15 Ways to Boost Happiness When You’re Down

Photo Credit: Stephen Boisvert via Flickr CC 

Chatting with a wonderful woman on the weekend about my blog post last week. She said;

“I read your article but I couldn’t read it again because you were saying the opposite of how I felt. You said we need to accept and go into our grief but I just can’t…not at the moment, it’s just too much. You also said happiness is not just about positive thinking, so what do I do?”

Great question. What do we do when we can’t go into our grief at the present moment, but we are struggling with unhappiness?

It seems the topic of grief is touching a nerve and creating our biggest barrier to happiness, most likely because grief can leave us feeling hollow and deeply sad. Experiencing joy and happiness can be tricky, as the activities which used to bring happiness don’t seem to any more.

Accepting and processing our loss can also be more than we can manage. If this is where we are at, we need to be gentle and caring towards ourselves. Trusting that when the time is right we will move out of this phase, and into a space where we feel we can begin to process our loss and sadness.

We can help ourselves make this process easier and smoother.

Living well alongside our grief and moving towards happiness requires two things: being productive and finding meaning in our lives.

Being Productive

Feeling that we can’t change what has happened in our life underpins grief. By being productive and seeing what we can make, produce and achieve, we remind ourselves of our ability to shape the way we experience life. Enjoying a day of productivity allows us to shift our focus off the areas we can't change, to those we can.

Finding Meaning

Adding value to other people’s lives, adds meaning to ours.

Dealing with my sadness after my Dad died, I took up knitting. I knitted a blanket for one of the women who received surgery at Dr Catherine Hamlin’s Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia. As I knitted the blanket I was able to focus on someone other than myself and my own sadness. Allowing me to find more purpose and peace, I was then able to build into happiness.

Being stuck in grief and feeling like our life is out of our control is not pleasant and is disempowering. Finding ways to harness our own power and to remind ourselves of our ability and resilience, is the way forward. So how do we do this?

MAKE, ACHIEVE, LEARN and HELP

By engaging in activities that are challenging, allow us to see results, and provide us with the opportunity to make a difference in someone else’s life, we will begin to rediscover joy and happiness.  

Start Today

15 Ways to Boost Your Happiness 

Try some of these ideas this week or come up with your own:

 

1. Assist a family member or friend in a practical way

2. Try something arty- painting, crocheting, drawing, writing poems

3. Bake or cook a new recipe

4. Make a gift or a card for someone

5. Join a new social club/group

6. Say yes to an activity you would normally say no to

7. Knit for a charity

8. Set a goal and achieve it e.g.) Jog 1km a day, meditate for 10 mins a day

9. Watch an inspiring documentary

10. Sign up to a night time class or weekend workshop

11. Sign up to volunteer for a charity e.g.) Daffodil Day

12. Help a stranger in your travels

13. Expand you mind and read a book on a topic you know nothing about

14. Clean out your wardrobes and donate unwanted items to a charity

15. Re-vamp a section of your garden and plant something new

 

Have fun as you work through some of these ideas and let me know how you go.

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xxx Jess xxx

What You Need to Know About Grief

Photo Credit: Jimmy Brown via Flickr CC

Like a bird swooping, soaring, or coming to rest on your shoulder, grief comes and goes and changes its form. Grief can feel like a big black crow; its dark weight moving with you through the day. It can feel like it knows no bounds, like an eagle soaring and dipping. Yet at other times it can feel almost playful and light, like a sparrow or a Willie Wagtail, allowing you to reminisce with happiness and laughter.

You can never be sure which bird will visit, when, or for how long. One thing is for sure though…when you lose someone or something you love, that window to grief is always open. I don’t mean to sound morbid, or even to communicate that grief ‘traps’ you in some way, but grief is always there, it becomes a new partner in your life’s journey.

If you have experienced loss, you will know how horrible it is to hear that “time heals,” or that you can find a way to “move on.” It is true that we never want grief to ‘paralyse’ us and to leave us unable to continue living our lives, however, we also don’t want to forget. We don’t want to live as if nothing significant has happened to us.

The truth is that grief changes us. Grief cracks open the soul and the mind in a way we never knew possible.

We come to see how painful life can be. We touch that place where experiences are raw, unrefined, unconfined, and unknown. We can literally lose our breath when confronted by the depth of grief and the magnitude of our loss.

We also come to see with greater clarity what it means to ‘live.’ Grief cuts through and strips away all that is superfluous; we begin to see what matter, what truly matters. Interestingly, it is not always what we expect, nor is it always a reflection of how we are living our lives.

There is an opportunity within grief. That opportunity is to realign our lives; to realign our thoughts and actions until they reflect our new-found, and definitely hard-won, understanding and knowledge.

I wrote this post today because grief is real for most of us. It certainly is for me at the moment. Grief has surfaced again in my life…the black crow is circling...

In a few days it will be 5 years since I received a call, just after 9pm, to say my Dad had suddenly passed away… Not easy. It has also almost been 5 months since my Nan passed away, and her passing has left me somewhat traumatised. Not only have I lost someone I loved and admired immensely, but her suffering in the end stages of her life was highly distressing.

Losing my Nan, who was my Dad’s mum, has also compounded my grief for my Dad. I feel a sad intensity to losing two important people in my life. I hadn’t realised how much my Nan kept the memory of my Dad alive, until she is now no longer here to reminisce with. 

Just like me, I know so many of you are facing your own grief. The thing is, sometimes we need a little guidance and reassurance along the way. Mostly we just need to be reassured that we will be okay and that we will get through. But we also want to be reassured that we are ‘allowed’ to grieve, and allowed to grieve in the way we do. We also want to know that there is no ‘acceptable’ limit to when our grief should be finalised.

