10 tips for happiness

the last few days have found me in a good mood. this is rare these days. i think that part of it is a new medication, but more importantly, i think that it has been examining how the positive and huge changes that i have made over the last few years. 

so while i am in this good mood, i wanted to share ten tips for being happy:

1. express gratitude. i keep a gratitude journal and every day i make a list of things that i am grateful for. it helps to have positive thoughts in your mind. 

2. set the bar high and expect the best out of life. thinking negative thoughts leads to negative feelings. turn your negative thoughts around and allow yourself to think positively. 

3. don't compare yourself to other people. you are a unique gift on this planet. you are no one else but you. as oscar wilde said: "be yourself everyone else is already taken."

4. forgive yourself. seriously. forgive yourself. you are human. life will be messy and filled with mistakes. and as it says in anne of green gables, "tomorrow is a fresh day with no mistakes in it." forgive forgive forgive your mistakes, your messiness, your imperfections. 

5. be kind to others. pay it forward. it makes you feel good. 

6. treat yourself the way you treat the people that you love (thanks geneen roth ... what a concept!) 

7. therapy. seriously. therapy. if you are chronically unhappy, there's a reason ... or reasons ... and having someone guide you on a healing journey is helpful. that sounded incredibly cheesy ... having someone to listen to you and talk out your issues is beneficial. 

8. see people. go out. see people. socialize. even if it's hard. do it anyway. keep contact with your friends. find a group to join. for me it's choir. i will admit that i have NOT been enjoying choir this semester. but i go every week anyway. it's my community. 

9. "be the lab scientist and not the rat."  http://www.purposefairy.com/ which means pay attention to your mind, to your reactions to situations, your reactions to things that people say. learn your triggers and find ways to cope. strategies for coping will help you reframe the situation.

10. this is the most challenging step (for me). be good to your body. feed it. feed it healthy and nutritious foods. feed it what tastes good to you. feed it what you LIKE. and move your body. even if that means simply going for a walk (yes, i DO listen to you nosy nora). 

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” 
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

being angry is a natural feeling and it's okay to feel angry and to talk through those feelings. nosy nora says it's even okay to be angry with people that you love. including your parents. yikes! but holding onto that anger for a long time and not doing anything with it hurts you more than it hurts the person that you are angry at. expressing that emotion in some way helps you to let it go. that doesn't mean you have to tell the person you are mad at. you can express your anger in many different healthy ways. that's a post for another day. 

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” 
― Dalai Lama XIV

i woke up feeling happy the last 2 days. but i cultivated that happiness by following the 10 steps above. by acknowledging that i have put in the work to change my life. (and possibly by upping my meds. just saying)

“You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.” 
― Jonathan Safran Foer

one of the biggest lessons that i have learned through therapy and through facing my addiction is that when you numb yourself to the hard feelings, you numb yourself to the wonderful feelings as well. when you protect yourself from feeling, you don't get to experience the joys that life is filled with. 

“Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.” 
― Ayn Rand

make yourself important. you matter. did you hear that? i'll say it louder ... YOUUUUUU MATTERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

“All happiness depends on courage and work.” 
― Honoré de Balzac

you wont just BE happy without working on yourself. and that takes time and small changes that lead to bigger life-long change. (another gem from nosy nora)

“When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.” 
― J.M. Barrie

i included that quote because i love the idea of fairies. and i love baby laughs. what brings more joy than a baby laughing!?!?!?!?!???

“So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?” 
― Hunter S. Thompson

one of the first things i remember nosy nora saying to me when i started therapy a few years ago was that i seemed like i wasn't present in my life. i was on the shore merely existing. terrified of the potential storm out on the sea of life. i am trying really hard to be present. it's not easy. but i feel like i am more alive. like i am experiencing life instead of watching it pass me by. 

“Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.” 
― Guillaume Apollinaire

pause and experience your happiness. there's no point in following my steps to happiness if you spend all your time focusing on trying to make yourself happy without enjoying the feeling of BEING happy. 

and MOST importantly, 

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

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secrecy and privacy

“All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret.” ― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

today nosy nora brought up the difference between secrecy and privacy. 

secrecy: the action of keeping something secret. something that is kept unknown by others. 

privacy: the condition of being free from being observed by other people. 

i think that there are much larger differences. i think that secrecy implies shame. captain stressy pants suggested that it also implies something negative. 

