Parenting Tip - How To Be Happy

One of my favorite authors is Gretchen Rubins who wrote The Happiness Project and Happiness at Home. Her ideas are so simple and doable, yet they are so significant in adding to your happiness,   like: get enough sleep.  This is a no-brainer that no one does!

I just read an article about Hank Smith who gave a talk called, The Surprising Science Behind "Supremely Happy" People.  It's a great review--you should click on the link and read it.

I would like to add two more ideas on the subject of "how to be happy". Find something that you can totally be in control of.   This may sound weird at first, but one of the reasons people become unhappy is because of the situations they are in, whether it be financial, relationship problems, health or job issues, or many other things that seem to be totally out of their control.  I have found that if you can find just one thing that you can control in your life, your happiness level jumps skyward.

I found this out early on in my married life.  Situations would arise that were totally out of my control in regards to my husband's work.  Then as children became teenagers, their choices were sometimes not my choices and I really felt out of control.  But anytime this happened, I would find a sewing project to keep my mind focused elsewhere, and I discovered that being totally in charge of how I was going to implement that sewing project, made me feel more in control of other aspects of my life and I could cope and even be happy.

A couple of weeks ago I felt totally out of control and overwhelmed.

My waterbed heater burned a hole in the mattress, which flooded and destroyed my bedroom carpet.  My homeowners would pay for new carpeting, so I planned on re-carpeting the bedroom. But when I removed the waterbed and sold it, I discovered that I had never painted the wall behind the headboard.  So now I needed to paint the bedroom before getting the new carpeting.  BUT, my bedroom has that horrible popcorn ceiling, so since the carpeting was gone and the room cleared out, it only made sense to scrape off the ceiling, then paint, then get new carpeting.

Enter stomach ache.  

We're talking about a major project here.  I don't have time for a major project.  I have company coming for Christmas and I am redecorating and painting the guest bedroom and sewing a king size quilt for the bed.  I don't have time for two bedroom projects.

Enter stomach ache and head ache.

What do I do?  After thinking and thinking and becoming more and more stressed, I talked to a friend and said I wished I could save my bedroom project for January when I would have more time and be looking for something to do. I told her I didn't mind sleeping in the new bed I bought in an uncarpeted bedroom with a crazy paint job on the wall.

 I just wanted the guest bedroom to get finished before Christmas.  Then it hit me!  Okay, just wait on my bedroom project.  Stay on task and do the guest room project.

The relief was enormous. 

My spirits lifted, I felt happy, relieved, energized and proud that I had used SELF CONTROL to help me become more IN CONTROL of my situation.

So the next time you are feeling down, stressed, or out of control--find a project where YOU are totally in control of it's destiny, whether it's a sewing project, book to read, new recipe to try or whatever.  Then DO IT. CONTROL IT.

                                                           Or, use


 to get back on track of where you want to go.


Either way, it's a win-win situation where YOU are in control and HAPPY.

Thanks for reading,
Cathy
PS Have you had a similar experience?  Share your story with us.

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