The LS Collective Happiness Journal

[elseaacych]

Hello, everyone! Here's some not so obvious news, but, people who count their blessings are much happier in life.

 

Source: Was grandmom right about "counting your blessings"?

 

So, what I would like to do is start a collective happiness journal, so we can all celebrate what good is going on in our lives and others' as well, and potentially have a conversation on the nature of happiness and how we can continue to enrich our lives.

 

Here's what you do. In a post, write down three good things that happened to you today, and what made those things good. If you can, make another post here tomorrow... and the next day, and so on.

 

I'll start off with mine:

• Learned some new ukulele chords and a riff. It's good to see some improvement.
  
• It thunderstormed here today. Not the scary severe kind, but a nice shower-like thunderstorm.
  
• I'm working on some practice exams, finally. I've been meaning to get to that for about two months now, but it's better late than never.
  

[chelsea2011]

1) I spent time meditating

2) I forgave myself for ignoring red flags when it comes to friends and relationships

3) I learned that I need to accept responsibility for ignoring those red flags not place blame

4) I accepted responsibility for ignoring the red flags

5) I learned it's perfectly okay to walk away from situations that do not resinate(sp?) with who I am without feeling guilt and have done so

6) I made the decision that today I will take care of me by spending time with the people, places and things that make me feel happy, cared about and loved

7) I made the decision to let go of situatons that bring darkness and unneccessary drama into my life with compassion

 

That's what I accompished today.

[Candy_Pants]

Great thread!!!!

[dichotomy]

Practiced yoga

Had a really good cornbeef on rye for lunch.

Flipped my daughter onto the big bed 8 times to her delightful happy squeals.

[quankanne]

husband gave the rosebushes a good fertilizing last month, and now I've got bushes of beautiful flowers! I've never cared for bouquets, but it just touches my heart that he'll plant and care for the bushes we buy, then cut them and put them in bud vases :love:

[Anela]

Still have my parents and remaining pets. always grateful for that.

 

dad took me to get seeds, a few plants, and potting soil yesterday. four red cabbages for the cost of one from the store.

[elseaacych]

I think I'm better posting in the morning. So this is for yesterday.

 

-Had a moment of gratitude for being in law school

-managed to work an hour straight on something without distraction

-Got one upped on a Facebook post by a friend, made the post that much better. Realized that I hang with some really smart people.

[Summerrose2013]

What a lovely thread.

 

- Woke up with all my lovely pets still with me (even the older, poorly ones.)

- Had a job to go to today

- Thankful for the UK healthcare system and my private medical coverage

- Had text messages from my best friend and sister, both my rocks during some bad times recently

- thanked god for the internet and forums for stopping me going insane and letting me share with strangers who understood me

- Maintained NC for Day 4 after a relapse last week.

- Got a date for the weekend to boost my self esteem and put me outside of my comfort zone (yikes)

 

[SoonMyFriend]

I do this every day! It's a great journal to keep. Whenever I am having a day, I sit and read through months and months of happy things. I highly recommend keeping a journal of this

 

I'll come back later and post!

[Grumpybutfun]

Nice thread.

 

I am, as ever, grateful for my beautiful wife who makes me extremely happy and proud. Grateful for the sunrise every morning. Our health and the health of my children. Proud they have grown up to be amazing and loving adults. Blessed to live in a rural area where I get to see deer in the night, all the stars are visible due to lack of pollution, bunnies, turtles, alligators, and lots of water birds are abundant in my yard. Grateful I am still very active and still do all of my own ranching, hunting, fighting, etc. Grateful my son is safe back in the US from the Middle East. Staying with us for a while and it is so good to get to see what a good man he is. Grateful for the lemon meringue pie my wife made yesterday. Grateful for a wife who chases me around pulling my clothes off after years of marriage, we still have great sex and a lot of fun. Grateful i got to talk to our family friend before she died from cancer and was able to help comfort her family who are understandably destroyed. Grateful for meditation to center me and balance me. Grateful I can give my kids a better life and start than I had. So much, but these are the ones I am thinking of.

