Glimmers: Joy, 'Patches of Godlight' & Small Moments of Wellbeing
Reflections on those micro-moments of regulation that bring peace, safety, and joy to our nervous systems.
Hello and welcome! If you’re new here, I’m Bailey Gillespie, a writer from Northern California. I write weekly from the tension of suffering and joy, exploring the more tender places of life with God. You’ll find essays shaped by spiritual formation, women’s wellness, and great literature. I hope you’ll stay a while and discover something here that’s helpful. <3
There are so many different kinds of loveliness.
—L. M. Montgomery
Hello, friends.
When was the last time you really, truly experienced peace?
On Friday, I had a very good day. There was nothing particularly remarkable about it, and I was hardly even aware of it until dusk as I prepared for sleep. But as I wiggled my legs under the soft linen duvet cover and shivered as the air conditioner blew deliciously cold air onto my skin, I felt the sensation of peace so strongly. This is what it told me:
I am safe. I am calm. I am perfectly content.
There was not a single place in my body where it hurt or felt unwell. Instead, my heart rate stilled while my tabby cat, Chef, bathed his silky orange fur by my side. I noticed myself smiling as I reached for the delightful children’s book, Miss Rumphius (“the lupine lady”) and prolonged this feeling of peace until succumbing to some of the best rest I’ve had in months. What’s more surprising is how this came on the heels of a short nap just before dinner. Normally, I can’t nap. But oh, how I slept today! This sense of safety and wellbeing offered me the freedom to dwell on other things—like the gorgeous book illustrations of coastal wildflowers or the way my paper lanterns glowed yellow-gold.
I took it all in, letting myself fully rest into the moment.
There are days when pain takes our breath away. When it passes, we have a new appreciation for the simplest moments of joy and peace that invite our nervous system to rest.
Here were a few of mine:
Peppermint tea in a favorite ceramic mug, an unhurried text exchange with a friend, a comforting book before bed like The Story Girl or The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery (the queen of prose), sunlight warming my back as I sat by a window. I love wearing a light shirt and curling up under a fuzzy blanket with a fan on or the windows open at night, soaking in the midsummer air or the sound of rain from the white noise machine. I love how Redwood branches rustle in the wind and how the house finches sing out with gusto from the rooftops each morning. There are few sounds more calming than birdsong, don’t you think? Forgetting we have a phone, forgetting the aches and worries, is such a gift and a needed escape. Maybe it’s less of an escape and more of a homecoming. Our attention is drawn back to life’s goodness and wonder.
A very good day may bloom into a very good weekend or even a very good week, and that’s a blessing. Sometimes, it will only be a very good hour or a very good moment, and that is still worth treasuring. Each of these moments compound with time, attuning our eyes and memory to goodness. It helps repair the hurt and tangled up parts of us that are trying to survive.
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Have you seen the term ‘glimmers’ appear across the internet recently? It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? I was curious about the original source of this term and discovered it was coined by a woman and clinician named Deb Dana in her work on polyvagal theory.
“Glimmers are micro-moments of regulation that foster feelings of well-being,” she writes. This research led her to publish The Glimmer Journal, a place for capturing and remembering and later even sharing those glimmer moments from your life. In case you’re wondering, this was one of those “auto-buys” for me, as my friend Meg likes to say.
When you live with complex trauma, your body is in a continual state of threat. It cannot rest because it doesn’t feel safe. Hyper-vigilance becomes the way of life, and so do nightmares, catastrophizing, and strange physical pains. It seems triggers are everywhere. But glimmers are the counter sensation to this. More than just cozy vibes, they are places where beauty, goodness, and truth get in. They are feelings of peace and gentleness that soothe the nervous system and let our body find a secure resting state again. They signal that, right now, we are safe. And while none of us knows the number of our days, we aren’t meant to live our days in terror.
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What glimmers did you notice the last few days? Were there times when small joys made your heart feel at peace? Were there moments of loveliness that made your body find rest and safety?
In a world that wants to harden us, noticing (and fully enjoying) small moments of wellbeing helps us stay soft. It is a rare thing nowadays to have a soft heart. Cynicism and outrage and hopelessness just come a lot easier, don’t they? But a tender heart is a good thing.
Softening to love, and to life again, after we’ve been hurt is one of the bravest and most beautiful things we will ever do.
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I believe glimmers are a little different from sehnsucht, the German word for wistful longing. C. S. Lewis used this word often while writing about the kind of joy that’s mixed with ‘an inconsolable longing’ or nostalgia. But the two do seem to share some similarity.
“Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy,” wrote Lewis in Letters to Malcolm. “These pure and spontaneous pleasures are ‘patches of Godlight’ in the woods of our experience.”
Our bodies are meant to experience peace and pleasure, not just pain. They are places of sacred encounter with God. Yes, the crazy days will come. But that’s why it’s even more important to be on the lookout for experiences of peace and wellbeing now.
Call them what you will—glimmers, joy, or patches of Godlight, these special moments point to a greater reality beyond our present circumstances. And they are necessary for us to heal.
Come, they say.
There is something true and beautiful that lies beyond.
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Love this! The last glimmer I experienced was sitting in my living room with sunlight coming in through the windows and a candle burning ✨