Finding Happiness in Being Grateful

If I was to be very, very honest with you, I would tell you that for me, the last few weeks have been shrouded by a dark cloud. It’s not that there has been anything in particular ‘wrong’ per say, I’ve just been very fed up. It has seemed like the simplest of things have been difficult to cope with. I’ve found my temper with the boys become shorter (much shorter) and I’ve been spending most evenings sobbing. Simply sobbing. My poor husband has tried his best to be loving and supportive, which must be hard given that he has only got soggy cuddles in return and not much else.

I’m trying to cheer up.

In my heart of hearts I know I’ve simply got a case of the blues and I just need to look after myself better, relax a little more, get more sleep and try to be a little bit more positive about things.

I’ll be right as rain soon, so don’t worry peeps.

In the meantime, I’ve noticed that lately, while listening to people around me talking about their lives and general events, I keep hearing versions of what seem to be pretty much the same thing, like some kind of theme is coming through;

Being grateful.

One of my friends recently spoke of how when she found a moment to ‘thank the universe’ for something good in her life, something else fabulous immediately happened. Then when she thanked the universe for that, two more happy events occurred.

Last week my Mum even had a book published (her first finished piece) on Kindle and paperback, which you can purchase here, all about being grateful.

I haven’t read it, it being a ‘religious text’ and all, but from the blurb I’d say if one was that way inclined, it’s a very inspiring read. It's all about prayer and trying not to come to God with a list but rather to be thankful for what he has already provided.

It seems to me that whoever you are, however you see the world, whomever you feel is ‘in charge of things’, as it were, if we take a moment to be grateful and to dwell on the good things, the happier and more successful (however you might measure that) we become.

There’s a great Ted Talk about being grateful.

And there is some excellent advice here about learning to be more grateful.

It makes perfect sense to me that the more time we spend thinking about the great things in our lives, the happier we would be.

Of course, in doing so we have less time to dwell on the crappier side of things, so we naturally become less miserable.

Even cynical old me has watched miserable people grow sick and weary under the pressure of their bitterness. Like their own bodies couldn’t cope with the negativity and literally gave out under the weight.

If only they could’ve just cheered the hell up!

Being angry and miserable will never do us any good, but happiness, smiling, laughter and hugs are all things that have proven healing powers (Google it if your not sure there's scientific proof).

oh dear, I've quoted Oprah :/

Also, I feel I should add, that I spend a lot of time looking to the future. It drives me to distraction and I so wish I could live in the moment more. I know I'll never be happy while most of my efforts are spent thinking things will be vastly improved in a few months, when the house is done, when the garden is finished, when we've saved up for that, when we've paid that debt off, etc, etc. The moments I feel actual happiness are the moments when I stop. When I stop thinking and just be in the moment, usually with my boys, just playing or simply watching them play. I feel like if I carried on like this, moping about the things that aren't good enough yet and waiting for certain things to improve, I'd look back to find grown men. I'd miss it. Children really do grow too fast. My littlest guy was five last week. Ridiculous! How did that happen? I definitely need to spend less time sulking and more time just enjoying the day to day stuff.

I love this idea.

So this is what I’m grateful for;

My two little boys, their enquiring minds and ceaseless zest for life.

That my children, my husband and I, are all healthy.

My loving & supportive husband.

That we can afford to pay the bills.

Family.

Great friends.

A small breeze on a warm day.

Birdsong.

Warm sunshine on my skin.

My driving license.

That little sign my dog makes when she’s comfy.

The sound of rain.

Silence.

My body.

My mind.

My creative fingers.

Clean water and electricity in our home.

Music.

Books.

Other people’s stories.

This was surprisingly difficult to write, so I ended up just trying to write a list of everyday things which make me happy. I didn’t want to get all sentimental on you, but it appears that it’s impossible to avoid when it comes to things like this.

So let’s be soppy together!

What makes you happy?

What are you grateful for?

Write in the comments below x 

If you need some inspiration for writing your own list, this might be of use;

If you fancy it, maybe join in with a #thankfulthursday or follow thankful thursday on facebook. Or maybe make a photo diary, a little like the #100happydays (which I got through almost 70 days of before I got annoyed with it - oops. I just kept having days that ended in such personal darkness that I couldn't see any light), but weekly might be more do-able.
Wishing you all the happiness in the world my lovelies xxx

Driving with Miss Muffet

Let me tell you about my morning. It’s horrendous.

