To ask if you've ever experience a moment of pure happiness?

[PaddleBoardingMomma]

I'm talking unadulterated pure bliss, a moment in life you just knew there and then was what real happiness felt like, a moment captured in time you can look back on now and still feel joyous about? If so... please share :)

I've never felt it, not that "perfect" moment any way. I'm beginning to wonder if it's happened and I didn't appreciate it, or if it's just never happened for me. Maybe other peoples stories might help me decide the answer on that one!

I've got a picture that I hold in my head of a moment in time when I can say I was truly happy.
DD was around 7 and DS was 2. I was with exdh on a beach in Wales. The sun was shining and DS ran for around an hour in and out of the water giggling with pure joy at his first time seeing the sea. He couldn't contain his excitement and kept falling down laughing each time a little wave touched him. Ex was with them at the sea edge, I was sitting up on a rug watching.
When DS tragically died at age 16 this is the picture in my head that got me through the years ahead, the picture that reminded me of the pure unadulterated joy he had experienced in this world and had brought to those around him. This is the picture I use when life gets sad or tough. It reminds me that happiness does exist if we keep our eyes open

@Laughingstock91

Obviously moments with my kids. One really memorable moment was at Glastonbury festival watching the sunset over the pyramid & Elbow playing ‘one day like this’ as the sun set being surrounded by thousands of people all experiencing that same moment of collective joy! It was magical!

I've had Covid since Monday... I watched Elbow play ODLT on YT on Wednesday and it really cheered me up... Love the song!!

A Christmas where we were all together watching a Christmas programme and my brother who has AS was sitting with the kids totally content and relaxed. It was just the most perfect moment and I rememberexhalingand a lot of pent up stress just going. Saying that I've had a few, I live in a place where sunsets are mindblowing and in general life is good

I have moments of pure contentment fairly regularly, being content is joyful. In that particular moment any worries pale into insignificance and mine are always outside, in fine weather and green spaces.

A beach in Wales where DC and DH were playing, down by the river in the village, stunning sunsets and sunrises, shafts of light through the trees walking to work. It sounds hippyish, but living in the moment, appreciating the beauty of nature is my way of finding joy in life.

There's moments when I knew I was happy - getting married, having DC but they've always been tinged with something else.

@Elderflower14 here’s a vid of it - it was 2014- makes me laugh- it’s so very British!! m.youtube.com/watch?v=VWAIu98lS0A

Sorry I'm adding 3 more- Colplay live years ago and also as a teenager running through the local park with my dog, you know you hear of 'I thought my heart would burst?' Also I once rode through a lake on a horse on the most perfect day!!! We were just walking (a lot of people talk about the exhilaration of galloping etc) and it was perfect!! Also sitting with my parents in the park when my dad was dying and hadn't been out of the house (I know shouldhave been sad but for a few momentsthere was just happiness!!). Stopping now!!

@Itwasgoodwhileitlasted

I'd taken up running and was starting to se the benefits and get a runners high.

One lovely crisp Spring morning I was running along a river path with lots of greenery and looking very pretty when I had a phone call offering me a job I hadn't applied for.

Then my favourite song came on.

The second one was my second born after a 5 hour Labour (first baby I had a very rough time). The sun was shining through the window, my family was complete and the midwife put on some music in the birth suite while she made me the best tea and toast ever!!

Yes. The yea and toast moments are perfect and get devoured.

Thankyou.. That couple at the beginning were obviously having a great time!! ☺ ☺

My happiest moment was hearing ds2 cry as soon as he was born. Having lost ds1 aged two hours and never hearing him make a sound, the relief and utter joy of hearing ds2 cry was immense..
I will add that not only did he cry he peed all over the registrar much to his indignation!

When I finally passed my driving test !

I have less big grand moments on perfect dessert beaches and more normal fleeting moments that I know are perfect and make me think 'this is what life is all about'. Great coffees in peace, little moments with my kids, nice walks, sitting up in bed reading.

Maybe your moments are in smaller things that you miss.

Me, DH and DD sitting on inflatable armchairs, linking arms and floating down the lazy river at a Disney Park in Florida. It was quiet because the park had only just opened. It was perfect.

Lots actually. I tend to experience very high “highs” though. I frequently cry with happiness! Most recently being away on holiday at my family’s home and my DD had decided to nap in her cot (previously pram naps only) and I was in the pool swimming in the dappled sunshine with the monitor on the side and I just thought - life cannot be more perfect than this

When my babies would fall asleep on my chest.

I was working in a remote but scenic location in Perthshire, my only transportation was a bike. To get to the nearest shop i had to cycle miles. The outward leg was mostly downhill. I felt pure joy one beautiful September day as I freewheeled down a long hill, i saw two red squirrels chasing each other round the trunk of a pine tree and then went past my favourite field that had Shetland pony mares and their tiny foals in it.
Combine something physically exhilarating with beautiful nature and animals and that's my recipe for joy. It works best if unexpected too.
Sorry DH and DSs!