Grumps

[Keenly]

Supposed to have a date tonight ( she's going to bail, because she has bailed twice in 7 days )kicking ass in dark souls II ( not easy )

Learning some new songs on the guitar

My new job is going very well, leading to a surplus in expendable income

Possibly have a girl pursuing , I'll see over the next few days.

Got my friend coming up from San Diego next week.

 

 

Oh, and twix. Can't go wrong worng with frozen twix.

[elseaacych]

Today:

 

Had some awesome soup for dinner. Like in my top three of soups, ever.

Asked a legal question for the first time in a long time. Yay, learning again!

Had a professor invite me to be a research assistant. May not be able to do it, but I am flattered that I was asked.

[todreaminblue]

i am grateful for having daughters who love me regardless

 

 

i am grateful for my mum and my sis who are always there when i am down as well as up they are just there

 

i am grateful for the internet where i can connect with others i can fidn things and books and read and learn

 

 

i am grateful for my home phone because i can call people i care about and who care abotu me

 

 

i am grateful to try again to give up smoking because i know i can try again

 

i am grateful for rain

 

blue skies

 

 

grey skies

 

 

and the ocean

 

 

i am grateful for llamas and all the penguins in the world actual penguins and human penguins

 

i am grateful there are sardines to feed the penguins

 

i am grateful for simple things that give me ideas for kids books

 

i am grateful for gods gifts he gives even if sometimes i dont want them

 

i am grateful for music

i am grateful for pinterest and how others seem to need the words as much as i do

 

 

i am grateful for people who are understanding and accepting

 

 

 

i am grateful for art and people who create all forms of art

 

i am grateful to see the beauty in the world when i dont feel so beautiful

 

i am grateful for the person who created fairy floss

 

i am grateful to have a purpose even though not really sure what it is i just kam grateful to know i have one..in that my main purpose is to be a mum of five but i mean purpose for me...nto purpose for others needing me

 

i am grateful to be a mum of five and that they are alive and giving me hell because i love them even more when they dtn give me hell i appreciate when they listen...

 

i am grateful for my friends at the church who were glad to see me back....

 

 

i am grateful to just be for now

Edited April 29, 2014 by todreaminblue

[todreaminblue]

i am grateful for all the great writers and i am grateful for all the poets

 

i am grateful for prophets and apostles who have spread hope that theres more to life than just now and then six feet under

 

i am grateful for all the people who fight the good fight so generations now and future believe in humanity

[Anela]

I'm happy to see Deb here.

 

And I'm grateful that my cat is back. He doesn't usually go far. He met me at the edge of the woods, as I walked up there, looking for him.

[elseaacych]

-I am grateful that classes are done. Now I can study!

-I am grateful that I am meeting with some friends for dinner

-Grateful for family.

[elseaacych]

-Blood orange sorbet!

-Had a good talk with my dad this morning

-Getting stuff done!

[elseaacych]

Mint juleps

My dog, always great.

My family looking out for my best interests.

Threes, the iPhone game. Such a great distraction that I don't have time for.

[Anela]

I thought the tow truck driver liked me, a couple of weeks ago. Tonight, dad said about him, "He liked you!" after we'd seen someone else getting towed. Take that, guys who insult women over 35.

[Bigcitydreamer]

I love this thread! I also like the journal idea, I may give it a try as it was only today that I told myself I want to focus on the good things about my life instead of the things I don't have. Hopefully this technique will reduce my anxiety about life, I put so much pressure on myself and I need to relax.

 

-Got paid

-Was invited over for supper by someone close to me and it was fantastic

-Came to the realization that I want to think of the good things in my life, and reading this thread reminded me of this and gives me a way to put it into practice. I hope this becomes a natural habit after time.

 

Thanks for the cool idea!

[quankanne]

found a couple of blossoming roses on the computer desk when I got out of the shower this morning :love:

[Bigcitydreamer]

- Purchased a new Yankee candle wax melt that I am trying for the first time that I absolutely love the smell of.

- Hung out with one of my friends and had a good time.

- Heard from an old high school friend that is working in the field that I am currently working towards and gave me some advice and feedback.

[Erlaad]

Here goes mine:

* I'm grateful that today's a shining, bright and warm sunny day!

