Happy For No Reason
September 1, 2008
Are you happy? I mean really, beneath-it-all happy? Marci Shimoff says only about a third of us are -- and she was determined to find 100 of these people for her book HAPPY FOR NO REASON. What she did find -- and she packed the book with studies, graphs, stories from these happy one-hundred -- was a fascinating statistic that there is a happiness set-point. And that half our happiness is genetically programmed. Ten-percent is determined by factors such as wealth, marital partner, and career. And a whopping forty-percent depends on what we feel, think, do and say.
A story came to mind -- that of my birth. My mother told me I was a week overdue in one of the hottest summers on record in New York -- she rode trolleys over every pock-marked city road she could find. Finally, one blazing hot afternoon, it seemed I was about ready to make an appearance. Instead of heading to the hospital where her mom was the head RN in the ER, she made her puzzled dad wait while she showered at their apartment and leisurely shaved her legs. It was customary at hospitals in those days to knock the woman out with drugs, so the delivery was as easy as possible. When her father finally got her to the hospital, they checked her, and I was sliding out. It was too late for the drugs. They told me I was born laughing.
I thought, that joy must be my set-point. But after age four, life changed radically for me. My mother remarried, and I was raped and traumatized in the family home for the next fifteen years. That natural joy turned to fear. For the past year, I've been processing all those memories using a tool called EMDR. Now that I'm ready to deal with the pain, and change the meanings I derived from the abuse, the joy is beginning to resurface. I am transcending the trauma. I live in the moment, and feel very little trauma, pain, guilt, fear of the future. Oh I have my moments, but I can swiftly recapture the peaceful center.
I used to believe I didn't deserve to play. Counter to that belief, I accepted an invitation to go hiking in the Gorge. This was the first time for me.
A friend and I went to Eagle Creek Trail, and we hiked for nearly five hours. It felt absolutely wonderful, feeling the shifts in cool wet breezes amid the trees and the warm blasts of sunshine, the fascinating patterns in the rock and tree limbs, and the waterfalls. About midway through, I said "I feel so light! Like I can fly!!!" I happily moved, dancing from rock to rock, as we moved along the trail.
And then a sparkle caught my eye. It was a spider web, with the sunlight behind it. A leaf floating in the web. It was a delightful piece of natural magic, and a reminder that I am free now.
Are you happy? I mean really, beneath-it-all happy? Marci Shimoff says only about a third of us are -- and she was determined to find 100 of these people for her book HAPPY FOR NO REASON. What she did find -- and she packed the book with studies, graphs, stories from these happy one-hundred -- was a fascinating statistic that there is a happiness set-point. And that half our happiness is genetically programmed. Ten-percent is determined by factors such as wealth, marital partner, and career. And a whopping forty-percent depends on what we feel, think, do and say.
A story came to mind -- that of my birth. My mother told me I was a week overdue in one of the hottest summers on record in New York -- she rode trolleys over every pock-marked city road she could find. Finally, one blazing hot afternoon, it seemed I was about ready to make an appearance. Instead of heading to the hospital where her mom was the head RN in the ER, she made her puzzled dad wait while she showered at their apartment and leisurely shaved her legs. It was customary at hospitals in those days to knock the woman out with drugs, so the delivery was as easy as possible. When her father finally got her to the hospital, they checked her, and I was sliding out. It was too late for the drugs. They told me I was born laughing.
I thought, that joy must be my set-point. But after age four, life changed radically for me. My mother remarried, and I was raped and traumatized in the family home for the next fifteen years. That natural joy turned to fear. For the past year, I've been processing all those memories using a tool called EMDR. Now that I'm ready to deal with the pain, and change the meanings I derived from the abuse, the joy is beginning to resurface. I am transcending the trauma. I live in the moment, and feel very little trauma, pain, guilt, fear of the future. Oh I have my moments, but I can swiftly recapture the peaceful center.
I used to believe I didn't deserve to play. Counter to that belief, I accepted an invitation to go hiking in the Gorge. This was the first time for me.
A friend and I went to Eagle Creek Trail, and we hiked for nearly five hours. It felt absolutely wonderful, feeling the shifts in cool wet breezes amid the trees and the warm blasts of sunshine, the fascinating patterns in the rock and tree limbs, and the waterfalls. About midway through, I said "I feel so light! Like I can fly!!!" I happily moved, dancing from rock to rock, as we moved along the trail.
And then a sparkle caught my eye. It was a spider web, with the sunlight behind it. A leaf floating in the web. It was a delightful piece of natural magic, and a reminder that I am free now.
Labels: book review, Eagle Creek Trail, HAPPY FOR NO REASON, magic, Marci Shimoff, spiderweb, the Gorge, transcending the trauma
posted by Diana Page Jordan @ 10:31 PM
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