Do you have enough joy in your life? How can you increase your sense of joy and be happier?
I think the key is to finding joy, is of course, to look for it. In this week’s podcast, I share the story of Dorothy, a woman whose treatment for breast cancer was filled with joy as well as challenges. Sound impossible? You can learn to use the same tools Dorothy has, whether you are facing a dire diagnosis or just another boring week at the office.
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I am working on assembling three years’ worth of blog posts, columns, and notes into a book called (what else?) A Decided Difference. I am also working on jazzing up the website, beginning with adding photos and illustrations to the blog. The real website people are programming. Look for their lovely changes soon.
I needed an editorial and production assistant. Well, mainly I needed someone to help keep me on track and do some of the grunt work. My teenage goddaughter, Annabelle, needed a part-time summer job. She’s a smart girl, good with English, and very artistic. Plus, like most teenagers, she works for cheap.
After two days of working together, we have made quite a bit of progress. You will see some of her photography beginning next week, but today, I wanted to share a drawing she made for me.
See what I mean about her artistic ability? She sketched this out at the kitchen table in just a few minutes. I found the artwork lovely, but it was the sentiment that made me really think.
“You are the compass that guides me to shore.” Isn’t that something we all need?
More than that, don’t we all need to be the compass for others?
Sometimes in this life, we can all feel alone. At times, I have felt lost, like no one understood me. I know how it feels when the shore is out of sight, and I know the fear that I will never find it again. Thankfully, I also know the joy of finally spotting the safe harbor in the distance.
Even if we feel alone, we never truly are. There is always someone who cares, whether you know it or not. I am lucky, blessed beyond belief, to have so many caring friends and a great family to support me. I am also lucky, blessed beyond belief, to have others to care for. I often write about putting up strong boundaries when others need or want too much, but being able to care for others is a huge part of living the charmed life.
Thanks for the reminder, Annabelle! You are my compass, too.
The podcast this week considers some related issues:
The question is not whether you have limitations; the question is what you will choose to do about them. We may not be able to overcome limitations, but maybe we can work around them or simply wait them out.
Are you “depressed” (a state of being) or “discouraged” (a feeling)? Words matter! Happiness is not about making a one-time decision that cures depression. Happiness is a series of decisions.
In lucky podcast #13, I share the story of “Jessie” and her decision to stop taking antidepressants after changes in her life; I examine the tragedy of two life coaches who committed suicide; and I give recommendations of books that can change your life. They certainly changed mine for the better.
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I am so tired tonight that I can barely hold my eyes open. For an explanation of why, I direct you to the blog of my good friend Becky Durham.
http://www.beckydurham.net/june-photos-jump/
Sometimes it is good just to do something fun. And then it is good to rest up from all the fun. Good night!
How many songs can you sing along with? Does it matter whether your home or office is cluttered or clean? What kind of physical environment are you living in, and how might that affect your inner world? These are among the questions we consider this week, along with this one: What the heck is a mondegreen anyway?
This week’s podcast features a first: an interview with Dan Miller of 48 Days to Work You Love, No More Dreaded Mondays, and Wisdom Meets Passion. I was thrilled to sit down and ask questions of my mentor.
Dan and his fan, LouAnn
Here are the links I promised you in the podcast:
Fun with mondegreens: Here and on Wikipedia
Earl Nightingale’s recording of The Strangest Secret: This is the closest I could find to the original recording Dan Miller talks about. I am not affiliated with Nightingale-Conant (yet.)
48days.net is the free community of entrepreneurs and creative thinkers using Dan Miller’s ideas.
If you like Dan Miller’s work, you can support A Decided Difference without any extra cost to you. I get a commission on anything you purchase from Dan Miller if you click on this link.
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Trust is like a sandcastle. It must be built slowly and carefully, and it is easily destroyed. How do we cope with betrayal by “friends?” How do we trust our own judgment after mistakes?
Learning the effective use of two-word sentences can help you stay happy and mentally healthy. Try these! ”Shut up.” Think that’s rude? ”So what?” Try this one, too. ”Stay away.”
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When I was depressed, I completely lost track of what made me happy. I had to play detective in my own life to uncover sources of joy. In this week’s podcast, I encourage you to do the same, engaging your five senses to help you stay uplifted, inspired, and happy.
This is the link to the Harvard Review article about Ellen Langer’s study:
http://harvardmagazine.com/2010/09/the-mindfulness-chronicles?page=all
And here is one of my favorite photos of tenacious plants growing out of rocks:
What are your favorite ways to engage your senses?
