Enjoying Good Moments

Why Bother Enjoying the Good Moments?

Since completing and publishing my book, A Heart’s Journey to Forgiveness, there have been more opportunities to deepen and widen present relationships. After a family or friend finishes reading my story, many have expressed out loud and in my company some of their own dysfunctional behaviors. Recently, one such friend said to me, “I don’t know why I am consumed with wondering when the other shoe is going to drop. I don’t know why I can’t just enjoy the goodness I’ve got in my life.”

Too Much Good?

Not every family can be described as a dysfunctional one. But, if there was physical or emotional abuse, neglect, secrecy, addiction or denial it is safe to say the family was somewhat abnormal. And growing up in an impaired household has varying degrees of long-term  repercussions for everyone. 

I believe a common trait shared by those of us who were raised by an alcoholic parent is the fear of being abandoned. Of course this anxiety is subtle and lies somewhere within our subconscious. But, some of our behaviors lend themselves to this unconscious “truth.” Waiting for that bad thing to happen or our inability to enjoy those good moments in our lives can, for some, be the fallout from a difficult upbringing. 

For instance, my friend who wonders why they can’t enjoy the good moments in their life was raised by an alcoholic parent. On any given day, they never knew what they would encounter at home. Sometimes the parent was sober and in their right mind doing all the adult things a parent should be doing. Other times, the parent was in a drunken stupor and passed out in a chair. And then there were the occasions when the parent went on a rampage. 

Of course my friend was the one who had to adjust themselves to each situation. Though they were only a child, it was up to them to try and behave like the adult. Without the wisdom from life experiences, it was a guessing game as to how they should act; appease, stay out of the way, have empathy or try to care for them? 

In all, it was a game of survival, and they learned to play it well. I told my friend it is really no wonder they have difficulty settling into and enjoying the good moments in their lives. They’ve trained themselves to stay alive and to not lose the one they loved. Now though, they are no longer just surviving. Now it is time for them to learn how to live. 

Why bother enjoying the good moments? It is in learning how to rest satisfactorily in those brief interludes of contentment that we can learn to grow past our habit of surviving and instead learn how to live.  

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