Happiness Challenge Round 2 May 7th

[Eleanor]

I started cleaning out the house and in 12 hours I have received three offers to get things I have needed for a long time.. What is that??

Serendipity? Grace? It happens enough (tho not ALWAYS) that there are names for it! Well done!

Yesterday I did not manage to exercise - but I DID meditate (Sitting, even!) and
I was grateful for my horse's enthusiasm running across the yard to get her hay.
I was grateful for nice people, even ones I don't know very well.
I was grateful for my daughter's organizational skill!

My happy memory from the day before was spending the afternoon with friends I hadn't spent time with for a long time, drinking coffee on their beautiful back porch.

No random act of kindness (why do I have such trouble with this?)
so 3/5 for me for Saturday.

My happy memory from yesterday is of two little girls eagerly forking up "barbie" birthday cake and frosting after the official cake eating was long over "just one more for the road!" :-)

I am grateful that it will be a pleasant temperature for our visit to the zoo today.
I am grateful that my ankle is healing.
I am grateful that my H took the day off yesterday and got some rest.

Meditation done.
Exercise and random act TBD - (hopefully more opportunities for random acts at the zoo!)

I do seem to be on the Receiving act of a lot of acts of kindness lately tho...

 

[Changing4Best]

"To be human is to be fallible, but it is also to be capable of love and to be able to retain that childlike openness which enables us to go bravely into the darkness and towards that life of love and truth which will set us free".
Madeleine L'Engle

I thought this quote would be appropriate for today, our final official day of this, the 2nd challenge. There may be a 3rd Happiness challenge, but usually there is a waiting period while we gather more new members, so I hope this one will keep us going until....

 

[The Albatross]

Congratulations to all the group 2 challengers. I have been distracted by my own psychobabble, but I applaud every single one of you for your participation and steadfastness. 21 days of attempting 5 things is a solid run at initiating change. It has been a pleasure to read on the sidelines (for the most part) and read along with other like minded people.

21 days might not give us "happy", but it does give us a leg up, eh? ;)

 

[Changing4Best]

Definitely, and for those of us who did 40+ days, double the cudos!!!

 

[Changing4Best]

"Be faithful in the little practices of love which will build in you the life of holiness and will make you Christlike".
Mother Teresa

 

[Eleanor]

DAY 21 (How can that be!)

Exercise, done!
Meditation, Done!
Looking for a random act.

I am grateful for new timers on my hoses so I can start the water and walk away!
I am grateful that my kitty feels better today.
I am grateful that there was not so much to do volunteering this AM.

My happy memory from yesterday was my daughter spotting the balloon animal making clown lady and BOLTING down to the street to get her balloon rabbit made!

 

[Eleanor]

Happiness Advantage - last chapter.

I have struggled with this one - because it is about social support. And the fact is that since PTSD has come into my life I my social contacts have dwindled to almost nothing. So this chapter really really felt like it was "aimed" at me. And not in a good way. But that is because of this unfortunate tendency to take helpful information and turn it into a reason to think I am BAD. Fighting the slide to badness has kept me from writing about it. Until today.

Anchor says that the biggest ticket item on the list of happiness nurturing strategies is forming social bonds. (I read this and get depressed) A lot of us struggle with social ties for a lot of reasons. The really reassuring news by the end of the chapter (read the others in one sitting, dawdled through this one over a week!) is that it doesn't have to be deep, or longstanding or anything like that to have a beneficial effect. Smiling at someone walking down the hall is good. Saying "Hi." is good. Small interactions are good. REALLY good. The effect lasts for an hour or more after the encounter. And you can get a lift out of just being around people who are having a good time (funny movies comes to mind.) The contrary is also true - that you can get brought DOWN by negative people. So in the interests of one's own health and happiness it is good to limit our exposure to negativity to what we can withstand without a lot of effort into maintaining our own state.

The OTHER good news is that what we are doing HERE is really really important - and has a multiplier effect. We influence people without knowing we do. So that smile, encouraging word, compliment ripples out.

The story he starts this chapter with is this:
When training new firemen this one department has a "fire maze" they suit up the newbies and send them in to "rescue" a dummy in the middle of the maze. They have an hour's worth of air, and it is not a very big maze, and they are told someone will come and get them at the 1/2 hour mark. The only two instructions the newbies get is "one of you must always keep one hand on the wall, and never let go of each other." The pair of novices get sent into the fire. Inevitably, they lose the wall and let go of each other. 45 minutes later, when each of the new guys is still wandering around alone and blind the experienced guys go in and get them out. The moral is : NEVER NEVER FOR ANY REASON LET GO OF EACH OTHER. (And there are no dummies in the maze except for the newbies who don't know they have to stick together.) It is apparently a very effective teaching exercise. Anchor universalizes the rule to say that we are always better off sticking together in difficult circumstances.

For those of us who were injured by people who should have been our buddies, this is a difficult teaching. It is difficult because it starts from the place we would like to get to - being in the company of a group of people who we can and SHOULD trust. I think we have such a group here. It is a good place to start.

What I have taken away is this: That trust is something that must be built - and that it should not be expected to yield perfect results. Even trustworthy people screw up from time to time. Mostly they don't. And when they do, the recognize it, apologize, try to make amends, and move on. And if WE are trustworthy people that is all that is required of us too. Admit when we are wrong, recognize it, apologize, try to make amends, and move on.

And it is worth it.

So I am putting out the next 21 day challenge invitation today. Starting June 1.
All are welcome to join me!!

 

[Froggie]

((((Eleanor))))) love the story about the firemen newbies - quite a good lesson

 

[zaniara]

For those of us who were injured by people who should have been our buddies, this is a difficult teaching. It is difficult because it starts from the place we would like to get to - being in the company of a group of people who we can and SHOULD trust. I think we have such a group here. It is a good place to start.

Thank you so much Eleanor for sharing this and I agree! And this is exactly what this challenge has started to do for me: "forcing me" to interact more with people and try to stop my old patterns of behaving: which was very much like a scared horse running in to the fire, or those firemen letting go of the others in panic(since my panic has so much to do with what PEOPLE did to me earlier in my life). It was a very good aphorism! It helped me understand this better. I do however have some difficulties getting used to interacting more, but I talked it over with my therapist and I now all those "new problems" I am having are just something I need to work my way through.

SO grateful for this experience!

 

[Changing4Best]

I did a random act of kindness without even thinking I was doing so, but I was. YEAH! (It was that my neighbor asked me if one of my other neighbors was in while she knocked on her door, and I said, "Did you check to see if her car is here?").

 

[ms spock]

What does TBC mean ms.Spock? :)

TBC = To be Completed zaniara.

 

[ms spock]

I fell apart towards the end and didn't do the last few days in terms of reporting in. My computer broke down. I did do belly dancing on Tuesday, Wednesday nights. I did yoga Wednesday morning and Tai Chi Thursday night.

I applaud all participants. Great to see how people stuck at this.