I’m back. So where were we?

The past two weeks flew by (what a surprise). After wrapping up a couple of freelance writing assignments, I enjoyed some much-needed rest and mental downtime. During my time off, I:

Mostly I rested my brain and my emotions.

By the end of 2018, I was mentally and physically exhausted. I got sick twice (which is unusual for me), and found myself eating junk food uncontrollably and leaving the TV on all day for comfort. I needed a reset. I share this because even though I know better, I don’t think I’m the only one who sometimes runs off the rails when life gets crazy. And while my reset came at the beginning of a new year, it’s something we can do any time of year. Call a halt to “normal” and take a look at where our habits are taking us.

Now I’m creating a new morning routine, working on goals again, and also leaving time for play and unstructured creative time. I’ve got some great books on happiness to share with you, some new links to love, and more trips to France for Field Trip Friday. I feel refreshed and ready to dig in to life again.

Hello, 2019.

So what’s new with you?

Photo courtesy malohan, via Pixabay

It’s a bright, shiny new year. How is it treating you so far?

So far so good, here at Catching Happiness. I’m happy to say my freelance work continues to flow in, and our son recently passed his (very difficult) 2-20 property and casualty insurance agent’s license exam. A child’s success: that’s a happy BIG thing.

The end of 2018 and beginning of 2019 have been a scramble. I’m slowly making the time to reflect on 2018 as well as begin to think about goals and projects for 2019. In November, I’ll have been producing Catching Happiness for 10 years. How is that even possible?! I still remember how exciting and scary it felt to click publish for the first time. I’ll have to come up with a fitting way for us all to celebrate!

 “Flow” was my 2018 word of the year, and it served me well. I worked and traveled more than I have in past years, and I lost a parent. We also added a puppy to the household, and even though Luna’s a year old now, she still requires significant training and supervision—and she’s not always getting it. (My husband’s Christmas slippers didn’t survive a week!) For the past few months of 2018, I’ve felt like I was riding a raft in white water—going with the flow was a fitting image to hang onto.

I’ve been thinking a lot about where I want to go, figuratively speaking, in 2019. My comforting routines have fallen by the wayside and need to be rebuilt. I’m still getting used to life at my new barn. The owner is wonderful, and it will be a good situation in the long run, but we’re still finding our footing. I need to simplify my life (again) so I can pay attention to the things that mean the most to me. (And I have a lot of messes to clean up. A. Lot. Of. Messes.)

I think my word of the year for 2019 is going to be “rise.” It keeps knocking on the door of my consciousness, but I don’t know what it’s trying to tell me yet. Guess I’ll have 12 months to figure it out.

Do you choose a word of the year? How is your planning for 2019 going? What are some of your hopes and dreams for the new year? What was great about 2018, and what lessons did it teach you? Please share in the comments below!

I don’t know about you, but for me 2018 was f.u.l.l. The last few months have been a mad scramble, and I’m planning some time off this week to recover. I’d take more time, but I already have writing deadlines! (Yay for writing deadlines.)

Before 2018 becomes history, I want to say thank you to you, my Catching Happiness friends. Thank you for reading, for commenting, and even for lurking (I lurk on multiple blogs myself). Working on Catching Happiness is one of the pleasures of my life.

Happy New Year, and see you in 2019!

“One of the most important things I've learned during the last fifteen years is how to enjoy and savor the present. When I am writing, I am inside the sound and meaning of the words, playing with them, curling them around each other. When I am eating, I luxuriate in the taste and texture of every bite. When I am alone, I listen to and communicate with the silence within me and the noises and messages of the world around me.

“And when I am with people, I am really with them.”

—Rita Golden Gelman, Tales of a Female Nomad

Prudy, Luna, Tank, and all the humans here at Catching Happiness wish you and your loved ones much holiday happiness, whatever your traditions may be. 

Friday’s quote from Operation Happiness got me thinking about the concept of building a foundation for happiness—the kind of foundation that will support us when we’re deep in grief, facing some of life’s more wrenching experiences, like losing a parent, watching a child struggle, or coping with the serious illness of a friend.

Building a foundation for happiness of this nature involves more than investing in some bubble bath and chocolate, or even a great book and cozy blanket. While comforting self-care rituals are nice (and necessary), by themselves they won’t be enough to support us during our darkest hours.

