A few weeks ago my brother and sister-in-law took my kids to a water park and I stayed back with my one-year-old niece. At one point in the afternoon we were sitting on the floor playing with matchbox cars. I would make a car noise and drive the car up over her foot, across the ground, and then up and over the other foot. She would laugh, then imitate my car noise and drive her car up my leg.
The whole thing was delightful. The way she mimicked my noises, the simple repetition, her chubby ankles, her tiny laugh, and her adorable dimple.
The next day I got to watch fireworks from a boat in Lake Michigan. Against the backdrop of the city we watched the fireworks dance through the sky. It was a full sensory experience; the gentle sound of the water on the boat and the explosive boom of the fireworks. The cool breeze on my face and the soft blanket on my lap. The lights of the city, the black of the sky, the bright color of the fireworks.
Once again, I felt something I can only name Delight. It’s in the same family as happy, but it has a nuance of wonder, of curiosity, of awe.
It amazes me that the same feeling can be triggered by such different events.
Emotions are funny and complex things. There are many theories about how we name and understand our emotions, and many ways to talk about emotional experiences. But however we choose to talk about them, we know that it is a powerful thing to be able to correctly identify, name, and communicate our emotions.
Delight wasn’t an emotion I thought about a lot. But once I became aware of it, I started to notice that it comes up quite a bit for me. When I watched the hummingbirds hover at the bird feeder and when I heard the wind blow through our new chimes. When my youngest daughter offered me a sip of her lemonade and said it “tastes like the twinkle in my eye.” When we saw mountain goats in Colorado, boldly hoping from one precarious position to another, or heard prairie dogs chattering to one another.
Once I identified the emotion, named it, and thought about it for awhile, I started to feel it more and more often. Did my world really become more delightful?
I don’t think so. I think I just started tuning in to something that had been there all along. And once I was tuned in, I could pay attention to it and choose what to do , which was usually to dive in and savor it as much as possible.
I think it’s pretty cool that by paying attention to delight, I found more of it.
When we experience an uncomfortable emotion, name it, and communicate it, we reduce the intensity of that emotion. That’s the power of being connected to ourselves and each other. And when we experience a pleasant emotion, name it, and communicate it, we increase the intensity of that emotion. That’s also the power of being connected to ourselves and each other.
The more we learn to pay attention to our emotions, to explore their triggers and nuances, to name them as what they are, and to share them with others, the more we learn how to care for our emotions in healthy ways. By identifying delight, I’ve realized I experience it more than I ever imagined, and I’ve been able to fill up on it.
Emotions can be complicated and hard work, but they can also be downright delightful.