TRAUMA DAYS: ECHO
Finding Fun Where It’s Not Supposed to be:
Everyone wants to be happy*. It’s the most blindingly blooming obvious thing about life and the universe, right? And Emergency Response is no different. But it kinda is. Being a little honest here, when you deal day-in and day-out with others’ suffering or harmdoing, sometimes bouncy happy stuff can actually seem a bit ‘out there’. A little inaccessible. Social media would have us think that happiness is as easy as doing a “cheesey-surprised-face-smile-selfie” against a backdrop of all the things that should reflect ‘having it all’ in any given moment. But in the world of trauma response, a widely broadcast desperate cheesy selfie just doesn’t cut it. There has to be something else, something different, or for it to come from somewhere else for it to feel genuine. And when you’re a tad tired after a full-on shift/ week/ career, it's not easy to be able to tune in to ‘happy vibe’ at short notice. BUT. I think I might have found an answer!
*Sorry, hang on, actually there are some people who actually really love their own misery. We’ve probably all had moments like that too. Being honest. (Just had to get that out).
There are lots of different approaches to ‘being happy’. My academic nerdy roots take me back to the days when I was asked to help out on teaching Cambridge’s first undergraduate course on ‘Positive Psychology’ (Yes, it had Capital P’s!). It was such a big step and it was really lovely to be asked (as a fairly junior member of the team) to lend a hand. The course wasn’t ‘clicking’ with some students who were used to the approach of ‘abnormal psychology’, that is; the study of how we think when something is wrong or makes us unhappy. No one was really prepared for any investigation into what thinking feels like when things are going well!
As the wellbeing industry thrives (and yes, come on, let’s face it, it’s an industry: there’s a heck of a lot of money in selling happiness to people convinced they are miserable), it’s become a little saturated. We are quite familiar with sickly-sweet messages of ‘toxic positivity’; passive-aggressive pressure to ‘look on the bright side’ to ‘think ourselves well’, to ‘grow’ from trauma. Sometimes, doing these things is absolutely within one’s reach and it’s amazing.
Sometimes it just doesn’t go like that. Sometimes, this forced positivity can make you want to either vom’ or punch someone in the face.
Which is not a good look. Not at all.
In fact, we should be actively discouraged from doing those things! And what’s more. We don’t need to do those things!
Thanks to the beautiful worlds of ancient contemplative traditions and neuroscience buddying up so snugly this past decade, we are shown some genuine fun for ourselves in possibly the absolute last place we’d think to look: other people’s joy.
No! Seriously, don’t stop reading! No eye-rolling! Stay with me.
It’s a very practical, quick trick for your brain to instantaneously access all those feel-good endorphins and buzzy warm sensations that your face and body just cannot help but get off on. It takes seconds. (OK, OK, so it takes practice first, then it takes seconds).
The most important thing to realise is that we don’t need ANYTHING to be different.
We can be feeling utterly rubbish.
· Fed up.
· Selfish.
· Ungrateful.
· Ungracious.
Despondent.
Our situation can be utter, utter, utter pants.
· We might be on our own, with no one to engage with, feeling isolated, unloveable.
· We might be really tight on resources, feeling the pinch and punch of financial worry.
· We could be feeling physically uncomfortable, even in pain.
Doesn’t matter. Because we flip it. If our minds, bodies and life situations are not conducive to happy feelings, we let them be what they are and ignore them.
Instead, we stop making everything about us, and we think BIG. And then we think OUT.
You may have detected a common theme in these handful of blogs already (I’m only just noticing this myself, so feel free to psychoanalyse me back! Join in. Get involved.)
That theme is getting out of your own way, zooming up out of ‘your story of you’. If anyone has heard me talk or train then you’ll know I’m a massive fan of the overhead view. It’s one of those things about thinking that is our right. It’s been part of the human condition for as long as there has been writing, and has been a prescriptive part of clinical psychology even long before the likes of Freud. And it’s your IPR. Your Individual Psychology Right. Use it. Get out of yourself and see a bigger picture of what all this being human is all about. Because, and it’s not an easy thing to hear sometimes, but none of us are special. (Sorry, Buddhism and neuroscience can be really fricking brutal sometimes). There is a phrase I love for the tough times that “There is no new suffering under the sun”.
Well. Hot news. “There is no new joy under the sun either!”. And it is ALL up for grabs.
There is joy. Can’t delete it. It’s happening. Somewhere, someone has a massive cheesy grin on their face and tears in their eyes and jumpy heart flips and tingles in rude places. It’s true. It’s out there. Right now.
We simply do not have to wait to slap a label on it saying “mine” in order to enjoy it and take the pleasure. Brains will tingle and receive it, bodies will discretely suck it up. Joy is joy. Happiness is happiness. If it’s there coming into action in someone else, it still counts. Just tune it.
See someone happy and imagine that feeling, remember that feeling, see it in them, feel it for them, with them. Know all of that buzz right there in their bodies and minds like it’s your own, because it is what it is: it’s a good feeling, and it’s real and it’s here.
There is happiness. It feels fricking lush. Just pinch it. Nick it. Taste it. Be grateful on other people’s behalf, and let yourself feel the shimmer of it.
You may already have an inkling of someone you have come across recently who was clearly really chuffed about something. A new job. A new idea no-one quite ‘gets yet’ (but is clearly exciting for them). A piece of chocolate cake adorning someone’s gurning face (more than it’s actually reaching their tummy). Someone hearing sound for the first time. Or seeing for the first time. Someone trying to suppress a giggle in a really socially awkward situation. Someone holding the baby they thought they’d never get to hold. Someone really, really enjoying a perfectly perfectly melted cheese toastie after a night shift that they thought would never end.
It doesn’t matter. Catch someone’s smile. Use your imagination as to what it is right now that is pressing all of their fun buttons. And if you have no idea, focus on the facial expression. Your vagus nerve loves a bit of facial expression and will let you feel a little juicy taste of someone else’s temperament if you mimic their expression. Do it. Who cares if someone sees you smile for no reason. Isn’t that what we want? To be able to smile instantaneously for no reason? So do it.
It doesn’t have to be your joy. But do it and it will become your joy.
Just for a second.
And sometimes, just one second of unadulterated, pure, honest joy is all we fricking need.
It’s yours. Because it’s ours.