As we drove to our friend M’s house this morning, the boys were laughing and telling me there was a spider above my head. That it was going to jump on my head and poison me.

To be fair, this is quite normal.

I try to concentrate on my driving and leave them to it. We often play silly tricks on each other, well, they often play pretend games with me and usually it involves things they love but I can’t stand, like scorpions, spiders and other creepy crawly yucky things.

There’s also a back story you need to know about this morning’s situation;

I recently blew up my car, so the boys and I are using Daddy’s estate car which he uses on weekends. On Sunday, he used it to clear his Mum’s garden and he came home with a delightful story about seeing a giant tarantula sized spider crawling across the dash at some point during the day.

Great.

He said he’d tried his hardest to find it for me, he even came across as quite stressed about the fact that he couldn’t help.

“There’s nothing I can do!” he yelled at me, in (sorry to say it but its true) typical ‘Man from Mars: I need to fix things’ speech.

Great.

On Monday we needed to go on a very long journey. The boys and I swept out the whole car, finding all sorts of little bugs, but no massive beast. We couldn’t not go just because Mummy is a big wuss, so off we set. Two minutes into the journey the boys started yelling that there was a spider on the roof, coming to get us. I looked in my rearview to spot a tiny little, inoffensive thing dangling down from the roof, so I drove on. During the whole trip I drove slowly, checking the dash the entire time, nerves on tenterhooks. Not great for one’s stress levels at all.

I freakin hate spiders.

But the thing never turned up.

When we got to our destination, I did everything I could think of to scare it out; I put the blowers on, bashed the dash, I even put Katy Perry on really loudly.

Nothing.

Since I'm quite stressed out these days as it is, there are certain things I refuse to stress about and certain things I have to consciously let go of.

We have a lot of places to go this week.

I had to let go of the tarantula.

We used the car yesterday, and though it was kind of in the back of my mind, I didn’t let it bother me as much as it did on Monday.

Which brings us back to this morning.

So, the boys are giggling excitedly, yelling about a massive spider above my head. I disregard it as another money spider and drive onto the motorway.

Big mistake.

When they finally persuade me to have a look, I glance to my right, just above my window, and there, indeed, is the biggest spider I have ever seen in my entire life. Its about two inches away from my head.

I stare back at the road.

…………………………..(insert about 4 swearwords) what the hell am I gonna do?

I can’t pull over.

Katy Perry’s CD case is sat next to me, A-AH!

I slam it over the beast. I hold it there a while, not brave enough to move it and so I can squeeze in a glance at the road in front of me. I have no idea how fast I’m going at this point, which is very unusual and unnerving for me.

When I glance back up I realize the bastards legs are coming out the other side…the fucking roof isn’t flat! I have to maneuver the spider and the CD case to a flat part to make sure it’s squished. Spider innards smudge on the roof. Yuk. Breathe again, only look back at the road….I’m riding the middle of a two lane motorway, with a boy racer in a lurid lime green thing bombing towards me. A mirror check, a small swerve to the left, and thankfully the boy racer times his swerve nicely and misses us, just. Not sure anyone except a hyped up boy racer would have missed us so for that I’m grateful. It all happened so quickly he didn’t even have time to honk his horn at me.

About 30 seconds later, the corpse lands with a thud in my lap, which resulted in another squeal and a small swerve to where I didn’t belong. I can only imagine the words coming out of my fellow drivers on the motorway this morning, and I don’t blame them.

I was glad to finally arrive at M’s and spent a few minutes brushing myself down, oogling at the massive corpse and spraying rescue remedy on my tongue.

By the time we actually got to M’s door, you would’ve never guessed we nearly just died.

Just because I’m a pathetic.

But then who else would have been able to continue as normal with that beast looming overhead?

It could’ve jumped onto my head at any point, climbed into my eye and eaten my brain.

Ugh. I hate spiders.

I’m trying not to be angry with my husband. He did do his best after all. But I think, if I was my husband, and I knew how bad my reaction would be, I would’ve taken the whole damn car apart. I wouldn’t have risked my wife and my darling (cue emotional guilt trip) children. I know how badly I react to these things. I knew it would be this bad, although, to be fair I thought there would be more arm waving and screaming. As it happened, I just tried to stay focused on killing the bloody thing and not the boys in a horrible spider related car crash.

And FYI, I don’t always kill spiders. I try to leave them to it and go back to their hidey hole. But the car, well that’s a different matter.