Tag Archives: joy

happiness

Goldfish monsters 

We had a very unexpected laugh until your gut hurts happiness moment last night. 

I had finally got both kids in bed and was lying in my own bed reading Facebook. Yes, I know it goes against all my Ayurvedic advice, but sometimes that happens. Anyway, I came across this post:

  
and for some reason it struck me as so funny I couldn’t stop laughing. Both kids started yelling from their rooms asking what I was doing and wanting to know what was so funny. I couldn’t stop laughing long enough to answer. All I could get out was goldfish….bwaahaaaa….goldfish

They both came into my room and I let them read the meme. Pretty soon they were both laughing as hard as I was. 
Then Jacob says you know what my brain does when I go to bed? I’ll be lying there almost asleep, I’ll say “ok good night brain it’s time to shut down now” and my brain says “you know what you haven’t thought about for a long time? Monsters under your bed”. 
I asked him if he needed me to get my pillowcase and go monster hunting like I used to do when he was 2. We all laughed again and then laughed about monster goldfish smiling back from under the bed. 

We lay on my bed and laughed for almost a half hour. This is what this quest for happiness has brought us. Enough of the fear and pain is gone that now we can embrace the joy. It was an awesome late night happiness moment. 

Standard
happiness

What is love?

Love should make you happy. It’s that beautiful feeling of knowing you’re with someone who knows you to your deepest core and thinks you are wonderful. It’s tender, kind, loyal, faithful, and honest. It does not attack, betray, cheat, purposely hurt, or lie. It has taken me a long time to understand that love is not conditional and that I am only worthy of it if I behave in a certain manner. 

I’m finding the more I walk along in my happiness journey the more I’m finding love. It’s in big things and small things. I see it in the faces of my children every day. I saw it this morning when my big, strong, cousin’s husband gently fed a bottle to a newborn calf. I see it in our pets, and I see it reflected in the people who surround me. 

My happiness moment today was being with Jenna while she helped feed that calf for the first time. It was a beautiful, gentle act of kindness and I felt honored to be a part of it. 

  
I’m discovering that as long as I keep my eyes open I see love everywhere. It’s easier to find than I had ever believed. 

Standard
happiness

Snowflakes on your tongue

My poor little Jennabean is still sick. It’s been a long couple of weeks as she’s coughed and coughed herself through every day. We have been to Urgent Care once and the doctor several times. Finally today (on doctors advice) we headed into the Children’s Hospital for them to have a look at her.

She’s fine… I mean she’s not fine in the sense that she can’t stop coughing… but besides that she is fine. She’s not in distress, there’s nothing it seems to worry about except this cough. This darn cough that is constant from the moment she gets up until she goes to sleep. It’s non stop fits of coughing that are exhausting just to listen to, forget be the poor little body shaking them out.

I am so thankful that she is ok, I feel helpless, but it is comforting to know that she just needs to cough it out and then she will be herself again. It’s frustrating that there is no magic wand we can wave and cure it immediately.

In the midst of all of this I have been so thankful for the healing hands she has had on her side. We just got a family doctor a couple of weeks before she got sick, thank goodness for that. Right from the moment I met our doctor I had a lot of confidence in her, she’s exactly the kind of family doctor I wanted for us.  Not only have we had these people dedicated to trying to help ease her discomfort, but because she got sick in Alberta, I don’t have to stress about payment every time we go see the doctor. I can’t even begin to describe the relief I feel at the fact that I can take her in to be helped without having to be concerned about the cost of the visit.

On our drive home it was snowing. I used to be a very comfortable winter driver, after a few years of living in the South I’m not quite as much anymore. The fact that it was dark made it that much worse. Fortunately it’s a road I know well and in no time at all we were safely pulling into the front of our house.

As Jenna opened her door she turned and looked at me and said this is the first snowfall this year that  I have been awake for. I haven’t had a snowflake on my tongue yet this year. And with that got out of the car, tilted her head back, opened her mouth and caught a snowflake on her tongue. My happiness moment – even when she’s been feeling so crappy, she still knows how to seek enjoyment in the small things in life. I love this kid.

Standard
anxiety, ayurveda, bliss, elephant journal, gratitude, happiness, home, joy, kids, law of attraction, tapping, wayne dyer

I made it myself.

When I first began this journey of happiness I wanted desperately for someone to take my hand and show me the path. I didn’t want to have to do this alone; but not only did I want someone with me, I wanted someone to save me and show me how to live a happier life. I wanted someone to do the work so that I didn’t have to dig deep into those dark areas of my soul and expose them so that I could clear them out.

