The Guilt of Joy

Reflecting upon my feelings as I drive down the wet, winding backroads of my home this morning, I’m startled to recognize that I feel joy. A person with a healthy relationship with joy might ask why this is startling. However, to me and many others, joy is the largest gateway drug to guilt. Stewing in the joyful, guilt-laden soup of my emotions, I decide to evaluate how I might’ve ended up here in the first place.

Joy for women is remarkably rare and absolutely entirely off limits. Even in this off-limit rarity, it feels as though joy is something to be earned. In dissecting my own life, I have plenty of evidence to support this hypothesis. For instance, just the act of dancing while female brings an onslaught of judgements. If the movements are not muted, not well-refined and restrained, instantly the room renders judgement. Look at her, shaking her butt like that. It’s inappropriate. Look at this girl, getting down like she’s eighteen but she’s well into her thirties. They must’ve had too much to drink. Dancing is a simple activity that has brought cultures joy for centuries. Now, it’s a trap for any woman who dares to enjoy it even slightly. Judgement isn’t the only weapon lying in wait for women who indulge; shame also rears its ugly head and settles in perfectly next to judgement. How embarrassing. They look like sluts. I heard one of them is a total hoe. Even if it’s not true, I can see why people say it. Many of the other women watching the exuberance radiating from the dancers loathe the discomfort associated with witnessing joy. Women are indoctrinated at a young age to become proper, to knock any woman down a few pegs who dares enjoy herself too much. Over time, many women feel as though if their fun and joy should be limited because society makes it so, then others should also befall the misery they have been made to endure. Repressing our true natures, preventing ourselves from letting loose and experiencing joy harms us so deeply that the bitterness from being cut off from joy consumes us. This is how the sharp tongue, harsh judgements, and relentless shaming pass so easily from our own lips.

Other complex facets play a role in the guilt associated with being joyful, such as the expectation of martyrdom for mothers. Modern gender roles still dictate that women bare the majority of the burden regarding childrearing. Mothers are expected to live and breathe for their children in every capacity, fulfilling their needs and desires before even tackling their own. For nine years, I didn’t even allow myself to use the restroom upon waking because my children bombarded me with requests as soon as my feet hit the floor. For many years, my husband didn’t offer to fulfill any of their tiny demands in order to ease my burden. How could he know I was so overwhelmed as soon as my feet hit the floor, when each morning he was able to get up, relieve himself, shower, have breakfast, and get dressed before even thinking about the kids? Eventually, I created stronger boundaries with the children and my husband offered to help some after I expressed my need for aid. Yet, if I now go to the bathroom in the morning and the kids happen to need something at the same time, I still have a twinge of guilt. How could I be peeing at a time like this? I could have waited. It wasn’t that urgent. However, I shut my thoughts down, reminding myself that as a human being I have the right to pee when I need. The kids also have the ability to wait the one minute and thirty seconds it’ll take for me to finish. The act of denying ourselves basic human needs in exchange for the collective praise of being a good mother not only destroys our chances at a joyous life, but also encourages the opposite outcome of our desire to be good mothers.Teaching our children to deny their own basic human needs in order to meet the needs of another breeds codependency. Teaching children that others should always meet our needs before they meet their own breeds narcissism. Neither scenario bodes well for a well-rounded, healthy child capable of compassion and independence as they mature into adulthood.

While both of these societal impositions heavily contribute to the feelings of guilt tied with joy, I found that neither were most applicable to my situation this morning. While it’s certainly true that I feel a little guilt for enjoying my newfound time alone during each day due to the motherhood martyrdom narrative, I also feel substantial unrelated guilt for enjoying myself in general. Whether I’m joyful about finding peace, contentment, liking my life in the beautiful Northeast, or just connecting deeply to spirit, I find myself always coming back to sharp twinges of guilt, attempting to deflate my joy. Aside from guilt, fear tends to be the other motivating emotion behind my apprehension to immerse myself into good feelings. Unusual thoughts plague my mind: I shouldn’t enjoy myself too much, because at any moment it could be taken away. Now that I feel joy, I have so much to lose. Not that going back to being skeptical and joyless fixes the issues, but maybe it would safeguard me a little more. Maybe, when the joy does finally leave, if I’m braced for it, it won’t hurt as badly. Hopefully I can preemptively avoid more pain, doubt, and despair by denying myself. Thoughts such as these are obviously nonsensical, but they do provide insight into my mind’s desire to protect itself from harm. Oh, trauma. Trauma is the other barrier to joy.

In being a trauma survivor, I recognize that something within me feels as though it should deny the self joy, pleasure, or goodness in all forms. The worthiness of such wonderful emotions is somehow above me. Why should I deserve to indulge in these euphoric feelings? Even if I decide to indulge myself, it feels unsafe because I was never allowed to feel anything aside from a sense of servitude or pain. The story I was told for the majority of my life was that I was in existence to provide to others, to serve or be punished in one way or another. For half of my childhood it was made crystal clear that my needs would always come last and that I could even be punished for showing that I required needs to be met. When the people who are supposed to love you unconditionally wind up stripping you of your own humanity, a deep sense of distrust in the world and in one’s self occurs. The world no longer seems like this magnificent place of wonder, but a dangerous place in which no magnificence is left to be found. Would there have been any magic left in the world, surely it would not be left for me, the girl not even worth basic human rights, to find. Stripped of worthiness, of humanness it’s truly a wonder that we who have experienced similar traumas could trek onward.

Knowing that I’m building my inner worthiness, my self-esteem, and confidence in myself and the universe each day, I’m able to counter many of these indoctrinated narratives and the false feelings surrounding them. Each day becomes a little easier as dismissing the noise of the mind becomes second nature. Learning to question the narratives and the outside world rather than my inner self has proven invaluable to stepping into the realm of joy. Though I face the frequent twinges of discomfort, the nagging residual negativity and reinforced trauma statements from the past, they’re happening fewer and further between. Upon reflection, I find self-doubt may be the singular most dangerous entity to the survival of the human race.

Reminding myself that I did not come here to be a good mother or a martyr or a servant to anyone helps, too. I did not come here to be good. I did not come to this earth to live up to anyone’s expectations or to demonstrate any sort of compliance or conformity to gain approval. I did not come here to perform life, I came here to live it. I came here to have a human experience, to learn from it, and to enjoy it, just like all our fellow humans here. We must unburden ourselves from the notion that we exist to gain approval, to perform life. The integration of the exploration of our souls, the adventures of the heart, and the grounding in the midst of our physicality become the purpose for our being. Sitting in the midst of my feelings, winding down the wet back roads of home in the seclusion of the surrounding forrest of trees, I smile knowing that this joy continues to be for me.