Primary Therapist at Mental Health Systems and Owner of Courage to Hope Counseling, LLC
“I’m just trying not to get my hopes up.” Does that sound or feel familiar? If it does then you too have succumbed to the phenomenon that Brene Brown has dubbed “Foreboding Joy.” Foreboding joy is that feeling of excited expectancy and terrifying anxiety at the same time. It describes the body urge to protect from feelings of pain or disappointment by attempting to dull or limit positive emotions. Frequently, this urge arises from previous associations in our life where feelings of intense joy have also been followed by experiences of grief. It causes us to attempt to manage thoughts and expectations in order to try and feel prepared for the other shoe to drop. Our bodies do such a good job of trying to protect us and they use past learning to help inform our current circumstances. Problems arise when that past learning is painful and alters the way we think and respond in a way that used to be helpful, but isn’t always helpful anymore. In the instance of foreboding joy we try to “beat our vulnerability to the punch” and build walls against any large feelings of positive emotion. Even if this good thing doesn’t happen at least we were right. Sometimes we succeed in not feeling too much and perhaps never experience the feeling of devastation, but that also means we never experience the feeling of elation and we become numb or muted to our life experience. However, perhaps if we are honest with ourselves we are just fighting our feelings the whole way and we still end up experiencing the feeling of hurt regardless of how much we tried to protect ourselves. This is why it takes courage to hope. It takes courage to examine that painful past learning. It takes courage to form new patterns and thought processes. It takes strength and bravery to move from an existence of avoidance of the pain to truly showing up in our own life. It can be an extremely difficult process of doing this work, but it is most definitely doable. I have seen it happen in everyday heroes who can compassionately hold both the joy and the pain in life for themselves and those they love. Hope is hard and it can be scary, but I’m here to remind you, have courage friends, it’s worth it. #forebodingjoy #courageousliving #hope #hopeandhealing
