Tina’s Happiness Project v1
Tell me I’m not the only one who reads more than 10 books at any given time…
This afternoon, I started “The Happiness Project” by Gretchen Rubin on my handy dandy Kindle iPhone app and within a few words in, I jumped with excitement without motion on how on-topic the book is with what I am attempting to achieve in this blog:
- “You identify what brings you joy, satisfaction, and engagement, and also what brings you guilt, anger, boredom and remorse.”
- “People teach what they need to learn.”
- “People’s decisions about how to live their lives also affect their happiness.”
- “When asked what they want most from life - and what they want most for their children - people answered that they want happiness. Even people who can’t agree on what it means to be “happy” can agree that most people can be “happier.”
Super on point. When I was asked what I wanted for my kids if I ever have kids, I always defaulted to “I want them to be happy.” When asked what I wanted for my dog, I also instantly replied: “I want her to be happy.” What is happiness? I have thought about this mucho. To me, now, happiness is being comfortable in my own skin and being kinder to myself, being happy is not having a short fuse when doing things, as I am aware now that usually means whatever I was doing was not the right thing to do or done at the wrong time. Happiness is accepting what universe throws my way and take in the experience as is instead of forcing another outcome. Being happy, literally, is being.
I’m sure I sound like all the whoo whoo self help books dominating the shelves these days. Well, accept it, I have read majority of them and I’m browsing them religiously all the time to see if there is anything new for me to absorb.
Ok, back to the happiness project. I have not read the book, I’m 7 pages in only, but I can kind of guess what the plan might entail. First, be aware. That’s not hard as I’ve had ample practice over the last 3 years on that. Even so, I’m constantly still surprised by how little I know myself when I learnt something new that I like/dislike. Once I know what sparks joy for me or make me depressed, then I move on to the next step, which is lights-camera-ACTION!
Today, I had intentionally gave myself more time to sleep because I can feel the exhaustion physically. As I slipped in and out of the many dreams this morning, I felt a power struggle between gratitude and lack. Once I’ve finally woken up, I was determined to do something about the latter feeling and began a series of tasks that rejuvenated me: set the tone of the room (jazz, candles, natural wind and light despite the heavy rain outside), got ready, put on my fav chillax Only Bears and Suzy Zoo t-shirt and made myself a large pot of drip black coffee, fed my dog with the food I have meal prepped for her and assembled a hearty wrap for myself (Cheese sesame naan, grilled carrots, cucumber kewpie mayo curry sauce mashed potato, sunny side up with a generous drizzle of sriracha). Sriracha that I have finally been able to source out of the blue yesterday. It was unavailable to purchase for the longest time in every single grocery store here! Believe me, I have ventured.
These little things are part of the action items of “what gives me joy aka happiness.” They take up time away from what makes me depressed: doom scrolling of Instagram not living, trying to find what I am craving on Uber Eats for one hour and waiting another hour for the unhealthy food to arrive, trying to find a show to watch while eating only to have just started the show I finally found at the end of the meal so I had to open more snacks to munch on for the rest of the show. Sleeping way too late and not having any time to do the things I want to do because it was all spent: not living.
This happiness project v1 will start with giving myself a dose of my own practice. Yep, the next step is the first session of wellness coaching for Tina, vamanos.
