Tag Archives: love

happiness

Happiness blogs

I started this blog almost 3 years ago on my 44th birthday. I was still in the beginning stages of working my way out of my dark night of the soul years (sometimes I feel like I’m still at the beginning, but I’m not). I began with the idea that I would do 44 days of happiness – my goal was that every day I would have to find something that made me happy and I would write about it. Sometimes those happiness moments were really hard to find at the beginning, I think I wrote a lot about Henry the Heron who I used to see every morning on my walk. I remember many times the day being over and me realizing I still hadn’t had a moment of happiness and making sure I did something right away so I could say I had done one thing that had brought me some joy.

I think now about how small and unhappy my life was then. I mean really, in the last 3 years my entire life has imploded, gone sideways, blown up, and been shaken like I live inside a snowglobe and still I have found moments of happiness every day. Thank God I trained myself to look for them or I would have been having a right pity party.

My life now still is pretty uncertain, full of bumps, and honestly I have no idea what I’m doing – but it’s so much happier. We are home, we are safe, we are free. Those are big words. It has helped me incredibly to have a check in every day and find something to be grateful for, something that made me happy, to express gratitude.

This morning I found an email from feedspot.com saying they had chosen my blog as one of their top 75 happiness blogs – I am number 64. Look it up here

Seriously how cool is that?

I even got a little award to put on my blog – that was a smile filled moment of happiness.

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Give a hug

Today as I was driving into the parkade at the hospital I witnessed a remarkable moment of tenderness. A couple about my age was walking outside when the woman stopped and started crying. The man with her pulled her in and gave her a huge hug and held her while she sobbed. It was a very powerful moment to witness. She was obviously so hurt and he just stepped in and held her and held space for her while she let it out.

I had a meeting after that with a woman who was brought on the wings of love into our life and who will be able to provide a lot of help for my mom (and for all of the rest of us too). When we were done talking she stood up and turned to me and said stand up, you look like you need a hug. I’m going to give you a hug.  And little miss “dont-touch-me” stood up and let this woman hug some of my hurt out too.

Hugs are powerful, little acts of kindness can make all the difference in someone’s day. Do them. We all need to do them. They are happiness gifts.

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Look around

I have spent the last week really humbled by the amount of love and compassion I have seen in the people around me.

If you are able to stop and look around – really look into the souls of the people you walk by – are they living with love or living with fear? I’ve spent a lot of time recently with people who are in fearful situations and yet they are pouring love out of their souls. It is a beautiful thing and it is happiness.

And as an extra moment of happiness, I get to look into this face, these eyes, every single day. How blessed am I?

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Laugh yourself silly

This afternoon the girl (the social animal of our family) organized some friend time for herself. It’s the one downside of living in the country – that friend get togethers take a little more organization. She went and watched a friend play a volleyball game and then they walked to get ice cream. May not sound like much, but it’s a totally different world for her having all that independence.

The boy and I hung out and did some errands while she socialized. That kid was ON today and was cracking so many jokes my tummy hurt from laughing. Not only that, but we sat in a booth at Tim Horton’s for a while and his friends came in – not only did he acknowledge my existence in front of his friends, but I actually got to join them. That was a pretty awesome moment.

Laughter, it really is the best medicine. We needed a good belly laugh. I feel so much better for it, so much happier.

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That November 15 thing 

There are days that come where the last thing I want to do is find a moment of happiness. Sometimes it feels like things just plain suck, but this is exactly why I do this blog – it’s to remind me that every moment has the potential for happiness. Some moments are greater than others, but there is happiness, peace, love, joy to be found in every moment.

Today would have been Dad’s 77th birthday. I still can’t believe he’s gone, I still want to run over and tell him things when they happen, I look for him when I need advice, I just miss him. He really was quite an exceptional man.

When I look back on my childhood I think the greatest gift I had was the gift of unconditional love. I never once doubted that no matter what I did, how badly I screwed up, what disaster I found myself in, or what amazing things I had to celebrate that my parents loved me and were behind me completely. I didn’t realize what a rare gift that was – to me it was just how life was.

I mean sure, there were those years in my teens when they became totally irrational, but besides that they were pretty amazing parents.

So much is changing right now I can’t catch my breath. I need to sit in the moment and yet I don’t want to. But I will.

My happiness moment today is remembering and celebrating my dad, loving and holding space with my mom, and being so incredibly grateful that I have my sister to walk this path with.

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A little tenderness

I was in the parking lot today and I watched an elderly man push his wife to the car in her wheel chair. She dropped something and he stopped and walked around searching for the item and then handed it back. Then he helped her out of her chair and into their car.

The tenderness this couple had towards each other made my heart smile. There are two options I figure – to live life guided by fear or to live life guided by love. I could feel the love flowing off this old couple. That was happiness.

In the middle of chaos and uncertainty there are people who react with love and tenderness. I aspire to be one of those people.

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Change the world through compassion 

That was the message of the sermon today change the world through compassion. 

I needed to hear that.  More about love and compassion, less about fear and hate 

I let fear sneak back into my heart last week. 

Instead of focusing on what we don’t have I need to put my energy focusing on what we do have. Love, family, peace, safety, freedom. And then focusing on what I have to give. 

I should be giving more. I need to give more of myself. If we all showed more compassion towards each other the world would be a much better place. And that would be a world filed with happiness. 

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Bad moms 

I had a girls night with a soul sister tonight. We went and saw Bad Moms with a theatre full of other bad moms who needed an evening of laughter. 

It was so funny. I feel like I’ve had an ass dragging time lately and to just sit and laugh at stupid things for an hour and a half was exactly what I needed. 

I left feeling lighter, happier, and so grateful for my girlfriends. 

Happiness ❤️

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The power of a smile

This morning I was walking through the hospital trying to both look and not look at the people I was passing by. So many people are upset, scared, sad and I never want to infringe on an emotional moment – but I don’t like to walk looking at the ground either.

As I was walking past one lady we made eye contact and she flashed the kindest smile, it lit up her whole face like a sunbeam was shining out of her. It’s amazing how good it felt to be on the receiving end of that kind smile – it cheered me up and left me smiling at the next person I passed. Pay it forward happiness style.

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