When I posted about finding joy, I also mentioned feeling joy. There are many things I (try to) do to keep perspective so that I can feel all the joy in my life: writing, walking, breathing, reading, and, lately, meditating. Each of these helps me to find perspective, to slow down and remember to see the beauty that exists among the chaos and monotony of everyday life.
Still, though, even after going through my joy list, I occasionally find myself lacking. There is something that runs beneath my life and pulls me back from fully leaning in. Something that nibbles at the edges of my joy, urging me to push it down, just a little, lest it be taken away from me.
It's sneaky, though. In fact, it's so subtle, that I didn't even really see it until recently, when I was reading Brene Brown's Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, and Lead. Brene is part researcher and part storyteller; her research revolves around vulnerability, shame, and courage. I first came across her work in her T.E.D. talk The Power of Vulnerability. It resonated deeply with me, as has my journey through her book.
In the book, Brene talks about how she will sometimes stand in front of her children, sleeping in their beds, and ponder how amazingly blessed she is. At which point she will immediately and vividly envision some terrible fate arriving at their doorstep, taking it all way.
And I thought: Holy crap. I do that.
Like last night, when I was laying in bed after a wonderfully fulfilling day with my children. I was reflecting on how good life was when I had the sudden realization that, if I got cancer and died right now, my baby girl wouldn't even remember me. It was such an awful, heart-breaking thought that I had to get out of bed and find something else to do.
Most of the time, my fear doesn't show up in horrible visions of planes crashing or houses burning or cancer taking lives. It's not like I walk around in the midst of an major meltdown, fending off anxiety attacks left and right (I did when I was pregnant, but that's a whole different story). It's much more subtle than that. It's more of a backing off, a stepping away, an invisible shield that rises between the life I'm building and my engagement in it.
Brene explains that this method of protection, which she calls "foreboding joy," exists among many of us. And she says it has a whole lot to with vulnerability. To be lost in a moment of joy is to be vulnerable. Open. Soft. Unprotected. So we unconsciously try to beat life to the punch; we imagine the bad things that could happen as a way of protecting ourselves if they do.
In the end, of course, we can never prevent the bad things from happening. Instead, we're only preventing ourselves from truly feeling the love that exists within each moment; from fully accessing the joy that is right there in front of us.
Brene's solution? Gratitude. In her book, she talks about how to use gratitude inside those moments when we are trying to access joy but find ourselves facing only fear and impulses to control. As soon as she feels a "shudder of vulnerability," she uses it as a trigger to acknowledge her gratitude. In that moment, she turns the fear around by fully acknowledging all for which she is grateful, right there, right then.
I tried this today at the park. It was a gorgeous day and my children, bellies full of ice cream and hearts full of love, were skipping ahead on the path in front of me. Watching them, I was overcome with the beauty of it all. For a moment. Then slight feelings of discomfort starting creeping in. I thought of the book. I thought of my life. And I silently repeated to myself:
I am grateful.
I am grateful.
I am so, so grateful.
And I was.