It's an interesting list in that people don't really mention possessions. For example, when I bought that amazing car, ring, painting and so on. I think most of the posts mostly relate to people and to do doing things? It's triggered a few different thoughts in me too.

1. I sometimes look back and think wow I must have been so happy then, for example in older photos with my wonderful parents who I miss so much, when I was younger and prettier in my 20s...but I'm not sure I appreciated it all at the time? Or perhaps there were other things going in at the time that meant I was not as it seems in an old photo?

1. A few of the posts also relate to exercise and I totally get that. When I do longer runs I get this "runners high" and feel great and thankful. It's been a similar experience, only heightened after a day snowboarding in a beautiful location.

1. (sometimes, but not always) Sex and cuddling afterwards with DH I feel very content, relaxed.

1. I'm not religious, but I know some people who are and there if often a happiness associated with that.

Watching my son’s under 11 cricket team win a cup final match a few years ago.

Without too much detail, in our area that age group play a format where runs are deducted for a wicket, rather than the player being out, so the score goes down as well as up for the batting team.

It was a close match, and there was no score board, but with a few balls remaining we (parents) knew our team had won, but the kids couldn’t keep up with the maths, so weren’t sure what the result was going to be.

The knowing, and anticipation for it being confirmed, and their sheer joy at winning, on a sunny evening with lovely people, it was just the best feeling.

Strangely when my dear old Dad had just died. He'd had Alzheimer's for several years and it was a relief for him when he finally passed away.
I was lying in bed that night in the dark when a moment of sheer joy shot through me and there was an accompanying flash of light in my mind, that one day I would see him again looking well and smiling at me.
It was a moment of bliss.

AndStand I had a similar experience when my lovely nanny died. A few deep breath’s and she was gone. No terrible suffering she was wanting to die she was old and losing her independence. Her death felt right and at that point I felt such calmness that this was how things were meant to be and I felt her love was still with me (miss her terribly still) it was the most peaceful feeling I have ever had

@Theoldwrinkley

Vickles20.......the importance of a full stop. I had to read the first bit several times to figure out why the person you loved was the person sitting next to the bridegroom. I know this should be in pendants corner.

Oh god yes!!! Haha! Bloody mumsnet doesn’t let you edit!!

Same as some pps... A few times taking ecstasy. As the name suggests it makes you feel ecstasy.

Other moment I remember is when my 3 year old son said "I love everything about you mummy, I love you every day". His beaming little face, I could tell he really meant it. No one has said they love me so that was really nice.

God this is going to sound so trite but sometimes when I just sit and watch my children doing some task like working out how to build a duplo tower, or my eldest sitting reading a book to her brother and have such a feeling of all encompassing joy it takes my breath away.

Yes.
This probably won’t make much sense to most people but I have a horse and I compete in Eventing (like a horsey triathlon consisting of dressage, show jumping and Eventing).

At my level, there is a championship in which is run alongside the top level competition in the sport in the world. It’s notoriously difficult to qualify for; top 2% of around 10,000 people qualify.

I qualified with a horse I trained myself. In the run up to it, we hadn’t had the best time. I’d had a bad fall a couple of years previous and had really struggled with my confidence cross country which my horse picked up on and started refusing jumps. None the less, we made it to the championships.

We had a decent but for us, average dressage score. We had an unfortunate pole down show jumping (she’s incredibly careful and only pole we had in 2 years d’oh!) then it was on to the cross country. Toughest course I’d ever ridden, less than half the competitors went clear. My awesome little horse nailed it; it was a foot perfect round without a single mistake around truly haloed turf. We didn’t place due to the pole down but when I got home I just sat in the field for hours in sheer bliss.

It was the best day of my life. Years of hard work boiled down to those few moments and she delivered. I’d had a severe spell of depression in the run up to it but at that moment, nothing mattered. We’d achieved what I had set out to do a good 7 years previous and I just sat there and basked in that.

It probably sounds OTT to most people, but I had dreamt, breathed and slept that championship for YEARS and to go and ride there and have such a fantastic ride…it was everything.

She qualified again the next year and it was cancelled due to covid but it was just as well really; I wouldn’t want to go back, do badly and ruin the memory because it was perfect.

For me, it's important to look for moments of happiness and appreciate them for what they are. In fact they may be small things.

The "pure happiness" mentioned by OP is at a different level. Our DD was seriously ill when a few months old, medics were reluctant to discuss outcomes with us. When things turned the corner, a few days later I remember her sleeping on my lap and feeling so so happy. But maybe it was a mixture of relief and happiness?

Another thing I find personally is that I find a lot of happiness and contentment and joy in giving, more so than than receiving. That might be helping out at kids school, baking kids special birthday cake, select a birthday gift for my best friend, sex with DH, and so on.

Was at Green Man festival in Wales, it really is the most beautiful place in the black mountains.

The main stage is right in front of the mountains, I was standing there, sun setting, surrounded by DD, DH (fiancé at the time) and my closest friends watching The War on Drugs play Under The Pressure, and just thought "this is perfection". Pure bliss.