That white knight never showed up, and I’m pretty sure if I had stayed waiting for him/her I would still be waiting at the end of my dark night of the soul. I would still be hoping things would get better, but not realizing the important role that I needed to play in my own happiness.

Because I didn’t have anyone around to guide me, and because I knew that I wanted to make steps towards a happier life, I realized that the only way to move up was to start climbing myself. It was really hard at first. Actually, for a long time it was brutally hard. Being isolated both in spirit and because I was in a place without anyone that I could talk to about things made it a very lonely time.

Fortunately, I decided that I could use that time of isolation to just shut down and work on myself. I had two goals, to look after myself and to look after the kids.  I worked on building a strong relationship with the kids – and I believe that was a success – we have a tight relationship that hopefully lasts us to the end of time. I knew that I needed to make myself a better version of myself in order to be the kind of friend that attracted people I wanted to hang with. So, I dug in and I worked on it.

My Ayurvedic studies have brought so many positive changes into my life. As a matter of fact, it has completely changed how I live my life and all for the better. Ayurveda led me to the readings of Wayne Dyer whose words calm my soul. I read his works every single day and it makes me feel so good inside. It has helped shift around a lot of old guck I’ve been holding. His writings led me to the Law of Attraction books which altered how I look at the world and how I think about things. I am a firm believer in that Law and I know that I’ve been attracting better and better things into my life.  A while ago I watched a video where Wayne Dyer was talking about tapping and that information has been tingling at the back of my mind for a while. Finally I decided to do some research into it and I’ve been experimenting with myself. It’s quite amazing and powerful and I’m excited to see where that leads me. I’ve felt a lot of things move in the short time I’ve been working with it.

I have found this blog to be so cathartic. It helps me to focus on things that make me happy and to celebrate them. When I first started blogging I had to look really hard for things that made me happy because I really wasn’t feeling it yet. I was still feeling hurt, lost, sad, and confused. Now I have things pop into my mind all the time will this be the happiness moment today?  Sometimes it is, sometimes not, but there are usually many things that make me happy throughout the day. I’m always amazed that anyone actually reads what I’m writing, and it brings me joy the number of people who have told me how much they enjoy reading it.

Today’s happiness moment is one in celebration of Jacob. Both kids have been so good about being the new kid time and time again as we have moved, but I know it’s hard. Jacob was sad last year because he started a new school here only to have to leave it and head to another new one this year. I told him that we lived in a small enough town that he’d still see his friends but I’m not sure he believed me. Tonight as we were getting gas he ran into a couple of friends from his school last year. He jumped out of the car and hung out with them while I filled up. I love that when we go into town now the kids always see someone they know. They already have a strong sense of belonging and we have only been home for 6 months. I suppose that’s because we are home.

It’s good to be home. It’s good to make our own happiness. It’s good to share that happiness with the world.

This photo is from Elephant Journal. If you haven’t checked them out i highly recommend that you do. They bring me inspiration daily. 

Standard
Uncategorized

Funky Bunch

This quote came up from Louise Hay on my Facebook feed earlier today and I’ve been thinking about how this has become true for me over the past few months. If you had tried to explain to me at the start of the year, when I was beginning my Happiness Journey I wouldn’t have been able to understand the difference. Back then, from the state I was coming from, just being able to search for happiness was a big deal. I am still actively seeking happiness, but I have also found that I am able now to follow my joy (or my bliss). Not only have I been slowly able to discover what that bliss is, but I am in the process of giving myself permission to follow it and be happy. That’s been a bigger step than anything else. Allowing myself to be happy, reminding myself that I am worthy of it and that I deserve it.

A few weeks ago I took one of those silly Facebook quizzes “what is your 60s theme song”. Mine was Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys – it actually is my favourite Beach Boys song and one that I turn up every time it comes on the radio. Today, however, another Good Vibrations came on the radio – the one by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. Remember them? Awesome times…. Anyway, because I’m me, I started car dancing to it. This was moderately ok while we were on the back road, but once we turned onto the road into town Jacob was horrified with me. But, it’s Marky Mark, I said…. I used to dance on the speakers to this song I said (I was quite awesome in my time). Jacob informed me that some white people can dance, but mom, you’re not one of them. Whatever. It was fun. It lifted my spirits and brought me joy. I did reel it in a little bit so as not to completely humiliate him (it was hard).

Our times to and from school are some of the best parts of the day. It’s an easy drive – it’s a back road I’ve been driving my whole life, and the biggest issue is either deer crossing the road or someone in a tractor – so the fact that I don’t have commuting stress makes a huge difference in the mood of the car. The kids are at their funniest, and I get a chance to really find out what’s going on in their lives.

