Let the light In

Embodying joy through Denmark’s summer.

Photographs: Pexels

Text: Fiona L Smith

There is something quietly radical about choosing joy when it seems as though the world might dissolve into chaos at any moment. The feeling of waiting for something to go wrong or striving for certainty and stability can feel especially true when trying to find your footing in Denmark. For many of us, adjusting to a new country can mean months or even years of bracing against the challenges of the language, the bureaucracy, the winter darkness, and the feeling of often being slightly out of step with the ‘Danishness’ of things around us.

But then summer arrives and something in us opens… the light stretches into the late evening, the streets and parks fill with colour, and the air carries an invitation and a promise: breathe, soften, receive, allow.

In somatic therapy and nervous system work, joy isn’t a reward for having finally figured life out. It’s not the outcome of finally getting to the bottom of your ‘to-do’ list or the result of a life smoothed of difficulty. In fact, being able to experience joy deeply is often the result of expanding our capacity to feel everything, not just the good stuff.

We feel more joy not because we "feel better" but because we get better at feeling.

To embody joy means to let it live in your cells – in your muscles, joints, guts and fascia. It’s not just a fleeting emotion but a full-body experience: the way your shoulders drop and soften when the sun touches your back, the sparkle and fizz in your chest when you laugh with friends over a picnic lunch, the quiet buzz of breath pumping and muscles singing after paddle-boarding against the wind to float in the wide ocean.

And because the body remembers, each one of these moments becomes a resource we can draw on when darker seasons return. Gently bring your attention to these moments of pleasure and laughter – notice what sensations you are aware of in joy: opening, warmth, tingling, flowing…and the movements of arms wide, face stretching into smiles or giggles, arms squeezing to hug and hold close; that small hand trusting yours.

"To fill up with joy isn’t an escape or a distraction, nor is it a denial of the hard parts of life. It’s to build capacity, to resource yourself with embodied memories that ground and uplift."

This is the work of somatic resilience. We collect embodied experiences of joy and connection and imprint them in our nervous system. Remember this! This is joy; this is connection; this is belonging. Noticing the sensation of lightness in your limbs as you dance barefoot on warm grass. Feel your breath expand and your jaw soften as you stretch in a yoga class under the trees. Let the joy linger in your bones after a day spent kayaking through Copenhagen’s canals; the splash of arms moving quietly in harmony with a partner through still harbour waters.

Summers in Denmark offer these moments in abundance, if we choose to notice them. And awareness is the key. There’s no shortcut to joy; no way to mentally force it. We notice and nurture it through presence. Through slowness. Through allowing ourselves to fully be in our bodies, in a specific time and place. Right here, right now.

For some, joy arrives through movement – an outdoor qi gong session, a spontaneous bike ride through the fields of North Zealand, or dancing in the twilight during a community festival, blood pumping and feet feeling the rhythm through the ground. For others, it arrives in stillness and beauty: watching the golden light filter through the leaves at the Botanical Garden in Aarhus, or sketching a wild, windswept seascape on the northern coast of Jutland, where artists like Michael and Anna Ancher once painted. These Skagen painters sought out light not just for their canvases, but for what it stirred in their imaginations and souls—a curiosity and creative aliveness that is, in itself, deeply joyful.

We can learn from their example. Playfulness and creativity aren’t luxuries; they’re essential nervous system nutrients. Whether it’s painting, paddle-boarding, gardening, or building and decorating sand-castle cities on the beach or allowing your feet to sink into sand at the ocean’s edge, each joyful act in summer can become an anchor for future moments when joy feels further away. When winter comes, you won’t only have memories, you’ll have body memories. And we get to reactivate these whenever we want or need to remind our body, mind and heart that we know joy: a photo that brings you back to a sun-drenched harbour walk, a song that revives the rhythm of your summer dance, a scent that evokes the freedom of picnics and salty breeze.

To fill up with joy isn’t an escape or a distraction, nor is it a denial of the hard parts of life. It’s to build capacity, to resource yourself with embodied memories that ground and uplift. It is, quite literally, a radical act of self-love to choose to notice and receive the joy that is already available. You don’t need to earn it. You just need to let it in.

So this summer, let Denmark guide you. Swim in the lakes and paddle in the sea, walk through the woods, stomp through the rain, and linger on sunlit streets with a friend and a ridiculously large Danish-style ice cream; sketch the curve of the coastline at dusk. Allow yourself to move, soften, and receive because joy isn’t a destination. It’s a practice.

And your nervous system is always listening.