Tuesday, December 15, 2015

2/21 Project Happiness


So it's 6:55 pm and I've been looking forward to writing all day! In fact, there's been a few times earlier in the day when I had the time and desire to write, but I convinced myself to put it off to have more opportunities at gratitude to pick from.

So another little tid bit on this project. The guy said that looking for new things to be grateful will over time change the way we view life, increasing our happiness due to internal changes, not because of external change in circumstance.

As for the recounting of a positive experience, he says the body literally produces more dopamine upon reliving the experience. So, writing it produces the dopamine and it seems that rereading it also can produce dopamine.

In theory I can see how all this would transform anyone into a happy person.

K onto the three new things I'm grateful for today.

1) I'm thankful for the time I had with my therapist a couple years back and the things I learned. There were at least two things that came up today that make me say that. My housekeeper came today and I was so grateful for that and I was equally grateful that I don't feel any guilt with having a housekeeper in my life. None. That was a gift of therapy. (Not that we specifically talked about a housekeeper...) Also tonight my boys were playing football in the family room and laughing and having a great time. I, of course, loved listening to it and was smiling as I asked myself how long the laughing would last before all hell broke loose. Because it always does and it did. (In the form of Porter tackling Deeter in the face and Porter tackling Dallin by digging in his balls. or something like that. Their words, not mine.) In the moment I was very appreciative that I'm no longer afraid to raise my kids. I used o be a real good parent during the good times but a paralyzed, unhealthy mess during the hard times. I'm no longer that way and mainly because I've kicked fear.

2) I'm grateful for music in my home. All three boys are taking lessons by choice and they love it. There's something peaceful and nostalgic about having piano and singing and guitar take place here.

3) I'm grateful for omens and that I'm catching onto them and that they're really putting me on a better path. Dreams seems to be a main source of omens for me.

Onto a positive experience.

Dang this is hard for me. Maybe because my mind operates very literally and I have a hard time differentiating instances of being grateful versus positive experiences They seem very similar to me but because of the very different words (grateful vs positive experience), I feel like they should be very distinguishable situations. Just a peek into my mind...the way in which I make a lot of things harder than they really are.  

I mean, one positive experience is happening right now. Deeter is by my side chatting with me and reading this. He's laughing about Porter tackling Dallin in the boy parts because....well, boys. And boy parts. Also, we have a little Jesus gift box and Deeter just got done writing a couple things down. I'm calling that a positive experience because it's not often that a)Deeter opens up and talks about stuff or b) gets excited about much and he did both of those things when writing his little note. So it makes my heart light up because it's Deeter.

Ok, that's it! I'm really liking this! 

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