Today on the way back home I felt kind of like we were a funky bunch as the kids were reaching back and forth tickling each other, laughing, and singing along with the radio. That kind of happiness or joy just happens. I don’t have to seek it out anymore because we are all a lot happier in our souls now, now we can just allow it to flow. But, I still take the time to be grateful and appreciate it. This was my happiness moment today.

Standard
Uncategorized

Don’t feel like dancing

I love it when what I think is my happiness moment for the day morphs into a different yet somehow related happiness moment of extended bliss. 

This morning Jacob and I had to go into the drug store to get me some cough drops (still. Hack. Hack). Their radio was playing Don’t feel like dancing  by the Scissor Sisters. 

Jacob and I hid in the back corner of the store and danced around a little bit giggling so hard I snorted. I couldn’t believe he actually let me do that in public (the dancing and the snorting). Afterwards he shook his shoulders and said so that just happened. And then we went back to pretending to be normal. 

Obviously that was my happiness moment. It’s so wonderful to just let loose a little bit. The fact that I could do it with him was that much better. 

When we lived in Quebec, the Scissor Sisters had a link on their page where you could go make photos of people dance to their song. Little 4 year old Jacob and I spent hours pasting our faces onto the bodies and watching them dance around to the video. It was entertainment for days. 

I thought about that this morning and I thought about the friends I had in Quebec. I managed to surround myself with a really amazing group of women in the time I lived there. It was a pack of girlfriends unlike any other I’ve had in my life. 

A great thing about being home again is I get to retrieve old members of my tribe. Friends I’ve had from long ago but haven’t had a chance to spend time with in years. 

This afternoon I met two old friends for lunch. They are ladies I met 14+ years ago at our birth and babies class. Being able to reconnect with these friendships is so important to my soul and my happiness. It was a great lunch – 23C out so we sat outside on the patio, lots of catching up and smiles and sharing. An extended happiness moment. As a bonus we discovered the Canadian 100$ bill really does smell of maple syrup (Canada you are awesome). 

The song may be Don’t Feel Like Dancing, but it left me feeling the happiness rhythm all day long. 

Standard
Uncategorized

The morning rush 

Simplify. Simplify. Simplify. Having been a fan of Thoreau for almost 30 years I have read those words over and over. Yet the actual concept of being  and living a more simple life is often one that I struggle with. 

I don’t want to be all high maintenance, yet I know I kind of am –  I like nice things. My body does not want to sleep on a wood palate, I like nice clothes and tasty food. I have purple streaks in my hair that take more time a month to get touched up than I care to admit. 

When we went to Waldon Pond a few years ago I had a better understanding of what Thoreau meant. Simplify was an easier concept when I stood in the beauty of that pond and saw what it was he looked at every day. And he didn’t live there in isolation either, he was constantly back in town visiting. Simplify and deprivation have very different meanings and I think I’d been confusing the two. 

Over the past few months the kids and I have learned how to simplify. We have gone from the big flashy house to the old in need of love house. We are now living in about a third the size of house, with a third the amount of stuff and on a much stricter budget. 

We have to be simpler. 

And here’s the interesting thing. We are all happier in the old in need of love house. I can see it in the kids’ smiles, in the way they run outside and yell at me to come see something that has caught their eye, as they’re running across the yard to play with cousins or to visit nana. A happiness that has come from simplifying our lives.  

I’m thinking that maybe simplifying does not mean giving up what I love and going without so much as it means figuring out what is really important and only keeping those things in my life. Getting rid of excess and clutter has lessened my anxiety and brought me back to balance and happiness. 

We turned onto the road today and I looked west. The moon was hovering so perfectly over the mountains we had to turn off into the neighbors’ driveway to look at it.   
Then as we went down into the valley, the sun was peering up from the other side. 

  And as we came out across the valley the moon showed itself to us one more time before we turned the corner and headed into a huge wall of fog coming up from the river. 

I said to the kids how lucky we were that what made us slow on our drive to town today was that we had to keep pulling off the road to admire the beauty of the morning. 

So many people started their day rushing and anxious and tired. We are so blessed that we started it in amazing nature of Creation. It blesses us, grounds us, nurtures us, and brings us incredible joy and happiness. My happiness moment today.  

Standard
Uncategorized

I lava you. 

  

It was rainy and cold today. Like 8C cold, and I could see my breath while walking home tonight. Brrrrrrr. Time to invest in some slippers to keep my feet warm. I also could use a nose slipper. I don’t like a cold nose. 

