EXTRACTING JOY AND HAPPINESS from your life experiences

As long as I lived a life like a sleep walker, I wasn’t aware of my wounds, I wasn’t aware of my conditioning, I wasn’t aware of my traumas. I had childhood memories, and I painted them all in bright colors. I even called my first nine years a paradise. I lived in what by some is called ”the false pearl”. It’s the stage where no shadows linger, where everything seems alright, where you tell your self everything was drenched in happiness.

Then comes a time of itching, a time of ”what happened really”? It’s like the shadows are coming closer, and it seems frightening. Some people, like me, chose to approach the shadows, are curious about what formed me to the person I am today. And little by little, traumas surface, consequences of conditioning surfaces.

I myself got a better picture of my experiences. I saw the traumas, I felt them, I knew how they formed me, how fear was induced in my, I saw how shame had worked inside of me, and hoe I had acted from fear and shame over the years. I learned different ways to understand my own psuchologt, and how wounds can create tension and blockages in my body.

And fairly often, looking back, the work was to uncover what was pulled under the carpet, I dared to see the elephants in the room, I learned to recognize my fears, my insecurities, my short-comings.

Years of different kinds of therapy I learned to see and acknowledge the wounds, learned to handle them, learned to be free from some of them, learned to live as me.

Re-membering, is an interesting word. It was like part of this journey was about re-membering, making my members whole, making my body whole, learning self-acceptance, and even self love, little by little.

I am like most people, I have an easier time remember pain, that remember happiness. And part of the healing journey derives from there - and might be necessary. To put things from the shadow, and into the light, and see what happens.

And here comes what dawned on my recently. I have - and many with me - learned to extract traumas from my childhood, my teens, my young adulthood. I am aware of the darkness, I’ve met my shame in so many disguises during the years. And when, as an example, I look back at a failed marriage, what I tend to remember is what hurt me in that marriage. And that is good, that brought me out of the false pearl. Everything wasn’t all right. I needed to see the dark traits in a relation that almost broke me down.

But why do I so seldom extract the joy and happiness in my life? Why do I look so deeply into failures, pain, bad decision-making? Maybe, because that was  a first step towards freedom.

What I find, in many areas of ”personal development” is a focus on the trauma. What if that is the first, and maybe most important step? What if ”homecoming” - being oneself in some sort of totality, also is about also re-membering the joy and happiness during a life time.

I’ve asked myself hundred of times: ”How did this or that trauma effect my life and my life choices?” I guess most of us know that shame is something that makes us feel small. And yes, it’s very important to understand those mechanisms. ”Why do I feel small in this actual situation”? The answers lays most probably in earlier experiences.

What would happen if some of this ”work” would also include more of our resources, innate or not. What made my heart sing as a child? What made me laugh? With whom did I feel safe? How did I make friends? In what areas and circumstances did I feel seen or appreciated? What was my experiences of being seen, having space? When did I feel really happy?

What would happen if we, after digging deep into the underworld of fear and shame, started also to extract the joy and happiness in life? What would happen if we also include our resources when we look back at our lives? 

And what mystery makes some of us cling to the trauma, letting it or them, define who we are today? 

If life starts to itch a lot, creating for example health problems, or psychological challenges, I think it’s really good to crush the false pearl, and start to get more real: What has formed me? And then continue the journey, not staying in the traumas, but accept them, giving them less energy and space, maybe see them like old friends, and then keep on exploring, after extracting the traumas from your childhood, it’s time to extract gold, to find you… there at the point of light.

I am actually still struggling with this, at times. One of my methods is to look at myself with a bit of distance, and look at my experiences with playfulness and wonder. And to also be forgiving, re-membering choices that hurt … and also see that you survived your childhood. That work is done.