Hello and welcome to week 4. Thank you so much for hanging in there with me. I appreciate all of your patience with me over the holiday season. This week there will be this post today, and one on Sunday. I hope you all had a really great Holiday, and will have an amazing New Years. I know I'm ready for 2020 to end. Do you have any New Years resolutions you'd like to share? What are you snacking on this week? I have a bowl of leftover jambalaya, and some water. Are we ready? Lets hop in!
This week Id like to talk about finding happiness and harmony in life with all of the tasks, jobs, stressors, and responsibilities we have in life. This somewhat mixes in with what Ive talked about before. Finding happiness and harmony in life is very important. We all can feel overwhelmed with everything going on. Sometimes it feels down right impossible to keep up with work, family life, cleaning, and our other tasks. Sometimes the days seem to bleed together. We go into this autopilot mode. I know I get into feeling like I always have so much to do. I feel like I don't have enough time to get everything done. The thought of even sitting down to relax sounds laughable. For years I was in this mode. It became really easy to forget that finding that happiness was a priority that I needed to keep to myself and those around me. When we forget to find these things, it affects us in ways we may not be able to recognize. We can become irritable. We can become down and feel like you're in a continuous loop. This happens to the best of us. To all of us. I think a lot of us have those friends/family that seem to have it all together. They seem to have a better house, items, have things more together, a better life. Let me tell you, they struggle too. We all fight our own battles that others don't know about. We all see things others have and feel a bit jealous. That's normal. We can get stuck in ruts. We can get stuck in these constant routines that may have worked at the beginning, but need to be updated. Sometimes when we are in these routines that need updating, we can feel unhappy. When we get these feelings of being unhappy, we feel like we cant get out of them. We feel like, even though we aren't happy, it makes others happy, so we forge on. Ive recently talked to a friend of mine who said that hes in this routine with family life and work. He stated that he stopped being happy a while ago, but he just kind of gave up on feeling happy, because of what others need from him. That absolutely broke my heart. I thought, how sad to give up on your happiness. I understand needing to take care of others, but I refuse to believe that our happiness must go. That happiness and harmony must be something that needs to be sacrificed.
So how can we find it? Even when it feels so impossible? I don't have an exact answer. The short of it, is that its different for everyone. Everyone's happiness is different. Priorities are different for individuals. What kind of things make you happy? Are there certain people who make you happy? Activities? What feeds your soul? These are things that are soooo worth exploring. I believe that with everything I have. It has taken me a long time to figure that out. But that's ok. As long as its something that you do figure out and act on, its never too late. I don't care how old you are, what your family life looks like, what responsibilities you have, I really think you can find at least a sliver of happiness and harmony. I, myself fell into this rut. I love my family and friends. I wasn't unhappy with those around me. I found that I was lacking a different kind of happiness. Happiness with myself. I would get up, go to work, come home and clean, help the kids with homework, get them into bed, do business, and go to bed. It really hit me that something was off when I was just feeling so blah. I found myself going with the motions. I lost that personal happiness. My husband started asking me what I wanted to Christmas or my birthday, and I didn't have an answer. I didn't know what made me feel happy for myself. So, I started small. I remember that I used to love reading. I got a mystery book. I intended to space it out, but I read it fast, for hours. I loved word puzzles. So I got some. I would do it on car rides. I would do it in my room locked away for 5 minutes. Then I started running. I did it for exercise, but it became more than that. It made me feel good. Less stressed. So I scheduled it into my day. Now its part of my routine. Then I started trying meditation, which I like, but I'm bad about keeping up on. But I just keep trying. Then Don started doing things too. He enjoys playing his games on his computer. He would do that as his self care. I completely support it. I know he needs his time too. He feels just as busy. Its just as important for my partner to feel like hes happy and taken care of. My advice is to start small. Try your best not to see it as overwhelming. I know it can seem like its one more task to add to your busy schedule. Self care is absolutely necessary. If you're starting on this journey to find your happiness, that's something that's so exciting. Enjoy the ride on finding what makes you happy. I'm not just talking about something fun you like to do as a hobby. Do this in all aspects of your life. Discover what makes you happy in your everyday life, your family life, your love life. Go on more dates. Figure out games that the family will like. Find your favorite thing to by yourself.
So how do you start? I'm really into schedules. It can seem tedious and like a lot of work, but it helps you keep organized. That definitely gives me an idea of what my day needs to look like. I do my best to follow it. I find that I print them out for the kids, and let them fill it in themselves. They love it. It gives them a sense of keeping track of their day. You need to schedule in your self happiness times. Put meditation on there. Put doing your word find on there. Put your date on there. Make it happen. It may take some time to keep up with it, but you'll get there. Write down a list of things you're interested in trying. Go through the list. Some things you may not like as much, and some you may really love. Enjoy the journey. Write a list with your family too. Try new walking paths and hiking areas. Build snow forts and have snowball fights. In your love life, same thing. Write down new things to try. Write down dates you want to do. Make it happen. Don't just keep wishing for change. Make the change. The list of tasks will always be there. Is it terrible if the floor doesn't get swept that day? Can the bathroom go one more day without being cleaned?
These changes/challenges can seem overwhelming to implement. Our happiness will give us harmony. If were happy in all aspects, it can change our lives. We've recently made some smaller changes, and they made a huge difference. Finding happiness can require some changes, self exploration, hard conversations, and time. I promise you, its worth it. You owe it to the person in the mirror to feel it. Don't throw in the towel for happiness in every aspect of life. It wont change overnight. You'll slip here and there, but keep at it. Its forever evolving and changing. You'll have to reassess often. I don't care how old you are, ask yourself if you're happy in all areas. If not, figure out why. Figure out how to change it. Then watch your life change for the better.
Thank you for hanging in for another week. A brand new one will come out on Sunday. I hope to see you then. Please feel free to reach out with any questions or suggestions. Thank you for you're continued support. Ill see you soon.