I woke up at 6 and had breakfast. Since the house was quiet I went back to bed and lay there reading. Apparently I fell asleep because the next thing I knew it was 11. The happiness moment in a rainy day – having nothing to do besides relax and recharge. 

After a significant amount of doing nothing,  I took the kids and cousin kids into town to see Inside Out again. It was even better than the first time. It amazes me how that movie has opened the way for discussions about emotions that we would never have been able to have. I find this particularly with Jacob. He uses the emotion balls and the emotion personalities to dig to such a deep level of emotional exploration. Without having been given this vocabulary he would have never been able to express himself so well. I am so grateful for this. It has deepened our relationship- and as he walks farther into these teen years I want him to always be able to express his emotions with me knowing that it is always safe. Extra happiness moment today. 

I love the Lava short film at the beginning. It’s so cute. And deep. And happy/sad. 

  
We go to bed happy and relaxed. Full of all those emotions, but mostly Joy. 

  

Standard
Uncategorized

My Happiness Project

Yesterday I had the rare occasion of driving alone. I used to love driving alone – music up, hair blowing, no yapping voices… now I cry when I drive alone. I started my cry/driving after we moved back home and Dad was so sick. I would take the kids into school and then cry/drive all the way home. Then cry/drive back to school to get them. I thought I was over it, but it seems as though the reality is simply that I haven’t had a moment in the car by myself.

I cry/drove most of the way home last evening. Thinking about Dad, about how completely unfair it seems that we finally move back and now he’s gone. About how guilty I feel that we lost all those years. So, I drove and I cried.

Then I came over Edge’s hill. As soon as I come over their hill I see home. The ranch, the barn, the homes – the places where my little footprints have been pitter pattering since the beginning of my time. I felt a rush of happiness – of joy. I realized then that even with all my sorrow and grief I am happy.

That may not sound like the huge freaking deal that it is – but I’ve spent years being unhappy, being scared and being anxious. And now I’m HAPPY. I’m sad about Dad, I’m nervous for the future – but I’M HAPPY and that is a huge gift.

Jenna and I went to Banff today for Fondue at the Grizzly House. Cheese Fondue followed by Fruit with Toblerone Chocolate Fondue. If you want to know what happiness tastes like, it tastes a lot like this: 

In our family tradition (started by my Dad) of not drinking from the bowl, Jenna finished off the last of the chocolate fondue in style:

Happiness also looks like this:  This however, is what Anger looks like. We have had two gifts this summer. One was the movie Inside Out, and the other one is that there are hardly any mosquitos (again, sounds like not a big deal but huge deal).

Inside out has given us the platform to feel out our emotions.

Jenna and I were heading out of Banff, Abba blasting out of the car stereo (this seems to be our road trip music), when I heard Let go of my anger!!! Grrrrrrrrrr!!!

Not sure what she was talking about, I looked beside me to see her trying to rip Anger out of his packaging. Apparently Anger makes her Angry. Even better, Anger only was purchased because Joy was sold out and that made her Angry.

We talked about different emotion balls and how one emotion can affect another.

A day with my girl. My happiness moment. Remembering that I am happy and that it’s ok to let go of my fears and anxiety will have a huge impact on how I live the rest of my life.

Standard
Uncategorized

Bored outta my mind 

Since having kids I have spent hundreds of hours sitting and waiting for them while they’re participating in one activity or another. If this sounds like complaining, it’s not. My mom spent probably thousands of hours driving and sitting while she watched me swim, skate, play tennis and badminton, and by far the biggest time vacuum – horseback riding (which included brutally early mornings and brutally cold weather a great deal of the time). Sitting and watching my kids is my gift to pass down to the next generation. 

But, more than that, I really enjoy doing things with my kids and I love watching them have fun. I think one of my favourite kinds of happiness isn’t one that’s centered around my own happiness, but the kind of happiness that comes from knowing I facilitated happiness in someone I love. 

Today we celebrated Jacob’s birthday. He and Jenna went with their two cousins (aka partners in crime) to Shakers – which is a family fun centre. They spent the day go karting, rock climbing, playing laser tag and messing about in the arcade. They laughed, ran, giggled, sweat, and everything in between.  I sat and watched them and read my kindle. We were there over 5 hours. By the 3rd hour I had hit boredom, but I was so happy watching them have fun that it didn’t matter. The happiness I felt giving them the gift of the joy they were experiencing was so uplifting and gratifying. I love my little monsters and they have brought me so much love that whatever I can give back I am happy to do so. I am so grateful for the time I have to share with them. 

Today’s happiness moment. Listening to those four kids laugh and watching them run and have fun with each other. That’s what it’s all about. 

Standard