“If you have to keep a secret it's because you shouldn't be doing it in the first place” ― David Nicholls

secrets are things that can hurt other people. secrets are gossip. secrets are harmful. 

“Privacy - like eating and breathing - is one of life's basic requirements.” ― Katherine Neville

privacy is a right we all have. privacy means being able to keep things to yourself. privacy means having things that no one else needs to know - things that are just for you. 

“Shame hates it when we reach out and tell our story. It hates having words wrapped around it- it can't survive being shared. Shame loves secrecy. When we bury our story, the shame metastasizes.” 

― Brené Brown

secrets are shameful things that we don't want to bring into the light. private things are simply that: private. 

“If you read someone else's diary, you get what you deserve.” ― David Sedaris

when we invade someone's privacy, we sometimes learn things that we didn't want to know. and the only people who suffer are the ones who invaded the privacy in the first place. 

everyone has the right to private thoughts, private desires, private fantasies, private writing, private space. 

“Here in your mind you have complete privacy. Here there's no difference between what is and what could be.” ― Chuck Palahniuk

we all have private lives. not telling my students about my life at home isn't about me keeping secrets, it's about me having privacy. 

“Privacy is not something that I'm merely entitled to, it's an absolute prerequisite.” ― Marlon Brando

we are all entitled to privacy, even from our best friends, our family, and our partners. everyone needs to be able to have thoughts and desires that are simply theirs for their own minds. nosy nora used the example of sexual fantasies - before the internet and the ability to look up anything and everything, people fantasized privately in their own minds. now when they get "caught" looking at their fantasies online, it becomes a secret ... which implies shame. but there is nothing wrong with having a fantasy. it's not a secret, it's a private thought. 

“Privacy - like eating and breathing - is one of life's basic requirements.” ― Katherine Neville

there is nothing wrong with privacy. we are all entitled to it. secrets, on the other hand, breed shame. so ask yourself, is what you're keeping to yourself a secret, or is it private? 

be kind to yourself, in public and in private,

xoxo

“And who am I? That's one secret I'll never tell...You know you love me.XOXO,Gossip Girl” ― Cecily von Ziegesar

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Maslow

"In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or to step back into safety." - Maslow

i feel like i spend my moments stepping forwards and then backwards again, afraid of change. afraid of becoming a butterfly. i think i am the hungry caterpillar content to munch my way through all the leaves and fruit not worrying about when to spin my cocoon. like i went into a cocoon and came out still a caterpillar. 

stepping into growth is scary. terrifying in fact. and no one can do it alone. nosy nora says we all need each other. it's hard to accept that need sometimes. hard to accept that i'm not superwoman.

dr g. said that moods are like the stock market. that there are ups and downs and sometimes little blips. and that you have to look at the overall ongoing mood - rather than focusing on the downward blips. but man it's hard when you're in the middle of a blip. 

choosing to step into growth while in a downward blip is rather tricky. the step back into safety feels better - even when that safety feels bad. growth and change means stepping into the unknown and that is uncomfortable. 

you can also look at moods in relation to maslow's hierarchy of needs: this five stage model can be seen in the pyramid below. regardless of all the criticism of his theory, i think that it is important to look at the ways in which needs affect your ability to function. worrying about self-esteem and self-actualization when you don't have enough food to eat, or shelter ... well that seems rather difficult. 

"Any thwarting or possibility of thwarting of these basic human goals, or danger to the defenses which protect them, or to the conditions upon which they rest, is considered to be a psychological threat." - Maslow

you can't self actualize when you're working on esteem. and you can't meet your need for love if you are busy meeting your need for basic necessities like food and shelter. 

