Breathing in Delight
I have been thinking a lot about delight recently. But what is it? And how does it differ from enjoying being with someone? Delight is a need that our children want us to experience with them when they are happy and exploring things as well as when they want to come back into us and express a feeling that is difficult or just want a hug. Obviously, you are not delighting in the fact that they are sad or frightened but more in the knowledge that they have come to you for help.
During a training day with Kent Hoffman, one of the originators of COS-P, he said that the two most important things we can do for our children in the first year of life is to:
1) delight in them
2) soothe them
What wonderful gifts to give to our little ones!
Delight is gratitude
I am currently reading Gregory Boyle’s inspiring book, ‘Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion’ and in it I am discovering some beautiful examples of delight in personal encounters. Gregory Boyle is a Jesuit Priest and founder of Homeboy Industries in a neighbourhood of Los Angeles. Homeboy Industries is a gang-intervention programme.
I’d like to share two stories from his book with you.
The first, is a conversation between himself and an eighteen-year-old dad of two, Spider. A young man whose parents abandoned him and his sister during childhood and they were left to bring themselves up. Gregory is giving him a lift home when Spider says:
“You know what I’m gonna do when I get home right now? I’m gonna sit down to eat with my lady and my two morritos. But, well…I don’t eat. I just watch them eat. My lady she gets crazy with me, but I don’t care. I just watch ‘em eat. They eat and eat and I just look at ‘em and thank God they’re in my life. When they’re done eating and I know they’re full, THEN I eat. And the truth…sometimes there’s food left and sometimes there isn’t.”
Gregory Boyle’s reflects on what Spider has to say:
‘The duty to delight is to stare at your family as they eat, anchored in the surest kind of gratitude – the sort that erases sacrifice and hardship and absorbs everything else….In the utter simplicity of breathing, we find how naturally inclined we are to delight and to stay dedicated to gladness.’
Isn’t that wonderful?! In the simple act of breathing, being in another’s presence, we can delight and be glad.
To delight in someone’s being
Boyle continues the theme of finding delight in a second more personal story of visiting his father in hospital after he has been diagnosed with a brain tumour. One thing his father had asked to be brought in is a pillow from his wife’s side of the bed. Boyle continues the story:
‘..I am at the window of his room, just north of the head of his bed. I’m about to make small talk about the view from up here, but I turn and see that my father has placed the flowery pillow over his face. He breathes in so deeply and then exhales, as he places the pillow behind his head. For the rest of the morning, I catch him turning and savouring again the scent of the woman whose bed he’s shared for nearly half a century. We breathe in the spirit that delights in our being – the fragrance of it. And it works on us.’
To delight in someone’s being – it sounds simple doesn’t it? Yet it can be so difficult.
Stand back and watch
Reading these two encounters, I am struck by the place that observation plays; Spider watches his family eat, Boyle watches his dad inhale his mum’s scent left on the pillow. Learning to observe our children, to truly stand back and notice them, is a key skill we encourage parents and carers to do when they attend a Circle of Security Parenting Group.
I remember a Health Professional suggesting to me to stand back and watch my child. To be curious about who they are, how they spend their time. Not to intervene or to put my interpretation on it. At first, I thought I couldn’t possibly do this! I didn’t want to do this! I was having a hard time with my child and the last thing I felt like doing was spending more time with them. But I did it. I stood back. I breathed and for a while I looked, I really looked at my child and who they are, not what I thought they were. And it was wonderful. My child was wonderful. I was able to experience a delight in their being. A delight that had got lost in the problems, the worries, the busyness of life.
So, let’s try standing back sometimes, taking a breath and perhaps we can once again delight in the being of those closest to us.
Helen Bell, 18th March 2021
Reference: Tattoos on the heart: the power of boundless compassion. Gregory Boyle. 2010