Rebuilding Joy and Happiness in Your Life

In a recent group Zoom meeting, we talked about how to regain that lost sense of joy and happiness in our lives. As we all talked, I realized that for many of us, it wasn't a case of regaining what we had, but slowly building happiness and joy back up, in a different way, accounting for our new situation after our partners have died.

For me, the first step was simply allowing myself the possibility of being happy and joyful again; that this did not mean I was "letting go" of Irene, or disrespecting our relationship, or "moving on." Irene had to tell me that herself, when she said to me, "You don't have to be in pain to show me that you love me" while I was writing a letter to her.

I realized in the Zoom yesterday that rebuilding my capacity to be happy and feel joy had been a lot like suffering a catastrophic injury and going to physical therapy in order to teach your body how to do basic, every-day functions again, perhaps strengthening an entirely different set of muscles, developing different pathways in the brain, learning a different set of skills to compensate.

Like that process, I was building my capacity to be happy and joyful up from scratch, starting with tiny, simple "baby-steps." I focused on at least appreciating tiny little things in my life that we often take for granted, like a warm, cozy bed to sleep on, an indoor hot shower, the fact that I had plenty of good food to eat when I was hungry, and focusing not on what I had lost and being miserable in that comparison, but on the fact that having these simple things indicated that I was living a life of comfort that had been unavailable to most of the population of the world throughout history.

They say that comparison is the thief of joy; but I say that comparison can also provide great joy - it just depends on what you are comparing things in your life to. I started thinking about, and appreciating how unbelievably lucky I was to have met Irene, to have had the time here in this world that we had together, being in and expressing the love we have for each other. Few people, relatively speaking, have ever found that kind of love. Many people, if not most, go their whole lives without ever feeling truly loved.

Most people do not have any idea what awaits us in the afterlife, or even if there is one. I know it exists, and I know Irene still exists, and I know we are still together now, that she is with me now, and I know we will be fully together again soon enough. So many other people languish in the despair of believing that the people the love, when they die, are forever lost to them, and they will never again have that relationship and all it deeply provided them.

Baby-step by baby-step, I learned how to stop comparing everything to what had been before and all that I had lost, and rebuilt my capacity to feel joy and happiness in terms of what I do have in my life. I trained myself to find bits of happiness, appreciation and even joy also in what I have gained, and in what the future holds for us - not the same future I had envisioned before she died, but a new future with far more promise and beauty and depth and breadth than simply "growing old and dying together" here in this world and what this world offers.

Our new future is so much more than that now. Even here, now, I have gained much that I did not have before she died; I have found out what it is like to lose her and think I would never see her again. Today I appreciate that so much of it is a brand new joy; I have found out everything she means to me; I have found out that our love is so much more than I thought possible before. There is nothing about her that I can ever take for granted again, having gone through this experience.

In learning how to live again, how to function, how to find and build little moments of happiness, appreciation and joy - learning how to smile again, how to laugh - really laugh - and find little moments of motivation, I have built a new life for myself and Irene here, now, where our relationship continues and is no longer one of pain and suffering in comparison to what was lost - at least, temporarily lost.

I never imagined being a part of a group - any group - where I and Irene have so many good friends. I never imagined going to a regular meeting with so many good people and being accepted by them. When I see people in this group smile and laugh, and share, feeling safe when they are showing vulnerability, and reaching out to help others through difficult times, there is happiness and joy in my heart. It's a beautiful thing to witness and be a part of.

IMO and in my experience - and yours may be different - I had to be willing to rebuild a new life with Irene after the old one was ripped away from us, accept the way things are now, and look to a new future, and work to find happiness and joy in that. Personally, I cannot do that by constantly lamenting and comparing my life now in terms of what has been lost; I have only been able to do that by fully embracing what we have now, and the future we have available to us now, making peace with that, and allowing myself to find and build happiness and joy in this new situation.