"Human needs arrange themselves in hierarchies of pre-potency. That is to say, the appearance of one need usually rests on the prior satisfaction of another, more pre-potent need. Man is a perpetually wanting animal. Also no need or drive can be treated as if it were isolated or discrete; every drive is related to the state of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of other drives." - Maslow

so lets think about moods like the pyramid too, with different levels of contentness and enoughness. 

in the case of my moods, the necessities like getting out of bed, eating breakfast, and going to work every day affect my ability to reach a higher level on the mood pyramid. this cymbalta chart is sort of what i am referring to. one day i will figure out how to create and insert my own drawings into my blog. in the meanwhile, this will have to do. 

being stuck in melancholy makes daily tasks a challenge. it makes thinking about life a challenge. unlike maslow's pyramid, the top of the mood pyramid also poses challenges and risks. ecstasy and mania make it difficult to make good choices because you feel invincible. 

now let's look at moods like the stock market like dr. g suggested. 

moods go up and down, and are often affected by external circumstances. the overall trend is what we need to be looking at when it comes to mood. 

how are your moods? have you ever kept a chart? do you pay attention to what brings you ups and downs? try it. and let me know how it goes. 

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

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saving myself

i am my own magic wand. you are your own magic wand. no one can fix anyone else. all we can do is stand by each other while we work on ourselves. 

i often have a feeling of wanting to fix other people. i have an all encompassing desire to help, to save, to assist, to advise ... it's hard to sit back and just watch as someone you care about spirals down into the depths of despair. but the truth is, you can't actually save anyone other than yourself. 

don't misunderstand ... you can be there for your friends and loved ones. you can offer advise. you can point out the things that you observe. but quite frankly, if that person doesn't want to save themselves, there is absolutely NOTHING you can do. 

what we need more of in this world is less fixing and more supporting. more listening and less bossing. more laughter and less lectures. more hugs and less judgement. 

if you have a friend or loved one who needs saving ... stand by them, tell them you are there, and let them save themselves. trust that they can, just like you can. 

no one can go through life alone. we all need each other (says nosy nora). helping is being there. helping is listening. helping is nonjudgmental.

and if YOU are the one who needs saving, it's time to stop looking to other people to be the boss of your life (like that one nosy nora?). only you can make the changes that you want to make; that you need to make. only you can be your own magic wand and live your best life. 


be kind to yourself,

xoxo

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Inspiration

i want to inspire people. i want this blog to be inspiring ... the most amazing thing anyone has ever said to me was that they were able to come out because i did first. that i made it okay, and safe. 

instead of trying too hard to be an inspiration, i thought that i would share with you some of the things that inspire me ...

i spend way too much time worrying about the mean people in my life and what i have done wrong to bring on the meanness. the truth is, it has nothing to do with me. their wounds, their darkness, their struggles bring out a mean and nasty way of treating people that is both beyond my control, and entirely not my fault. 

no one lives in a vacuum with one challenge. no one exists as on identity. our identities are multifaceted, as are our struggles. 

sharing your darkness with others is terrifying and liberating. my biggest fear is that people will leave me if they knew who i truly am. and i have learned over the last year that the people who stay are my true friends. the people who know my darkness, face it, and accept it, are the people who will be here for me for many, many years to come. 

wow. that one gets me every time. enough is in "relationship to what you already have." as a person who is always worried about not having enough and not getting enough, this always stops me in my tracks. i have enough love, enough food, enough support, enough friendship, enough greatness. and yet, i always feel like i will lose it all, so i gather it as close to me as i can get it. i worry about never eating chocolate again, so i feel like i can't get enough of it and i eat too much. i worry about my friends leaving me, so i gather them under my wings and sometimes hold them too tightly. and i reach out constantly to nosy nora, afraid that the connection to her, and the support from her will cease to exist. 

there is no point in getting into loud screaming matches. i spent much of my childhood being yelled at. and i have learned that it is the words you use to stand up for yourself and to speak your truth, not the volume of your voice. 

a process. a big, long, complicated, messy process. healing takes time. do you remember the rice krispies commercial where the mom is in the kitchen reading a book and the kids and dad call from the other room "are they ready yet?" and the says "these things take time!"? and then she splashes herself with flour and makes it look like she worked really hard ... it reminds me of healing and changing. "these things take time" and these things are hard work, but only as hard as we make them. softening yourself to the changes and the healing will allow them to happen. giving yourself time, and being compassionate with yourself will allow them to happen. even though you need to be patient. 

