What Makes You Happy?

Are You Your Own Stumbling Block to Happiness?

Hello Blog Family! It's been a hot minute since you last heard from me. 

Thank you for your patience while I made a huge move, relocating house, home, hearth and heart. As you can tell, this move was a big deal for me, moving far away from my family. This may seem counterintuitive to my happiness but the joy I have already found after just two weeks in my new home far outshines any shadow of sadness that might have been lingering. 


A couple is seated on the floor at the threshold of their front door, kissing.
https://unsplash.com/@taiscaptures

5 Things Making Me Happy This Week


For that reason, I wanted to share with you the pleasures I have gained from setting up home in a far away place:


  1. Finding new interests that excite ME:

First off, the emphasis is on 'me' because without my own pleasures in life, I have very little joy to impart to others, whether intentionally or by exuding my vibe.

It's not necessarily big events or material possessions for me, it's the miniscule shift in awareness.

When I am attuned to my surroundings, the cognitive alertness of gratitude is heightened. When I say 'attuned to my surroundings', I mean noticing the tiny - the glint of sunshine on a dewy leaf; the whooshing sound of wind through the leaves or, more sensorial, the feel of the chill water tickling my toes.

You see, we've moved to a coastal village and, although forests and trees are my sanctuary, I am finding new experiences that bring peace to my inner being. New experiences in surroundings I am not customarily comfortable in - paddle boarding, sand-in-toes beach walks and ice cold ocean waves. But these are stimulating my appreciation for the unknown and undiscovered secrets of new life.

I've spoken of the sanctity I find amongst trees quite a bit in my memoir, En Route, and it’s just opened for preorder at this link! Release date February 2022.

    2. Witnessing the deep satisfaction of seeing my husband thrive:

I was really surprised at how deep a feeling of satisfaction I got after seeing the pleasure in my husband as he enjoyed the activities that bring him contentment. I'm not a fan of boating or fishing but he is, and accompanying him gave me the gift of appreciating his joy. 

There have been a couple of experiences where this has happened in our relationship before, I've written about them here and have been just as surprised to discover them then, as I was now. 

Living on the water has always been my husband's dream for as long as we've been together. I've known this from day 1. In fact, an interesting take on manifesting one's life is that, as a school girl before I met my husband, I told my friends that I wanted a man who enjoyed water sports! Strange, as I'm more forest than ocean loving. But when I met him, we enjoyed going to the beach and water-skiing just about every weekend. Now we're back to living the life we both imagined living!






    3.The sweetness in anticipating family visits:

The build-up to expecting family for a visit is made all the more celebratory with the plans we make to create happy memories. 

Memories don't just happen.

Planning for them, makes them happen.

And it's in the planning that we get to anticipate the joy of happy times together. Our first visitor was our youngest son and our second visitors were our oldest son and his family. Both visits required different outcomes. Both visits were highly anticipated by my husband and I as we carved out experiences that we thought each of them might enjoy. This delighted us as much as it delighted them to engage in experiences they couldn't participate in at home.


    4. Re-Inventing a new life, meeting new friends and neighbours:

Research shows that the cells in our body renew themselves entirely, every 7-10 years. 

https://www.science.howstuffworks.com Has a great explanation under the heading:
Know yourself; love yourself; be true to yourself - read more at the link below or read the brief summary next.


What Frisen found is that the body's cells largely replace themselves every 7 to 10 years. In other words, old cells mostly die and are replaced by new ones during this time span. The cell renewal process happens more quickly in certain parts of the body, but head-to-toe rejuvenation can take up to a decade or so.

That means a new physical vessel for us a good few times over the longevity of our lives. So why not new character-casting as well? Now don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about shallow pretense of someone we are not, I'm talking about selecting experiences, friends and goals in alignment with new expectations for our new lives.

What new endeavours would you pursue if you didn't put any limitations on yourself?

https://unsplash.com/@basglaap

    5. De-cluttering - Fresh Outlook; Letting Go:

Confession: I am a hoarder! Not the obsessive unhealthy type but WOW, do I hold onto stuff!

Why? I had to ask myself this repeatedly. And not just while I was packing up at our old home, but unpacking in our new home too.

And I came across a truth, a discovery which I think might apply to a lot of us.

It's not so much the stuff that we want to hold onto, as much as the memories that the stuff brings. I know this to be true of a coffee mug I was keeping - not even my mug! It belonged to my son which he bought on a trip overseas - I was nowhere near at the time because he was a young adult traveling with friends. I WASN'T EVEN PRESENT WHEN HE BOUGHT THE COFFEE MUG! Yet I wanted to keep it because of a funny travel story he told us relating to the infamous mug. Why? I ask again. Because, as his mother, I wanted to experience every facet of his life. I didn't want to let go of the fact that he is my baby. And so I realised that it was time for me to let go. To let go of outdated thought patterns, material possessions that no longer inspire admiration and a lifestyle that no longer suits my new outlook.


I trust you've enjoyed our little sojourn and are inspired to re-evaluate your priorities in a brand new way of life.


💬 I thrive on being inspired by other people’s feel good stories so let's start a conversation in the comments and share our newfound inspiration with each other.

Recap:

I do hope you enjoyed the fresh perspective of each of our Guest Bloggers over the last 5 weeks. Let me know in the comments what you enjoyed about their articles and I'll be sure to give them your feedback.

ICYMI Here are the respective links to each article:

Gentle Loving Kindness by Janice Melmed






Remember to subscribe so you don't miss out on our life hacks and relationship tips each week. 


Elora is a relationship writer with tips that empower you to build greater relationship success.

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