It's High Time I Held a Wake

Why I am afraid of joy (also, a poem about surrendering)

As the mild winter of December has inevitably descended into a deeper cold this past month, surrender has been on my mind.

I struggle with surrender. I kick, scream, hold back, hold out, resist, and refuse to give in. I could give a toddler a run for her money, believe me.

I resist surrendering to pain, to possibilities, and yes, even to joy. A few years ago, I was overjoyed (yes, I do get the irony) to learn that feeling a resistance to or anxiety around joy is a legitimately researched phenomenon that happens to human beings. Brené Brown defines foreboding joy as the experience of feeling joy that is then interrupted by worries that something bad is going to happen. Fear, icy and frigid, cools the once warm feeling of happiness, and what you are left with is an unsettled sense that you need to get ready to fight, flee, or freeze to stay safe.

In her book Dare to Lead, Brown explains, “When we feel joy, it is a place of incredible vulnerability—it’s beauty and fragility and deep gratitude and impermanence all wrapped up in one experience. When we can’t tolerate that level of vulnerability, joy actually becomes foreboding, and we immediately move to self-protection. It’s as if we grab vulnerability by the shoulders and say, “You will not catch me off guard. You will not sucker-punch me with pain. I will be prepared and ready for you.”

As a highly sensitive person, I am grateful that I feel moments of joy very deeply. It’s as if a thousand stars are bursting out of my chest. I feel connected to everyone who has ever lived, and to every blade of grass, tree, mountain, and drop of ocean. It’s overwhelming. It’s exhilarating.

When my chest is full of stars, I feel open and connected, and I also feel vulnerable. How can I brace for the much feared sensation of being blown back by tragedy, loss, or pain when I am too busy basking in the beauty of the moment? “You will not catch me off guard.”

The result is too many moments of refusing the gift of joy that knocks on my door at any given moment, whether it’s a slice of birthday cake or a symphony. No, thank you. I cannot accept you. I must be ready to protect myself and joy will be just a distraction. Moments of refusal become hours, hours become days, days become weeks, then months, years, and before you know it, a lifetime has elapsed. I don’t want to take my last breath knowing that I closed the door in joy’s face, or worse, never even crept over to gaze at her out of the peephole, my desire to be with her simmering just underneath the terror.

I’ve spent a lot of time surrendering joy when I’d actually love to surrender to joy instead. I’m working on it. It’s a practice, and generous portions of patience and grace are vital ingredients to have on hand.

Today’s poem is one I wrote a couple of years back, but that I dug out this weekend as a reminder to keep going on this journey of teaching myself that it’s safe to feel joy. Maybe it will help you to keep taking small step after small step in your own way, with whatever it is that you may be having a tough time with.

May we all find ways to feast on the tiny joys that find us in this beautiful, broken world, and let’s commit to helping nourish one another with the reassurance that it’s safe to do so.

It’s High Time I Held a Wake

It’s high time I held a wake

for all the joys I’ve been too terrified to touch.

Instead of curling my limbs around

their smooth, inviting curves,

letting their sweetnesses seep deep into my skin,

I exiled them like traitors to a foreign land.

And with them, my peace.

Never more will I banish

any scrap of pleasure from my days,

but being a newfound seamstress,

shall sew together

each exquisite moment I stumble upon

and conjure

like a quilt

so that when the joys lie buried beneath,

awaiting rescue and resurrection,

I might wrap myself in ecstasy

and dig in the inky black earth

for seeds I once scattered,

not out of creation

but of fear.

And God willing,

from these discarded dreams

might rise adjoining joys,

tardy but not tarnished,

and ready

to nourish me with the fruits

that have sprung from

the bitter (but bountiful) dark.

Sweetness buried

saves not one drop of sorrow,

while

sweetness unearthed,

reunited with the night air

after being stifled so long,

feeds forty thousand daughters

and all

they will grow to love.