sometimes i just need to vent. period. 

see previous post here on how we treat ourselves. 

we are all in this life thing together, as nosy nora likes to tell me. she also says we all need each other. i have tried for a very long time to do it all by myself - to live i mean. but the reality is that my friends have ignited in me many hopes, dreams, loves, desires, longings, and passion. and i am grateful to all of them. 

i spend way to much time wanting what i don't have, planning how to get it, and working towards that goal. what i need to do is to look at what i already have, enjoy that, and LIVE. 

permission to feel good ... wow. i don't know about you, but i spend so much time worrying about the feelings of other people that i rarely pay attention to my needs or my feelings. and when i do pay attention, it is to all the negative feelings and the hardships of my life. permission to feel good. permission to admit that there are many wonderful aspects of my life. i like that idea ... putting into practice is another story. 

i have been letting go of people and things in my life that do not give me what i deserve. and i have been asking for what i deserve from the people who i don't want to let go. and it is really, really HARD, and really, really IMPORTANT. if you aren't already doing it ... start now ... RIGHT NOW!

waiting to be rich, waiting to be thin, waiting to get promoted, waiting to have kids, waiting to buy a house, waiting for the next thing. waiting for you life to begin. guess what? first, your life began a very long time ago when you were born. and second, waiting isn't living. you have a life, here and now. you have a life worth living because you are worthy as you are. think about it. try it. try living the life you have right now. 

as always ... 

be kind to yourself ...

xoxo

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vulnerability part 2

When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable.

Madeleine L'Engle

today, nosy nora told me that my blog is helping people. she told me that vulnerability, with maturity, means putting yourself out there, opening up, and not getting hurt the way you did as a child. 

I spent a lot of years trying to outrun or outsmart vulnerability by making things certain and definite, black and white, good and bad. My inability to lean into the discomfort of vulnerability limited the fullness of those important experiences that are wrought with uncertainty: Love, belonging, trust, joy, and creativity to name a few.Brene Brown

to stay out of the discomfort of vulnerability, i found ways to numb myself. i ignored my feelings, and i didn't share my stories out of fear of rejection and abandonment. 

what i have learned from allowing myself to be vulnerable, to be heard, and to be known, is that the people who love me - who truly and deeply love me - will stay BECAUSE of who i am, not in spite of it. 

In the beginning, people think vulnerability will make you weak, but it does the opposite. It shows you're strong enough to care.

Victoria Pratt

i care enough to share myself with others. with the people who have earned the right to hear my story. my vulnerability is seen as courage and strength. 

being seen is really scary. like, really, REALLY, scary. being seen means letting my darkness into the light. it means being willing to tell my truths. 

Through my research, I found that vulnerability is the glue that holds relationships together. It's the magic sauce.

Brene Brown

being willing to tell my truths means forming relationships based on trust. 

i hope that you can find a way to "lean into" your vulnerability. 

monarch butterflies are the most vulnerable creature i know. they manage to find their way from canada to mexico, following the path their ancestors took. the route somehow ingrained in their dna. landing on the same trees their predecessors landed on. and then flying all the way back to canada to lay their eggs and start the process again. the eggs are left on their own, and the caterpillar somehow knows to eat milkweed, which is poisonous to other critters. and then it just knows to spin a chrysalis and trust that as they dissolve into a goo, they will weather the storms until they re-form themselves as a completely different creature. 

if a monarch can do all that, then you can share your stories. email me your story and i will happily share it here, under your name or a pseudonym. i look forward to hearing from you. 

be kind and truthful to yourself, 

xoxo

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bossy

i am the boss of me. 

i am in charge of my life. 

i get to make the decisions. 

i decide what i eat and when i eat. i decide what i wear. i decide what i am going to do. i decide what i am NOT going to do. i decide what i think. i decide. i decide. i decide. 

this is all according to nosy nora, of course. 

for me, the idea that i am in charge of my life is both thrilling and terrifying. 

since when am i trustworthy enough to be in charge of anything? i still can't believe that i am put in charge of the safety of children and their education on a daily basis! and now nosy nora wants me to be in charge of myself ?!?!

