Project Happiness Articles — Emotions

Which is worse, to lose someone you love to a long term illness or to lose someone you love unexpectedly? This morning I woke up to the news that a local five year old little girl, Avery, had passed away from a tumor in her brain on Mother’s Day. I had been following this family on social media for the last several months. 

Comparison is an insidious, unhelpful pattern of thinking that we can often resort to when we don't feel good about ourselves. When we feel down or unsuccessful or uncomfortable in our bodies, the world can quickly become a catalogue for comparison. When it comes down to it, all I or you can do is be who we are, so why not start to actually enjoy and appreciate that?

A few years ago I had a conversation with my cousin Stephen. We were catching up over lunch. He said something to me that was initially very offensive, and still sticks with me years later: "You are a really nice person, but it comes off very fake." Taken aback, I asked him to explain more. He shared that my perma-smile and optimistic attitude just didn’t feel genuine. He didn’t connect with my attitude.

You thoughts create a cause and an effect. When you sow a thought, you reap a like result. Those consequences become your reality in which you live. Now when you think of something you send a vibrational message to bring that into your reality - like attracts like.

Everyone wants to be happy, yet no one seems to know how to do it. The act of being happy has sparked a lot of discussion and thousands of studies have been conducted trying to solve the problem with happiness. Psychologists and scientists seem to have found the solution: little habits create big changes and lead to happiness.

We all get down in the dumps from time to time – it’s only natural, and there are a million things daily that can throw your mood off. Sometimes, a particular event results in you just really needing to take some time and embrace the blues. And that’s okay. But when you feel like you're in a slump for too long or for no particular reason at all, the real challenge is to will yourself to get out of it.

Facing mental health issues leaves you caught in the headlights. It strips you of everything you think is essential and forces you to reevaluate your life, and that's what has happened to me. Crazy, I know, but thats how my issues with mental health can alter my thinking. And yet I am not my illness, and every day I strive to take up the challenge to celebrate life for all that it is.

How can we enrich our lives with more positive emotions (without regular lottery wins and frequent honeymoons)? Opportunities, it appears, abound as far and as near the eye can see.

Generous to the server, bought the kitchen staff a round of drinks, made fun of me at the movies, tipped his hat at the old ladies in the street…you know, a true gentleman.

Most people, at least once in their lives, go through a phase of mental and emotional fuzz where things don’t make sense and the daily actions that we do don’t point to an end goal that we wish to achieve.