Happy Place

“Close your eyes and go to your happy place...”

Today the third year medical students at UAMS were required to attend a session on self-care, mental health, and mindfulness. As part of one exercise, we were asked to go to our “happy place,” a place where we felt safe, peaceful, content...

Confession, I’ve never had a particular happy place. Not that there aren’t places or people or moments in my life that make me happy. It’s just not something I ever thought much about. I guess I always assumed a happy place had to be somewhere you’d already been and feelings you’d already experienced. I didn’t understand how dredging up feelings associated with past memories could have any affect on where I found myself presently.

However, in an effort to participate, I decided to play along. I closed my eyes, quieted the ever-present noises in my mind, and waited curiously to see where I might end up. I was quickly surrounded by fog as I stood on the misty banks of the Buffalo river, my tent pitched behind me, and my canoe dragged up to rest on the rocky shore. The morning air was thick with the sound of cicadas and the lingering smell of smoke from the previous night’s fire. I stood there petting my dog and sipping a thermos of coffee, watching two herons brave a rainy flight down stream as I waited for dawn to break and others to arise. 

Confession, I’ve only been to the Buffalo twice. Both times were with my High School Chemistry teacher and some of her students for her annual AP Chem camping trip. I should also admit that I don’t own a tent or a canoe, and I’ve never had a dog. Oh, and I’m definitely not the world’s most regular coffee drinker. I also wasn’t picturing anyone I went to high school with being there with me. I wasn’t really imagining anyone in particular at all. In any case, those quiet moments spent alone in the midst of creation just before the dawn contained a feeling of peace and contentment unlike any other I’ve experienced.

It may be just me, but I find it fascinating that my happy place wasn’t a specific moment from my past. It wasn’t a particular memory I was longing to relive or return to. Sure it was associated with a past event, but it was more a collection of select pieces from that event that my mind sculpted into something new, something yet to come. And perhaps that’s what a “happy place” is intended to be. A semi-blank canvass, something that feels familiar enough to provide a feeling of comfort and peace, but generic enough to leave open space for change, for the unfamiliar. And if it’s not, I would argue that maybe it should be.

In the midst of the trials and storms of this life, the joys of the past can only provide us with so much comfort. Sure it’s nice to remember what we felt like in those moments, but no matter how hard we wish, we cannot return there. Still, it’s important to remember. One of my favorite passages of Scripture is in Jeremiah when the Lord asks His people why they have forsaken Him and why they did not trust the God who delivered them from Egypt and brought them to a land flowing with milk and honey to provide for them again. Trying to channel the joys of the past can often feel fake or cheap, but believing that those same feelings can be experienced anew, that provides a pure and true hope. 

Perhaps a “happy place” is more of an invitation than a request. We are not asking to go back to a day when the sun shone, but are remembering the warmth of its rays and inviting it to shine again. Perhaps a happy place serves more as a gentle reminder that we will again enjoy those feelings of peace and contentment we once had if only we hold on for a little while longer. And while that joy may look different than it did in the past, we will feel it all the same. For there are certainly rivers we’ve yet to traverse, coffee we’ve yet to sip, dogs we’ve yet to pet, friends we’ve yet to love, and cranes we’ve yet to see fly. And while our present circumstances may be gloomy at best, perhaps this dim flame, this hazy outline of hope, is enough to light the way.

So when you find yourself in the midst of a valley, I would encourage you to avoid the temptation to fixate on your past joys and how you long to return to that time, but rather to focus on the hope that you will experience those feelings again. And to my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, I pray that your happy place will also come with the reminder that the God who delivered you from your Egypt will surely do so again.

To put it simply, to give you the spark notes version, this too friend shall pass.