i really struggle with this idea of being an adult. i still wait for a parent figure to tell me what to do - to rescue me. to make me a dentist appointment (which is why my teeth haven't seen a dentist in a few years). to make an eye doctor appointment. to remember to pay the bills. to clean my house. 

being an adult involves being responsible for yourself. and i hate that. 

as a child, i was encouraged to be independent and responsible. i took care of my own needs by finding people to fill the roles that were missing from my life. i dealt with problems in school by myself. i met with teachers for parent interviews by myself. so i cling to the part that was taken care of for me, like cleaning the house, making medical appointments, paying the bills ... i wait for those things to be taken care of by someone else because i am still trying to be responsible for all the rest of it. 

being an adult sucks. it is terrifying to be in charge of everything having to do with myself and my well-being. 

and at the same time ... being an adult is thrilling ... i get to be responsible for making decisions. i get to decide what i eat, and when i eat, and what i wear, and when i go to bed, and IF i want to do ANYTHING at all !!!!! 


be kind to yourself ... listen to nosy nora and be your own boss

xoxo

ps ... nosy nora if  tells me to be to be the boss of myself, then is she not really the boss?
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dinosaur hunter

dear blog readers, 

when i was a kid, we used to go dinosaur hunting on the beach. we would bring archaeological tools (a screwdriver and a hammer) and we would bang at the rocks until we splintered them in half. they were shale and i was determined to find the fossilized remains of an as-yet-undiscovered dinosaur. 

i did find little tiny fish bone fossils and imprints of shells. which was super cool and only fed my desire to dig for more.

this was when i decided to become an archaeologist. i was going to dig for evidence of the past. i was going to dig up items that would help sociologists to create theories about how our ancestors lived. 

the most exciting thing that ever happened was on a trip to an island. we heard there was a dig there, so my dad took me to see it. i was 12, and it was the most exciting day ever. i was going to meet a real archaeologist and i was going to learn SO much and be inspired and maybe be asked to stay and help with the excavation!!! 

we arrived at the site and it had been cleaned up and there was no one there. however, someone else had been there and left a box with a note. the note said 

"Dear Dr. ____________
i was here earlier this year and i dug up these bones and artifacts. i was going to keep them but i was feeling guilty and my conscious got the better of me. i found them here where i have left the box for you. i hope that you can forgive me and i hope that these bones are helpful for your study."

we looked at the box, we looked at the site. and my dad made the decision to take the box with us. for a few weeks, i was a REAL archaeologist. although i didn't do the digging myself, i was at a dig site and i discovered a box of bones. looking through them, they were animal bones. and since they were found all in one spot, they were most likely some sort of garbage pit. 

when we got home, my dad looked up archaeologists and found one that was local. he brought them the box with the note and the information about where the dig was ... except ... he let me keep the hundreds of years old hip bone of some kind of animal. probably a deer. it sat on top of his tv for years and years. i have no idea where that hip bone is now; it's kind of creepy really. 

i moved on from my dream of wanting to be an archaeologist. i went through phases of wanting to be an environmental scientist, a marine biologist, a ballet dancer, a rock star, and a teacher. 

but now, looking at my process; looking at what i am doing in my life right now, i really am an archaeologist. i am digging through my past, finding artifacts, and holding them up to the light to study how they have shaped me into who i am today. sometimes what i find is boring; just bones in a garbage pile. but sometimes i find an artifact that when i look at it from various angles, i can see so much of who i am and where i came from. 

what does one do with bones of one's past? nosy nora says we can make soup with the bones. the garbage bones would make a very gross soup - which nosy nora suggested i could feed to the bad people who hurt me. *grin* but the good bones, they could make a nice soup. 

there is a poster in my office that says "if you put bad ingredients into your pot, you will make bad soup ... if you put good ingredients into your pot you will make good soup." 

in this case, i don't think there are really good or bad bones in our past. i think that we dig up evidence, and facts, and proof, and experiences, and bones that shaped us. not good. not bad. just bones. 

what have you found on your dig? what are your bones? 

xoxo

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