I’ve spent this summer as a spectator, not a participant
As an advocate of practising gratitude and focusing on the positive, I’ve been struggling lately. But a dinner with my husband help me to unblock something…
We were sitting at a lovely table in a local restaurant, looking out over the cobbled Catherine Hill, the sun starting to dip a little and I thought:
Right now, I should be feeling quite special. I’m here with my husband, who I love being with, and two of our three children.
But I don’t.
There was so much to be grateful for, and yet I felt like a spectator looking in, rather than a participant in that moment.
And I’ve felt like that all summer.
We had a family holiday in Cornwall, staying in a beautiful house, near a wide sandy beach. As the sun was lowering, casting a golden light over my ecstatically happy children, I couldn’t work out why I wasn’t feeling it.
Why wasn’t that moment feeling completely magical, as it usually would?
I wrote a piece about glimmers recently - the new SQ trend that is essentially a clever form of gratitude practice and mindfulness combined - and yet I wasn’t able to channel my own glimmers.
Something was blocking me.
So sat at that table looking out over the cobbled streets, I decided to open up about how I was feeling.
It’s sometimes embarrassing - and always vulnerable - to tell even those you’re closest to that you’re just not feeling very happy.
But I plucked up the courage and told Rich that something was missing: a spark, the glimmers, the golden moments in life.
I said they’d been missing all summer, and I wasn’t sure why.
The truth is: in that moment, I thought they might never return. I thought that perhaps I was just not a happy person any more. And this petrified me.
Rich listened in a considerate way. He didn’t laugh; he didn’t make me feel like I was mad or sinking into a deep depression. He just listened.
The next morning, I went for a run and suddenly, I could feel it.
As I ran into our local field and gazed out at the assortment of green hills beyond - and then into town, on a grey dusty road - there were tiny explosions of happiness going off inside me.
Little bursts of joy in my belly.
I was experiencing glimmer-after-glimmer.
I couldn’t believe it.
What a turnaround: from wondering the previous evening if I might never feel truly happy again to bouncing around the streets of Frome like I was literally made of happiness.
Three things had happened between me acknowledging the lack of glimmers in my life and that moment when out running, feeling like I actually was a glimmer myself…
I’d said it out loud. Therapy works because saying how we’re feeling out loud helps us to process our thoughts. Keeping it all inside means it can’t shift. In that instance, my husband had played the part of therapist.
I’d decided that the main focus of my work would now be this Substack, because I love it. Having a clear focus - as I’m teaching in this course - is so important for your wellbeing. It’s massively underestimated.
I’d worked out a solution to my on-going conundrum of ‘home’. I live in Somerset but still feel like London is home. This is another article but basically, I’ve now worked out how I can split my time more evenly, which feels like a weight lifted.
Now that I’m feeling the glimmers and joy and happiness once again, I’m able to notice all that is great in my life. Everything that I have to be grateful for. And there really is so much.
Sometimes, to feel into the gratitude and to enjoy those moments that could be really magical - but just aren’t - we need to first release the tension, fear or discomfort. Say it out loud, release it, let solutions drop in… and wait for the glimmers to follow.
Sending love,
Annie x
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