Glimmers Old and New
This drizzly, OC, June Gloom morning, I whispered, “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” to the cup of coffee I poured from my French press.
“What are you doing?” James asked.
I didn’t know he noticed.
“Oh! Um... thanking my coffee?”
We both laughed. What I was doing, technically, was naming a glimmer.
Do you know what a glimmer is?
Science Insights says: “A glimmer is a small, often fleeting moment that signals safety to your nervous system and brings a sense of calm, connection, or joy. These micro-moments are the opposite of triggers: where a trigger pushes your body into stress and survival mode, a glimmer gently pulls you back toward feeling grounded and safe.”
These moments happen all the time, and the more you teach your body safety through resolving trauma, practicing somatic exercises, co-regulating with others, and rehearsing goodness (check out the rehearsing goodness resource here!), the more frequent they become.
Also, in general, the more you start to look for them, the more your brain will begin to highlight them, contributing to your healing.
Sometimes, when I look back on the hardest season of my life about a decade ago, I categorize the whole thing as just... bad. It was so heavy, and I was carrying so much confusion, emotional and physical pain in my body, and heartbreak. The massive self-protection I was living in was excruciating. But even then, there were glimmers. The truth is, they are always there.
Friday, a couple of my friends from high school joined me at the beach. While we weren’t in the same circles in high school, we did find ourselves in the same hometown with three little baby boys the same age 10 years after graduation, and we ended up doing the first few years of motherhood together—from nursing babies on each other’s couches to all the park dates, superhero dress-up, and Goldfish crumbs. I hadn’t seen them in about a decade because we all went our separate ways, but it worked out that we were all able to meet up last Friday.
Seeing them again (and our now GIANT teenagers) reminded me of that time. In many ways, it was the lowest season of my life in terms of managing anxiety and depression. Like I said, it’s easy to label it as all bad. But... as I watched the waves with my old friends and reminisced about that season, I was delighted to be flooded with all the glimmers from that time that I had forgotten about.
We talked about all the funny memories we had with our firstborn babies back then—the funny new-mom mishaps, the sweet firsts of babies turning into little boys. We were raising kids in Palm Springs, which is over 100 degrees about six months out of the year. We were trying to be creative together. We did indoor mommy-and-me groups, early, EARLY morning park dates, and snuck into swimming pools at fancy resorts because who would kick out a few moms and their children?
And then there were other memories I had forgotten about. Trying to make time for our grown-up selves, getting dressed up while the dads watched the kids so we could go to dinner. We laughed SO hard about one time when we decided to have a moms’ night out at a fancy hotel. I was pretending to do a Noxzema commercial, splashing water from the sink on my face, only to learn Amber had brushed her teeth in that water right before. (Disgusting, I know. And hilarious.)
It also reminded me of that time period in general—our first house, which we bought right before our son was born, and how many get-togethers, showers, and hangouts I hosted there. This was when I was learning to throw dinner parties on a dime, and I would drink coffee during Jack’s nap time and scour the pages of Dinner: A Love Story by Jenny Rosenstrach, looking for new meal ideas for my little family and our friends. I remembered how we threw bonfire-and-chili parties in our driveway every Halloween. I remembered how snuggly my son was, the giant backyard where we threw his first birthday party, and how many people came because, at that point, we had lived in the same small town our entire lives and felt like we knew everyone.
I love my life now. It’s aligned with who I am and where I’m going. Truly, in every way, this is exactly where I want to be. I’m also grateful every day that I made it through some of the scariest and darkest days of my life back then.
But... as I look back, I realize that, really, honestly, it wasn’t that bad all the time. There were so many wonderful little glimmers.
And the truth is... the glimmers are the truth.
When darkness feels like it’s all that has been and all that ever will be, glimmers remind us that joy and peace and clarity and connection exist always. Pain is real, but it is not the truth. Love is the truth, and it’s trying to show its unworried self to you all the time.
We left last Friday remembering how much we care about each other—that new-mom bond was so much stronger than we had realized. I left feeling even more proud of myself, more compassionate toward my whole story, and more passionate about helping other people not only know that healing is so possible, but also that love and joy exist absolutely right now, no matter what they’re going through.
— Court