The underlying sense of incompleteness and unhappiness is replaced with a quiet and easeful contentment. The endless searching and seeking and looking for answers and salvation outside oneself ceases. The feeling of isolation, disconnection and lack disappears and one feels whole and integrated and deeply connected to all of life and to the Mystery that underpins it. Life is experienced as something profound and meaningful.
There are still challenges and obstacles, but they are experienced within a very, very big context and that makes them easier to bear and understand. There is a cosmic or universal aspect to enlightenment that is profoundly liberating and thrilling, and a sense that one's tiny heart contains multitudes.
All these qualities are already inherent within each of us. Enlightenment is not the adding of something new or other: it simply reveals the inherent qualities that have always been present.