* I'm grateful for having decided to go the cinma yesterday with my sis, it was a good film and gave me something to think about;

* I'm grateful for all the improvement I'm making on my life, such as a lot more awareness on who I am and what I want or the better eating habits.

 

- Erl

[todreaminblue]

this isnt just a simple sentence i can write if i had to i would probably say i am grateful that this is a memory of a moment of mine that makes me grateful enough that it made me feel the way i do about many things, people places and even how i appreciate people who come into my life and how maybe i made a difference

 

 

so i have to tell a story like i always have since i was knee high written stories and told stories......not fairy stories but real stories .....

 

i was on holiday with my nanna and grandpa i think i was about ten and my sis was five, my nanna and grandpa told me this one day they had some very sad friends (a couple with a young son) coming over and that these friends had a really sick son...when i asked how sick nanna wouldn't look at me when she answered she cleared her throat and said just really sick deb ...so i knew that was nanna speak for not going to make it deb.....the couple were really sad their little boy didnt have long and weren't coping nanna and grandpa were good friends and always there for them they shared hope about god and comforted them .......the couple clung to that hope ...when they arrived i disappeared i am not good when others cry especially not as a child i would start sobbing.....i took my sis with me and we sat under the house with the dogs and we had two little chairs under there and i started to tell my sister stories while there was this consuming sadness upstairs......the little boy came down the ramp and saw my sister and i sitting on the chairs and came up to me asked if he could sit on my lap for a while and stay with me......so i said ok i am just telling stories......he wanted to stay...i asked him what was the matter and he said i am really tired........i just want to stay......i asked him what kind of story he would like to hear to tell me anything or something he liked stories about

 

 

and he liked adventure stories so for the next two or three hours i told adventure stories ........every now and again his mum would come down the ramp and i would smile at her and she would ask do you want to come inside with me now to her little boy and he would say no i want to stay with her....her being me.......the mum would look sad and say is that ok with you deb just call out when you have had enough......nanna must have been speaking about me......anyway i never called out even when my legs went to sleep and he got heavy, even when my sis got bored with my stories and wandered off i stayed.........when my bare feet were cold and had turned blue i stayed...... i am grateful i stayed...... i am grateful that boy put his arms around my neck and thanked me for being with him and telling him so many stories i am grateful he wanted to hear more and made me feel so appreciated........he asked his mum if he could come back and see me she smiled and said sure ...we can do that....i only ever got to meet him that once........i was on school holiday and we lived twelve hours away from nanna by the time we came back for holidays the boy had passed away and the parents still mourning their loss and when i found out i cried for them and for him...nothing new....i cry often normally in private ...lately not so much...maybe that is a blessing for me too.....

 

i know that some people come into your life for a reason or a season and we never really know which.....and ...the dreaded only if i could have told them...... someone i so wanted to know better, hadn't passed away just yesterday i would have loved to had the chance to share that story with her, her being flo a very special young spirited elderly god loving lady who i feel would have loved my story.......

 

i am so grateful to have met flo and spent a few seasons with her, i learned from her things i wont forget..

 

i am grateful to have been there to tell adventure stories on that day at that exact time i was right where i should have been and needed to be.......

 

 

i am grateful not once did i put him down to stretch my legs or get pins and needles out of my feet.I am grateful i looked down and he looked up at me adn we both smiled at the same time as i continued to tell stories....i am grateful fro so many thing all just moments not really material things or easily explained gratefulness but irreplaceable moments i can share with others and revive a gratefulness thread that should be at the top of the pile as much as possible......i might be sad a lot bu ti am grateful to feel sadness because it means i care enough

 

 

i am grateful i have many many such moments that touch my heart that might seem sickly to some ro touch the heart of others ...but to me.....give me my reasons for all my seasons that i have left......they are just moments and in my forty odd years....i have so many i can be grateful for as long as i live......for all the little things i am grateful for.......i do thank god often...best wishes...deb

Edited May 6, 2014 by todreaminblue

[snappytomcat]

thank you for this I like to keep a positive attitude,even when surrounded by chaos

today I found a home for my longest doggy resident that was pulled from high kill shelter,and I rehabbed him,and he went to his forever home

I got to take my grandson to the beach

finally I got to make my own recipe for the soup kitchen I volunteer for