If emotional healing happens, happiness flows from the heart

For the first time in my life, I’m happy. At least some of the time.

That’s not exactly the right word — when I say “happy” — but it’s the best way I know to describe it. Have I ever experienced happiness before? Yes, of course. But when I’ve been happy in the past, it’s always been that I’ve felt happy about something in particular.

I was happy that a woman loved me. I was happy that I’d solved a major problem. Or gotten something new. Achieved something that made me feel good for a moment.

But there was always an expiration date on those things, even if I often didn’t understand that. If I felt happy that a particular woman loved me — someone who I had wanted, for instance — I typically felt as though this was the one thing that would make me happy for life.

But there was always something missing. Something was wrong.

Once the relationship died — or the shiny new object lost its shine — I always grew restless. Something inside me was always looking for the next big thing that would make me happy.

Slowly — without me consciously noticing it — something changed. A miracle happened.

The change wasn’t in my outer world. I haven’t suddenly found the love I’ve wanted. I haven’t become wealthy or successful. I haven’t solved all the problems that life still throws at me. I still don’t know how I’m going to do all the things that still matter to me in life.

The change was on the inside. I never saw this miracle coming. I finally experienced enough healing to feel like an emotionally healthy person — and that changed everything.

I’ve written a lot in the past about the dysfunctional family from which I came. I’ve talked about the mother who I lost — for all practical purposes — when I was 5. I’ve talked about the narcissistic father who made life a nightmare for my sisters and me. And I’ve talked about the struggle I’ve gone through to understand the abuse and try to heal the damage.

The real problem for me has been that I didn’t know exactly how deep the damage went. I had inklings, but it was impossible for me to know. If you’ve never experienced “normal,” how can you know how you should feel? How can you know what a healthy person experiences inside?

It took me decades to accept that what I had experienced had left me emotionally crippled. After that, I experienced bits and pieces of growth and healing in spurts. These changes tended to happen in unexpected ways.

The one constant, though, is that I knew I still wasn’t happy. I eagerly tried to work out what would make me happy. Maybe it would be money and success. That didn’t work. Maybe it would be love. Despite some false starts, that’s never worked, either. I kept thinking that this thing or that thing would eventually come into my life — and then I could finally be happy.

Over the last 10 years, I’ve invested a lot of time and energy on my own emotional health. The journey has sometimes been brutal. I’ve felt frustrated and angry and resentful at times. But I’ve read and thought and prayed and learned.

In the last six months, I’ve finally realized that I felt happy.

I’m not always happy. There are still things that upset me quite a bit. I still don’t have the things I want and need the most.

I’m still hoping to find a woman to be my wife. I’m still hoping to experience the joy of having children and building a family. I still want to make films and make other art that expresses the ideas that are so important to me.

But I’ve realized something that I couldn’t have said until this year.

If I were to face death soon and I had the time to think about my impending death, I could truthfully say that I was dying as a happy and satisfied and contented man.

I wouldn’t say that because of the people around me or the things I had achieved or the possessions I had accumulated. I would say that because I have a heart and mind that has been healed of the pain and anger and shame of the long-term dysfunction that filled me for most of my life.

So how does someone achieve the same healing that has happened for me? I can’t tell you.

I can tell you some of the things I’ve done. I can tell you changes I’ve had to make — in my attitudes and my desires and in the ways in which I look at the world. But I can’t assure you that those things would make the difference for you — or for anyone else.

All I know is this.

Until I did enough healing, there was nothing in the world that was going to make me happy.

Not new love.

Not children.

Not money.

Not artistic success.

Not achievements.

But once I experienced the long-term healing I had needed all my life, those things weren’t as important. I still wanted some of them. But I knew they weren’t capable of making me happy.

I realized that until I could be a happy and contented man — all by myself, without any outward things added to my life — I was always going to be looking for “the next big thing.”

I’m more clear now than I’ve ever been in my life about what I want. I’m more certain than ever about the kind of love and family and community and creative expression I want to experience.

But I’m also clear that I have peace and happiness and joy in my heart and mind — things which don’t come from the outside.

I expect to live for decades to come. I expect to have amazing new things come into my life. I expect to experience joy about all sorts of things.

But I also know that if I were to lie dying tomorrow, I would be able to say in all honesty that I was dying a happy and satisfied and contented man.

And that changes everything.