If you are experiencing grief at the moment, my message is simple: respect this deep process. Your soul, mind and body are going through a profound process. You are consolidating your new experiences, feelings, thoughts and insights.

Don’t ‘judge’ your experience as ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’ Don’t judge your experience and determine if it is ‘taking too long’ or maybe ‘not long enough.’ Take care of yourself. Do what is right for you.

Also be honest…if grief is paralysing you, begin finding people and techniques that will allow you to find your way back to what it means to live, but to live alongside your grief.

As you move through your week, know that you are not alone in your grief. Know that grief is unpredictable, and whatever you are experiencing is where you are meant to be for now. Know that there will be days when the black crow and the eagle show you the depths of the darkness, but also days when the sparrow and the Willie Wagtail will also come to play. Enjoy those moments of respite, of hope. Relax…enjoy the moment and cherish the joy of your memories and experiences.

 

“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contribution, and of unspeakable love.”~ Washington Irving ~

Xxx Jess xxx

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Hope and Resilience: The True Stories of Refugees

For those who read my work and know me, you would know that the topic of hope both fascinates and inspires me. Hope was not a word or idea I had ever thought much about until 2003 when I began visiting refugees in Villawood Immigration Detention Centre.

I was just out of high school, 18 at the time. My desire to visit the detention centre was sparked by what was known as the ‘children overboard’ situation and the riots at Woomera Immigration Detention Centre. Coming home from school I would watch the nightly news and hear that people were sewing their mouths shut in protest of the treatment they were receiving in Australia, namely the uncertainty of their lives and safety.

The media and politicians at the time were framing this issue as just something ‘these people’ did. Even at 18 I felt that this was absurd. I became determined to understand the real story behind the refugees being detained in Australia.

This determination led to a three year journey as I visited a group of Iranian refugees in Villawood Immigration Detention Centre each week. It was during the conversations I had there that I began to understand the complexities of why people are forced to flee their homelands. I also came to see first-hand the distress people experience when their futures are uncertain and they are dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder.

This week Four Corners aired their story Trading Misery which documented the great suffering of families living in Lebanon, and those who lost their families when the boat they were travelling to Australia in sank.

To witness the situation they are fleeing from, and to see the raw grief those left behind are living with, it reminded me of how great the adversity and anguish is for so many people living around the world. It reminded me again of how very lucky I am to have been born in a safe country.

In honour of those who live in intolerable circumstances and situations, who with great courage and sacrifice, seek hope, safety and freedom, today I wanted to share a part of my personal journey with refugees. I would like to re-print a section of my honours thesis, a thesis which explored the role hope plays in the lives of refugees. This was the prologue of my thesis;

 

PROLOGUE

 

When you sit side by side with someone who is unsure of their fate, you are changed. When there is a very real possibility that their fate could include death, imprisonment or torture, you are left with a deep imprint which fills with despair, sadness and shock.  

 

Your view of the world changes as your eyes are opened to the way that others live. You come to see that the role of governments in people’s lives, both abroad and within this place you call ‘home,’ can determine life from death. You can’t help but ask questions of God, you can’t help but ask questions of yourself.

 

In 2003 I began visiting a group of Iranian refugees in Villawood Immigration Detention Centre and did so for three years until they had all been deemed genuine refugees and released. This period of my life I remember vividly with mixed emotions.

 

This time in my life was punctuated by deep sorrow and pain, as I witnessed the effects of a policy that was designed to ‘send a message’ not support some of the most vulnerable people in the world. It was also a time when I was confronted and challenged by the power of hope and the resilience of the human spirit.

 

Once I had met refugees in person and heard their stories of courage and survival I could not bear to hear them being described as ‘queue jumpers’, ‘illegal immigrants’ or ‘possible terrorists.’ To me they were hope seekers.     

 

The refugees I visited had an infectious hope, a strong belief that tomorrow would bring some good news. They held onto the idea that their pain and suffering would not be forever. For some this pain and suffering lasted much longer than it should have. A few refugees were detained for up to six and a half years, but amazingly their hope remained.

 

While in detention I saw refugees work extremely hard to learn English and Australian colloquialisms, understand the Australian legal system and make Australian friends. These were people who were as actively involved in their lives as they possibly could be.

 

Their passion for life and their motivation did not cease once released. Once they were granted refugee status, they didn’t delay finding employment and getting off initial Centrelink support, starting businesses, getting their driver’s license, buying cars, securing accommodation, getting married and starting families.

 

Before circumstances forced these people to flee their homelands, and take on the label of ‘refugee’ or ‘asylum seeker,’ they were people with histories, stories and achievements of their own. The reality is that anyone can become a refugee if circumstances in their country change. This reality should shape our response to refugees, allowing humility and compassion to dictate rather than fear and racism.  

 

Very little has been written which celebrates the courageous and hopeful spirits of refugees and all they have achieved and survived. My objective for this thesis, therefore, is to create something beautiful that not only acknowledges the hope that refugees hold onto as their life line, but to celebrate and encourage this in all of us.
 

 Photo sourced from Four Corners

Jessica Stead xxx



Remembering Loved Ones

This time last week my family said goodbye to a wonderful woman. My Nan passed away on the 4/11/13 at the age of 93. I have been thinking a lot about the sadness and grief we experience when we lose a loved one. It is a difficult process, often a strange mix of sadness that they are gone, yet relief that they are no longer suffering. 

I was saddened today when I visited a blog by Jessica Ainscough, a fellow writer for Make The World Move, and read that she lost her Mum to breast cancer last month. She wrote a lovely post about it, Saying Goodbye to Mum, and I wanted to share it today in honour of all those who have lost loved ones.

Thinking of you Jessica and everyone today who are missing loved ones.

Note: Picture sourced from Jessica Ainscough’s blog.