news earlier in the week had settled both of us. We each felt more relaxed, more abundant. Safer in our joy.

From that place, we naturally became more patient.
More generous.
More tolerant.

The news didn’t change our lives.

They just temporarily allowed us to come out of survival mode.

Love became easier to access and to remain in.

That doesn’t mean life stopped being life.
I did still notice irritation arise in me on occasion.

I didn’t shame myself for it. I had enough capacity to let it move through me. And observing it come up I saw how old my reaction was and not at all who I am today.

When one of my daughters came to me with frustration, I didn’t panic. I didn’t rush to fix it. I let her feel it. Helped her stay with it, see it for what it was: a perceived threat that wasn’t in reaction to the present moment, but rather some unresolved issue from the past.

Emotions don’t threaten love.

But suppressing them can.

When anger and disappointment are allowed to move through us, love returns.

Because there is finally room for it again.

…

Soon we’ll all separate again.

Each of my twins have already told me how much they’ll miss each other.

“Yes, it will be sad,” I said.

“But only because there is so much love.”

For much of my life, sadness meant lack. I feared it, wanted to escape it.

Now I view sadness when missing a loved one as evidence of the abundance of love.

…

There I was on my walk, surrounded by trees and morning light. Stealing a moment for myself and my inner child while everyone else in my care was slowly waking up.

I found myself practicing something I hadn’t realized I needed to practice:

Staying with happiness.

Allowing sweetness to fill my body without immediately preparing for its loss.

I know life will be life.

Challenges will come again.

Someone will disappoint someone.

There will be misunderstandings.

There will be grief.

But this perfect morning was also life.

My joy didn’t need to be diminished simply because it won’t last forever.

For years I believed that healing meant learning how to make room for pain, how to stay with it.

Today I know that another part of healing is learning how to make room for and stay with joy.

Not rushing past it.

Not distrusting it.

Not apologizing for it.

Simply allowing myself to receive it fully while it’s here.

To let all of my being be nourished by it.

And to bring that to all of my relationships and let it nourish them too.

​

Warmly,

Galina