Ever wondered why New Year Resolutions don’t work?
Want to know what you can do about it?
Find out with our 3 part mini-series!
And please let us know what you think, via the comments box.
Thanks!
Clare
Are You Ready For A Clear-Out?
Sometimes I find myself feeling stressed, for no obvious reason. Things can be going well, it can be sunny outside, but I’m still feeling grumpy and generally fed up. “Irritable” would be a charitable adjective to describe the mood!
It took me years to realise that the biggest trigger for this, for me, is clutter and mess.
Now, don’t get me wrong – with two small boys, I don’t aspire to living in a show home, but there is a level of “out of control untidiness” that helps me have a seriously short fuse.
And I’m also one of the world’s best procrastinators, when it comes to sorting through stuff and clearing out.
Not a great combination.
Anyway, yesterday hit one of those short fuse points and I could feel myself getting more ratty and unreasonable with each breath, as all I surveyed seemed to be mess and clutter.
So I asked someone to look after the boys for an hour and focused on just one room – the worst one. And I got stuff sorted. Just an hour, that’s all it took. A deep breath, diving in and a focused blitz, with a reward at the end. It’s far from perfect, but it’s back down below the danger levels and I’ve lost that feeling of overwhelm.
For me, it’s a fact that decluttering – having a good clear out – be it a single room or the whole house – is wonderfully cathartic. It’s a great way to release the past, that I might have been hanging on to, and create space for the future.
Though it’s a job I rarely enjoy while I’m in the middle of it, letting go and clearing out gives me such a boost that I can smile for days on the back of just an hour’s clearing out.
So I’ve now got 3 bags of stuff in the boot of the car, to go to the charity shop, next time I’m in town, I’ve found all the menacingly lurking unpaid bills and I can actually see the floor (and my desk!) in my office again.
And I was wondering, is there anything you would like to clear out and declutter, to feel happier? How about sharing your thoughts via the comments box?
The Dangers Of Hindsight
I’ve just spent the last hour on a train, sitting next to two historians, and their conversation reminded me of the dangers of hindsight.
They were both immaculately dressed in near-matching pinstripe suits, both casually carrying identical brown leather brief cases. One was early sixties and the other seemed to be in his thirties. At first, I took them to be lawyers. But as the conversation unfolded, their passion for academia became clear.
The topic that got them most excited was the history of religious sociology – understanding how a culture’s religious beliefs influence the political decisions.
It was a fascinating and enlightening conversation to overhear, as they discussed the latest research methodologies to analyse the past.
But it got me thinking: you don’t have to be a historian to get stuck in the past. (No offence to historians!)
We all have our own, unique strategies for going back in time to make sense of events. The problem is that too many of us get stuck there, going over and over things in our mind, as though we’re expecting to be able to change them.
We get so stuck analysing the past that we forget to live in the present.
Yet the present is the only place we can ever change.
It’s the only place we have any power or choices. It’s the only place we can have fun or feel love.
Learning from the past is important, but surely it’s not important enough to risk missing out on the life you have today?
Are you ready to come back to the here and now?
Is It Finally Time To Speak Your Truth?
What’s on your mind?
How often do you “bite your tongue” or “hold your peace”, hoping to keep everybody happy?
Do you ever walk away from a situation, wishing you had said more?
Do “just the right words” usually come to you 5 minutes after the conversation has ended?
The problem with all this is it doesn’t really keep anybody happy. Sure, it might have prevented a disagreement, but who says that would have needed to turn into a row? And how do you feel, when you walk away, knowing you didn’t get to make your point? Usually it leads at least to frustration. If it happens on a regular basis, it can lead to resentment, anger and even self-worth issues.
But what can you do about it? [Read more…] about Is It Finally Time To Speak Your Truth?
Whenever You Have A Choice…
… choose happiness.
… and the catch?
You always have a choice.
That’s a message that some people don’t want to hear.
How often do we go around saying things like, “He made me so cross!” or “She just winds me up!”
When did we give these people power and control over our emotions?
There’s a little fact about how emotions work and it’s the opposite of what most of us believe.
Only you can choose whether or not you experience a particular emotion.
Sorry! No one else can choose for you.
Of course, they can provide some pretty strong stimuli to get you feeling worked up / hacked off / at the end of your tether, but ultimately the emotion you choose is just that – the emotion you choose.
So in every situation you experience, you have a choice: to go for the yucky, not feeling so happy emotion, or to opt for the happier one. Only you can decide.
Happiness is a sliding scale. It’s not about having the proverbial brown stuff hit the fan and responding with rapturous joy. It’s about climbing a few steps up the “feeling good ladder”, rather than sliding quickly down the “feeling worse snake”.
The great thing is there’s no right or wrong. It’s entirely up to you what you choose. And given that you’re old enough to be reading this website, you’ve also had enough life experience to know whether you prefer to feel happy or sad.
So my challenge to you, just for today, is:
Whatever happens to you today, make sure you choose whether or not to feel happy about it.
And when you choose happiness, just notice the difference that makes.
Why Colouring In Can Make You Happy
The simple act of picking up a set of colouring pens or pencils can make you feel happier.
Sounds too good to be true?
The fact is that when we’re feeling low, it’s often because our logical left brain is hard at work, over-analysing and worrying about things.
Getting even mildly creative, with colour and patterns, helps you switch to your right brain thinking, which is often better at solving problems and will help you let go of thinking too much.
So you’ll feel better.
You don’t even have to get as creative as drawing or painting to achieve this. Colouring in someone else’s pictures can have the same effect – with less stress and embarrassment, if you believe what my art teacher told me about my inability to draw “even a cat”, back in my school days!
Looking for inspiration?
Try colouring in mandalas. They’re geometric patterns that lend themselves beautifully to completely letting go of rational thought and relax, which will help you switch off and feel happier. It’s highly therapeutic! Here are some great “grown up colouring books”:
Examples of mandala colouring books
Have you tried this one out? What do you think? Please do share via the comments box!
Thanks,
Clare