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In this week’s podcast, I give you three tools for building the habits of happiness. First, activating your senses can help you appreciate the current moment, instead of worrying about the future or regretting the past. Second, practicing gratitude can help you recognize and claim a “charmed life.” And third, having positive expectations helps make them come true.
Bonus: I made the lemon cheesecake recipe, and it turned out superbly well. Credit Sheryl, the Lady Behind the Curtain. I am putting a link to the recipe here, but do note that I changed the crust. For the crust, I used 1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs, 2 tablespoons sugar, and 1/4 cup melted butter. Otherwise, proceed as directed to get the same results I did: rave reviews. (Note to Sheryl: Yum!)
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Today is my wedding anniversary. I have been married to my best friend, Bill, since May 10, 2008. It was the second anniversary of our first date. We are sentimental like that.
On our first date, Bill and I had lunch and then walked to a nearby park. It began to sprinkle rain, so we ducked into a shelter house filled with picnic tables. We sat and talked about everything imaginable for a couple of hours. We watched a mother robin feeding her babies in a nest under the eaves. All too soon, it was time for me to pick up my daughter from school, and the magical first date came to an end. As time passed, we often reminisced about the rain, the robins, and the hope that was born that day.
When we got married, Bill had two adult daughters. My daughters were aged twenty-three and thirteen. We said, only half-joking, that our marriage was the triumph of hope over experience. We had both had long-term marriages before, and we had both mourned the failure of those marriages. As we anticipated our wedding day, we were determined to look forward, not back.
We still owned our wedding bands from our first marriages. They lay tucked away in boxes, awkward reminders of the past. It didn’t feel exactly right to sell them. It was as though we thought bad karma might be clinging to them. We briefly entertained the thought of giving them to one or the other of the children, but which ones? And we didn’t want to risk that bad karma thing.
We decided to create our own personal sacrament, one that was deeply meaningful to me.
A few days before our wedding, we returned to the site of our first date. I carried a small drawstring bag with our old rings nestled inside. Bill carried a trowel. We knelt under a tree near the shelter house. Bill sliced an opening in the earth, and I dropped the bag containing the rings into it. Bill gently replaced the sod, and we embraced. We symbolically buried our past at the place where our future began.
Happy fifth anniversary, Sweet William. Our marriage has been a triumph of hope. I love you very much.
When I was learning about a church I once belonged to, I learned this definition of a sacrament: an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. A sacrament was something you did to show something you felt. Sacraments, such as baptism or holy communion, were always steeped in rituals.
One by one, my children and I left that church. Yet, even my older daughter, the first to go, still enjoyed the rituals when she visited. I have come to believe that humans have a deep need for rituals, because they allow us to express our meaning with actions. The spiritual is made visible.
I know many of my peers have become disillusioned with religion and/or churches. At the same time, it seems to me that the celebration of secular holidays has blossomed. Halloween was not that big a deal when I was a kid. Now it rivals Christmas in the decorations in my neighborhood. Observing holiday rituals marks the passing of time, the turning of the seasons, and the handing down of tradition to the next generation.
But there is not a prescribed ceremony for every passing, turning, or change in our lives. Weddings conclude with “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” The passage from single to married is publicly acknowledged; the moment is marked. Divorces have no such moment; papers may arrive in the mail announcing your transition back to singleness has been processed. Birthdays are celebrated, but dates of death go unnoticed except maybe for Elvis or another famous person.
This brings us to the idea of personal sacraments, rituals observed by one person, or two, or maybe within a small, intimate group. A friend’s family gathers at the cemetery every new year to “have a beer with mom and dad.” Another friend lights a candle to burn all day on the day her mother died. In another family, eating from a special red plate signifies reaching a personal milestone or attaining a goal.
I think we might benefit from deliberately creating rituals of our own. Intensely personal ceremonies can be actions that have meaning, even if only to us.
I remember two deliberately created rituals that held special meaning for me. The first occurred just over six years ago, as my daughter and I prepared to move into our newly-constructed, post-broken-home house. The builders would pour the cement back porch the next day. We came to the building site, each of us bearing a token chosen for its personal meaning to us.
We knelt in the sand where the porch would go and buried our tokens, a piece of coral from the beach for her, a green plastic frog for me. As we put part of our hearts into its solid base, we blessed our new home. It has been a place of much happiness for us.
The second personal sacrament is a story I shall save for tomorrow, a special day in my world.
