Field Note: Fallout of a Good Life AKA The Challenges of Accepting the Good

I have not spent much time with this. It just occurred to me.

No one talks much about the fallout of a good life.

We talk about surviving hardship. There is so much out there about problems. Diagnosing. Naming wounds. Sorting through what happened.

We talk about heartbreak and grief and clawing our way out of dark places. We talk about resilience as if healing ends when the weather clears.

But no one hands you instructions for what happens when life is good.

What happens when life begins to soften.

What happens when the job is pleasant. The garden grows. The children laugh in the next room. A friend writes back. A new beginning fits like the perfect dress in a vintage shop. Coffee steams in the morning light and the world behaves itself.

I thought relief would arrive and stay.

But what happened next never occurred to me.

I found alarm bells hiding in the wallpaper.

Things are good.

I'm scared.

Not shivering. Not weeping. Not hiding.

It's quieter than that.

Muffled. Layered. Under the wallpaper.

Not because anything is wrong.

It's because my body remembers.

My nervous system learned another language long ago. It learned that warmth could turn cold. That laughter could become mockery. That safe places could shift beneath my feet. Part of me learned to stand in doorways scanning the horizon for smoke, the sky for storms, the room for danger.

That is a lot of work.

A lot of energy.

And eventually it takes its toll.

So when goodness arrives, part of me braced or tried to perform.

For a long time I didn't even know I was doing it. Until meditation and yoga, I had never really noticed it.

Specifically, I noticed how I would reach for more the other night.

More wine. More food. More things. More time. More of the feeling.

Stretch the evening.

Hold onto it.

But it wasn't only holding on.

It created stories.

Narratives.

Questions.

What is going to go wrong now?

I wanted to drown out that question.

And I'm not alone in this.

I've spent enough time inside stressed systems and around people carrying unhealed pain to learn something difficult: people sometimes place fear where they cannot hold it themselves.

I've been on the receiving end of that.

Not because of anything I had done, but because others needed somewhere to put anger, hurt, disappointment, or fear.

I am not a person seeking power. I do not organize harm. I am simply a person trying to have a happy life.

But I learned something.

That bracing.

That inner monologue.

Those stories.

They were keeping me vigilant.

So when things are good, pleasant, balanced, I still struggle sometimes to be present.

Part of me, behind a door, is worried, scared, and scanning.

It's not the biggest part of me.

It's not bad.

There is nothing wrong with me.

It's simply something I needed to become aware of so it could lose its power over me.

It tips over tables.

It overfills cups and plates.

It talks too loudly and too quickly.

Sometimes.

Because it begins releasing adrenaline when it isn't really required.

And it isn't because things are bad.

It's because things are good.

And it's me.

It's me wanting to keep me safe and keep me from being hurt again.

I'm no Pollyanna with perfect curls and perfect wallpaper in a perfect house.

I haven't fixed what was wrong with me because there was never anything broken to fix.

I was hurt.

Deeply.

Repeatedly.

By people who carried authority carelessly and communities that sometimes cared more about gossip and group politics than simply being good to one another.

So I have scars.

But what I didn't know was that scars can itch when they begin to heal.

And after all these decades, I never expected this level of goodness to savor, even while many things still aren't perfect.

Everything isn't right as rain.

But things are good in ways I never expected, or even knew they could be.

So when you arrive at a good place, remember to believe that too.

Be fully present.

It's harder than people know.

It’s like being still and quiet in meditation.

Thoughts, sensations come and go.

Interruptions.

But when stillness and peace arrive,

you soften to allow yourself to take it in.

The part of you scanning looking for trouble,

that is the guard in your nervous system.

So let the guard have a day off at the beach. With pay.

PS: And I wish it was as easy as that, but many of us know, it’s also work to make the guard take the day off at the beach with pay. But with practice, it becomes easier. It becomes more natural. It gets good.