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The Healing Power of Happiness Lists - Simply Woman

By on March 24, 2015
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By Colette Baron-Reid

Dear sparkly you,

Happy Spring! It’s official! (or, Happy Fall for my Down Under tribe).

I love the change of seasons, and I especially love those intoxicating moments of hope when the weather begins to behave like it’s really going to give you what you want. Just a few consistent sunny days with temperatures that coax you out of your heavy coat, reminding you how much you actually do love the outdoors and can hardly wait to get out there and breathe.

I have decided to forgive the weather gods for the trick they played on my Connecticut home on the official day of celebration. Spring entered with a fluffy bang dumping 7 inches of snow on my hopeful gardens, but such is the way of things. I have learned to look for the beauty and the good lately in spite of conditions beyond my control.

This morning I woke up wondering as I do once a week what I would like to share with you and encourage you to share with all of us. What can we learn as a community by sharing our experience strength and hope?

Someone asked me why I keep writing my blogs every week considering I don’t use them to “market” anything.

My reply was “to stay connected.”

“Even if no one reads it?”

“Yup”.

“Do you read all the comments after?”

“Yup- it’s an amazing conversation that happens- respectful, no cross talk, people writing really beautiful intimate stuff.”

I ran across this quote that describes this so well by one of my favorite authors Ann Lamott:

“Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.”

I feel that we’re like that – me writing and you reading, then you writing and us reading and sharing.

It’s a beautiful thing.

In 6 weeks, including a call I got yesterday, I am counting now 4 significant deaths in my life- all meaningful, not from the periphery of other people’s stories, although there were a couple of those too, but from the foundations of mine.

Sometimes I feel like setting up the spare bedroom downstairs for the spirit of Bad News, since he/she keeps knocking at my door. (I change my mind on that one pretty fast. I don’t want to feed it and anyway that would mean I would be a terrible host.)

I know my subconscious holds my patterns and outer events will trigger them, wake up old ideas that have no truth to my current reality in spite of the fact I feel and embody the original experience as if it was happening right now.

This is the same for all of us.

I never saw my mother cry and she didn’t like it when we did. It was the way she survived the war and although I understand it with compassion today, there is still a part of me that expects to be punished for being sad and unproductive.

The background of my world lately has been rocky but that doesn’t mean my life was reduced to those things. Life is richer than that. There has been loads of laughter in my home too.

Whatever it is- whether we’re affected by the unruly aspects of outer conditions or by the storms of our inner world, the journey doesn’t stop nor does it have to only be about one thing.

Grief can be accompanied by joy, disappointment by wisdom, sadness by compassion, isolation by creativity, and powerlessness by faith. We can be happy and mindful now in the midst of this “full catastrophe” of a life, not when it brings us to the sacred cows of destinations – the future. We make our future now, in how we respond to the messy fullness of life.

Every morning without fail I make my coffee, bring Marc his in bed, play with Sebastian and settle in to meditate. I begin the exact same way – I smile and think about what I am grateful for and what makes me happy. It doesn’t take away from the other things that are inviting me to experience. It’s not insulting to the memories of the ones that have crossed over nor to the deadlines of projects stacked up on my desk.

There are moments in meditation where I love my life with intensity, I am feverishly grateful, and inspired, and others where I’m wondering if my pants will still fit me since I let my eating go to hell when Beanie died.

I write about it. I write about happiness and wholeness and what it all means and sometimes it’s just garbledy goop and other times I find writing plugs me into my Higher Power and the fabric of the universe lights up reminding me that my tiny thread means something in the giant scheme of things.

Other times I am just amazed at how happy I am in spite of everything.

Then I go about my day facing it all as it is and not how I wish it could be. I don’t care that it’s not easy. Not today anyway.

So I’m going to share with you how I write what makes me happy today and I hope you’ll share the same way after! If you’re having a tough time lately imagine you’re joining in a fun sing along on our ship together. It’ll make you feel better and snap you out of the idea you’ve been dealt the wrong hand in the game of life, or that you’re crappy at manifesting, or unlovable or entitled to things somebody else got, or a victim of circumstance or afraid you won’t find your purpose or boyfriend before it’s too late.

These are happy making moments, things, and experiences for me in no particular order in stream of consciousness style:-

“Deer on my lawn, birds at my feeders, mourning doves hooting and cooing softly while lined up on the tree outside, seeing the ocean from all our windows, fresh ground light roast coffee, regular pooping, (omg did I say that?), sunshine, the sweet anticipation of Coco’s arrival, goat cheese and apples for breakfast, Sebastian buried beside me in blankets as I write, Marc’s happy face when he’s inspired by his creative work, Rosetta stone Spanish lessons and feeling that music, music, music might just burst out of me at any time today.” PHEW that’s it.

It’s interesting to note what I didn’t talk about. Did any of that erase the turbulence?

Not really, but you don’t notice the storms and swells as much when you’re focused on the happy and the Light.

Ok your turn!

Loads of love fellow shipmates…

Always and forever

Colette

 

Collette Baron-ReidColette Baron-Reid is an intuitive counsellor and founder of the Master Intuitive Coach Institute. Her book, “Weight Loss For People Who Feel Too Much”  is available on Amazon and in book stores everywhere! colettebaronreid.com

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