I went back through the Catching Happiness archives, and I thought about the things that have helped me most during my hardest times, and here are four I’ve found useful in building a foundation of happiness that sustains me. Perhaps they’ll help you, too.

Create and strengthen close personal relationships. Relationships are the number one contributing factor to happiness, according to a long-running Harvard study. I’m grateful that I have quality relationships with my family and my husband’s family. I also have many close friends, and many “virtual” friends I know only online. They’ve stepped in to offer support, love, encouragement and more when I’ve needed it most. I have several people I know are only a phone call or text message away if I really need help (and I hope they know I would do the same for them). It’s easier to walk through the dark valleys when someone walks beside you. 

Determine and write about your personal values. Surprisingly, this is one of the keys to coping well with stressful situations. Sometimes painful feelings result from not doing what someone else expects you to do, or from making hard choices. When you’re tired of struggling, remembering why you’ve chosen to think, behave, and live the way you do can help. Reminding yourself of your personal values can give you strength when you’re suffering.

Treat your body well. Eat healthfully, exercise, and get enough sleep. If you’re run down or sick, it’s much harder to feel happy. If, like me, you have a few nagging injuries, look into how to treat them…then actually do it! Care for yourself the way you would care for a child or someone dependent on you.

Make a list of simple mood boosters. This may seem frivolous in comparison, but there is a time and place for using mood boosters. When you’re knee deep in misery, you’ll be hard pressed to come up with anything that might lift your mood, so now is the time to think about what generally makes you feel happier. See “Five Ways to Feel Happier (in 10 Minutes or Less)” and “The Dark Side” for ways I boost my mood when sadness threatens to overwhelm me.

If your happiness is built on a foundation of deeper values and practices, it will stay with you, running like an underground river even when you face un-happy experiences. Happy feelings will return, and sorrow and grief are temporary. 

For more ways to seek deeper happiness, check out:

“Surprised by Happiness”

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

I’ve been having trouble getting back into the habit of writing for Catching Happiness—maybe you’ve noticed? My life has been…full…lately, and I’m playing catch-up in more than one area. So to ease back into post writing, here are four things I’ve been pondering lately:

Life is too short to sweat the small stuff.
Being around people who have lost loved ones has reminded me that so many of the little things I fret and obsess over (which dog food to switch Luna to now that she’s a year old, for example) are just that: little things. They barely matter now, and won’t matter at all in 10 years. That’s becoming my new rule of thumb: will this matter in 10 years? I’m just worn out with all of the obsessing.

I have no idea how long it takes to do anything.
I just read Dan Charnas’ book Work Clean: The Life-changing Power of Mise en Place to Organize Your Life, Work, and Mind, and took away some helpful ideas. Charnas takes principles he’s learned from interviewing dozens of culinary professionals and executives and tweaks them to apply to work and life outside the kitchen. One thing I’ve discovered while doing one of the exercises from the book is that many of my projects take longer than I think they do. I also forget to factor in the time it takes to transition between activities, make and eat breakfast and lunch, take care of our pets, and shower and change clothes after a workout! All those little things add up to a big chunk of day that I’ve not accounted for, and so I wind up scheduling too many things in a day, leaving me feeling unproductive and defeated.

It’s OK to feel sad.
After my dad died, one of my close friends lost her mother, and a friend from my old boarding barn became dizzy and fell while getting out of a car, and passed away from her injuries. Even though my life is unutterably blessed, I feel sad—sad for my friends, sad that I won’t have these people in my life, sad that we have to say good-bye permanently before we’re ready to do so.

But it’s OK to feel happy, too.
Friday as I was pouring my cup of Barnie’s Creamy Buttery Caramel coffee (no affiliation) and getting ready to sit down and write this post, I felt a little lift of my spirits that I haven’t felt in probably at least a month. Do I dare to feel happy? Yes, I think so. Sad doesn’t last forever, 24/7, just the way happy doesn’t. And that’s OK, too.

These are just a few of the ideas that have been floating around in my head as I try to get back to “normal,” whatever that is going to look like. I’d like to thank all of you for your kind comments and for sticking with Catching Happiness when there wasn’t much happiness to be caught!

What have you been thinking about lately?