Key to Happiness - Truly Brave

Thursday, April 2:

 Key to Happiness

What do you think is the key to happiness? Is it being able to overcome a hard time? Laughter?
Maintaining a positive attitude? Tell us what you think and why. #HAWMC


I absolutely love this topic!

 I have spent a lot of time trying to figure this out. I have tried meditation, I have taken up hobbies and looked at so many ways to find the key to happiness myself.  I have attended a variety of workshops and eventually I got guidance from a life coach, Deb Dunn who promotes  laughter yoga, playshops for adults and encourages looking for JOY.



A pink paper Joy flower that I move around from time to time.

 

My daughter took my Joy flower and demonstrated fun for me.

 

I think my natural inclination is toward being a happy person (or I would not be singing crazy songs around campfires with Girl Guides and training to become a Recreation Therapist) but I have also experienced a lot of overwhelmingly sad times where I  found it very difficult to move forward with life. Lets face it, sometimes life can be really awful and as we experience these hard times we need to be sad and mourn for what we have lost. Some people become lost in the pain and the sorrow and have trouble finding their way out. The challenge is how to find a sense of  joy once again. 

I think we have to start with defining happiness. We all  know it when we are feeling it but what is it? Happiness can be defined as satisfaction with life and experiencing more positive emotions than negative ones. This can be very elusive state of being. Happiness or sadness impact your physical and mental well being, and that of those around you. It affects your ability to think, work, parent, sleep make choices and really just about everything about how you interact with your world.

Our Recreation Therapy courses including learning about the benefits of physical activities and mental stimulation but a big part of the training also consisted of learning how to meet all the needs of the individual. A recreation therapist tries to look at 6 different domains of life which are the cognitive, emotional, physical, social, spiritual and sometime vocational domains. This is considered holistic health and looking at the person as a whole results in an increased ability to bring health, peace and satisfaction to their life and yes, even happiness.

Todays blog writing prompt asks if  the key to happiness in being able to overcome
 a hard time. No I don't think so. Overcoming a hard time might give you pride and might make a difference in your circumstances but the sense of accomplishment is what is really making all the difference,-- It is an internal sense of personal value.

 I think happiness is not so much something to pursue as something to be open to. In the hard times you need to look for those moments of joy. You need to look for the adorable puppy, the smiling face, the sunny day. You need to be a person who look back on your life with forgiveness and remembers the happy moments. You need to be realistic and accept the bad things that have happened but you don't need to dwell on what that was like. You need to smile, sing, laugh, dance, hug, think new ideas and be a friend. You need to look for Joy and embrace it when and where you find it.

Here is the power of FUN!

Please look at this great video that features young cancer patients. When peoples lives are changed by an illness or injury what we need is to claim back bits of normal life, normal play!

Cyndi Lauper and Sara Bareilles, combine their songs 'True Colors' and 'Brave' to produce a song to raise money for the fight against pediatric cancer.