The Happiness Project - Post - August 10, Saturday 2024

On Monday this past week, my Seniors Group met as we do each month on the first Monday. Our theme this month was happiness and the members were invited to write in their notebooks each time they felt happy during the month beetween Meetings. When we read off our notes, we put them on the whiteboard in categories:

1.Friends - making and nurturing friendships a priority (phone call, lunch, text, card - try all)

2.Family - visiting with family members (even something small like sending a card or postcard)

#.Nature - taking walks, taking a drive in the country, sitting on the porch or in the yard, pant something, habe some flowers on your porch

4.Entertainments - watching a good tv series, a movie

5.Health- making sure we get vegetables and fruits daily and staying hydrated

6.Spirtual - a spiritual community, meditation, if you are averse to organized relion, try YOGA or as I do - CHAIR YOGA New class beginning in a week at The STATION in Merchantville on Chestnut St. and ongoing classes at LIVE IN JOY in Audubon on Merchant St.

7.Doing good for others - participating in programs to help others (for example, my Meeting donates books to the Free Books Project in Camden at Newton Friends Meeting, Cooper Street) volunteering

8.Pets - a pet from an animal rescue shelter can not only save the pet but save you from loneliness and boredom. They are affectionate, entertaining and fun and in my case, get me out walking!

9.Hobbies - painting, collage, scrapbooking, woodworking, quilting, knitting, crochet, gardening - doesn't matter what the hobby, it is all GOOD

10,sometimes you just need a treat! I don't support unhealthful food choices but sometimes you just need a cookie and tea or an ice cream or a shake (I like a latte') or a smoothie!

11, READ Along with our personal individual lists and examples, I had photocopied articles from AARP on happiness and one from Discover Magazine: Mar/Apr 2024 Discover Magazine, Positive Psychology 101 pg. 36

AARP The Magazine, JulyAug, 2024: One Woman's Search for Happiness, pg. 60 (to be honest I don't see how it would be much different for a man.

A piece of advice I picked up from the New York Times a couple of years ago was to make a note of each time you feel happy so you know what makes you happy, I noted that I feel elated and happy after I go out to lumch with friends, on the way home, the radio plays music I like and I feel content and happy

An old tried and true and studied tip, is to keep a gratitude journal which I do, daily. There is so much to be grateful for and it is a good idea to focus on that rather than on worries or problems.

Well this gives a lot of advice and suggestions In cae you are wondering if I do all these things, yes, I do. For example this morning, I walked my dog with a friend from the neighborhood whom I met through her husband doing yard work. We are now friends and go to Seniors Group together as well as WALKING the dog every day. Writing this blog is one of my many hobbies: and I am getting resources for my next painting to go in a show at The Station in Merchantvile and just this past Monday I put a painting in the Camden County Senors Art Show; so two hobbies! I make fruit smoothies with protein powder every other day to boost my nutrition and I have been a vegetarian for years!

Has all this made me happy! You bet! Do I ever get sad or down in the dumps! Yes I do. I had a couple of unpleasant experiences in the beginning of July that knocked me into a ditch, emotionally, but I WORKED at getting myself back out again. I wrote about it, talked about it with friends, got help, made a plan, and recovered by the end of the month. Feeling sad, feeling hurt, getting anxious are all normal parts of living, but it takes a practice to keep them from taking control of your life, and I prefer to use non-medical strategies for my own occasional setbacks. I have had longer periods that could be called depression, as in when my parents died, but as deep as I fell and as pervasive as my sorrow was, i kept working at it with my strategies and I pulled myself out. During the longer periods I had a lot of pressure from friends to get anti-epression medication, but I had faith in my own strategies from a lifetime of employing them. I just had to endure the sorrow for as long as it took (and it wouldn't be human not to suffer sorrow at such a monumental loss as the death of a parent) even though in case of my parents, it took a couple of years to pull myself back out of the pond of despair.

12, EXPERIMENT- It ocurred to me to ask myself what exactly happiness felt like to me? On my way to my sister's one day, I felt really happy and when I got there, I sat in the car for a few minutes and took note of what happiness felt like. It felt like a blooming in my chest like when a flower opens, and the world felt brighter and I felt a kind of "oneness" with everything around me, the trees, the flowers, the blue sky, the clouds! I felt light and eager and lifted up. That's what happiness felt like to me at that moment.

I hope this list gives any readers who happen on to my blog some tools to keep in your emotional health tool kit! Life is too precious to waste being unhappy or bored - do something and make the most of what time you have! Final tip - keep in mind the word FOCUS and notice what you focus on. You can change your focus just like with binoculars are a radio station.

Happy Trails, Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com