I was talking to a new mom, who runs an incredible circle initiative for new moms and dads, and their “new” experiences which cannot be discussed without either a barrage of “well meaning” advices or a full dose of ..”when I was your age.” or even the accusatory glance or shamed eye rolls when you DON’T want to hold the baby because your back is sore and you are tired and just need a few minutes to yourself. And no, it does not make you fall from grace from some imaginary high motherhood pedestal.
Anyways, she had shared in our previous meeting that she had a glorious birthing experience, and the genuine sense of connection and love she felt in the process..
And this time, as she shared in extreme empathy filled voice about many women who have birthing trauma, she almost forgot about her own experience. As If it did not have a place in this circle, just because it was different.
It’s true of course, as a doulah, I have seen this many times. The pain and agony a birthing mother goes through, if not held consciously with love, gets unconsciously passed on as blame to the new born. And the baby, again unconsciously, spends sometimes his/her entire life trying to make up, for the guilt he/she feels but has no way of knowing what they did wrong. That I anyway a different story.
What caught my attention was, she self-consciously lowered her volume, even though it was just her and me, as she said, in these circles where most people had a traumatic experience, she felt she could not really fully express her own blissfull experience, even though it was every bit as real.
I felt really sad, and my heart went out to her. She created this circle for providing “safety” to be able to talk about personal experiences, and yet her own experience could not be safely shared.
I became cognizant of many versions of this . I have heard stories of “good” was held captive, and held back , almost akin to survivors guilt.
It got me reflecting on how I have also had these moments, when to be joyful was seen as an “aberration”. Just like crying was “too much”.
I know I have been subjected to well meaning and yet uncalled for “therapy” advices about why I MUST be having something broken inside for my laugh to be so loud.
I tried to explain loud laughter runs in my family. My grandmother while playing the piano in the church, would burst into loud peals of laughter, where the good natured pastor would wait, amidst the chuckles of the congregation.
But that didn’t really convince many. Until I began to feel left out of conversations and some times, I hate to admit, I dramatized some of my stories, it was easier to fit in like that. It was really sad and strange that one would feel closer only in pain, not in joy.
We use the word ‘Empathy’ often only when referring to emotions like sadness, hurt, grief etc. I know, even as I offered and held grief circles, this was a word people hung on to.
I wonder..
If empathy is feeling what others feel ..why can’t joy and happiness also not ask for empathy?
It is also an emotion, after all.
Perhaps we need to look at this phenomena a bit more closely.
In the drive to make sure trauma is heard seen and healed, we sidelined joy. We need to equally give space for happiness and joy to been heard seen and celebrated.
Why?..
Because while on the one hand, we are creating spaces for people to heal, we are not cognizant of , where do they go back to?? If healed joy does not have a place.
Joy and sadness, love and grief are just two sides of the same coin. Then why this different treatment.
This Polarization if not paid heed to, will still lead to more of the same. If we are not mindful, we will swing to the other side. We “othered” grief look where it has landed us, covid, wars, mental health challenges, divisions. I wonder, how far are we willing to go, to see what Othering of Joy might do. Are we willing to take that risk? What would happen in a world in which :
Celebration feels marginalised and laugher is therapized?
Perhaps for once we need to not judge these feelings and expressions of them. And be able to just have spaces where both can be freely expressed, without wanting to force the other to ‘understand’ or be like it.
Perhaps then we can be in circles without having the need for them.
