Choosing Happiness!

I am enjoying the sense of hope and purposefulness that I am experiencing, now that I have reminded myself and accepted that when I choose to be happy then I end up being happy. When I choose to be in a bad mood then it follows that I get grumpy.

After a month of significantly challenging days, I finally had a breakthrough. My son had been particularly whiny today due to of lack of sleep and after many attempts of trying to soothe him, he persisted in being that way. In the midst of the charade, I took a phone call. Upon realizing that there was no way that I was going to hear my friend above all the crying and whining, I wondered (really loudly), " how do you get someone who is choosing to be miserable to stop being miserable?" In the instant that the thought appeared, I immediately, reflected on my own state over the past few days.

I have been spending the last few weeks feeling tense and anxious about the dawn of my Dad's birthday (February 26) and the anniversary of his death (March 16). After struggling through each day, the "inevitable" bad mood finally descended. My numerous attempts at encouraging myself to feel better always ended up with me thinking that my Dad really should not be dead, he should be alive; He should be alive so that we could do this or that we could do that, etc., etc. Hence, the sadness progressed. I didn't want him to be dead, I wanted him to be alive.

But, today, as I thought about how I could help my son feel better, I started to work on how I could help myself to feel better. I thought about ways that I could extend the good feelings that came with our father-daughter relationship beyond the boundaries of death; ways that I could keep alive the happy times that we spent together. As I pondered those moments, I started to break out into smiles and then laughter. My mood began to change and I remembered that if I kept my mind in a place of thankfulness for the times we had together (good and bad), then I could maintain a posture of happiness each day. I like how it feels when I choose to soothe myself, much more than when I am making myself sad and, as a parent, it is really important for me to continually practice and develop great habits that my child will inevitably model.

All the best...