FAQ-My Happiness Project

I have gotten a few questions in the last month around the Happiness Project I designed for myself back in November. Below are my answers:

Are you Happier?

I would say the answer is not reallyL It did not work out as well for me as I had hoped it would.

Doing the plan was a GREAT exercise as it was the first time I actually took a number of hours and sat down to analyze what would make me happy (vs. the millions of hours I spend planning what would be good for my life).

I had never taken the time to consider happiness from this angle-so I liked this part a lot.

But-are the things I have put into place actually me making me feel happier? I would say likely not.

Status quo so far.

What were some of the elements of your Happiness Project and how are you doing in these areas?

I had about 4 main buckets with many sub element but the four main components (without getting into any specifics) are:

Overall Health and Beauty

Reading/Writing and Creativity

Strengthening Relationships

Order

Health

I would say in this area I have come the longest way. Since I committed-my views of eating, exercising etc…have changed considerably. For the first time in my life I think I am following intuition when it comes to these areas and it seems to be working out for me. No concrete results yet, but a lot of little successes and wins and a massive change in my paradigm of thinking. Also have changed the reasons why I want to be healthy and eat well and exercise lots.

In terms of beauty I have always been a very non complicated type of person and literally take about 10 minutes to get ready in the morning (with a shower). I buy good  clothes and accessories; and put some energy into this, but my actual beauty routine is very quick and simple and always really rushed. My intent was to focus more on this and put more effort daily, but have realized I have no time for this or energy and does not really make me happier. So pretty much decided to continue more in the “au natural” route…

Reading/Writing and Creativity

I became much more deliberate so I think in this category actually much happier. I make more conscious time to read and write and feel sick to my stomach if I don’t have a good book by my bedside or time to write a quick blog. So going well and happier in this area.

Strengthening Relationships

The things I committed to that I think will make me happier I have not been too good at doing (so far).

I find often I want or need more from people than they may need from me in terms of close relationships. I am a very intimate person in a lot of ways and expect the same from others who are really close. My way of dealing with this over the years has changed…I used to try and change it and others, but more often than not now I tend to accept it but in turn get more distanced myself in some ways and check out instead of in on some levels if that makes sense?

It is still  a theme for me and still figuring it out.

Order

It has been a flop. I told myself by the end of March 2012 my house would be unrecognizable and fully in order..and I have not even tackled a closet I am sad to say. I guess health, relationships and writing have been more prioritized! Also I  think my standards are pretty high. Most people might say that my house is super organized (until they open a closet or ask me to cook a chicken and I have no clue where a pan is kept)

I am one of the most orderly people I know when it comes to lists, planning, agendas, strategic planning etc.. but extremely disorganized when it comes to having my jewelry in an organized box, my clothes not thrown on the bathtub, and my desk everyday being splattered with millions of papers (I hide it all very well but it is the reality).

Have not made much progress.

So the answers are "no not much happier overall", but maybe I have always been happy? Maybe I was not unhappy to begin with so hard to measure? It is fun to look back and report out because it makes me realize that there are  some elements that have made me happier for sure and I am very glad I took this project on.

Like with any project however it is the work you put in that yields results and although I was very committed at first, I have not been systematic about weekly updates etc.. so it is no surprise that I have not succeeded in all areas.

For the moment I remain a hyper -organized girl with a whole lot of chaos going on in the closets, simple and messy ponytails and lip-gloss most days of the week, with a desire for more belts, accessories and put together looks at an age in my life where I can still pull it off, a whole lot of creativity in these bones that I sometimes don’t know what to do with and to which this blog has been instrumental, and often feel like  I am running after people close to me in hopes that they will fulfill a void that is there for me that has not yet  been filled, but that I am keenly aware needs fuel.

In summary-just as the title of this blog suggests:

I am still searching.

Spring Blues

I know many who get Winter Blues-well I have Spring Blues.

I miss skiing.

I miss mostly relaxing on weekends and doing fun stuff.

I am completely drowning in my to do lists

I hate cleaning out closets, shopping for shoes, and watching my kids prepare for final exams.

I can’t wait for Spring to be over and Summer to arrive.

I can’t wait for my To Do lists to get shorter (maybe in a decade) and to go curl in a ball in a hammock and sleep (for maybe another decade).

I can’t wait until school is out so then I can start complaining that my kids are home alone and are getting on my nerves without their structured lives.

At this time of year is it not unusual for me to start feeling undone.

So while others have Spring Fever…I have the Winter Blues as in I Miss Snow and Fireplaces!

If you put a garden hoe in my hand (don’t even know what a hoe is or how to spell it!) I will go crazy. If you tell me to get up on a ladder and wash a window I will completely lose it. Start trimming weeds? Yuck!

So not ready for flip-flops yet.

Keeping it Real

PS-after our perfect Sunday yesterday that I wrote about so lovingly in the late afternoon, all hell broke lose at our cottage Sunday night by dinner and we had a bunch of kids being disrespectful and being on big consequences for inappropriate behavior and talking back to both their Mom and their Dads.

We went to bed furious and so did they.

All that to show how easily a blog written at “the perfect moment” can easily be misperceived as a perfect life as opposed to a perfect few hours which is often what we get when we are parents to three tweens and teens.

How a blog is really, just like a picture, only a snapshot in time.

And how those times are ever changing and evolving.

Lazy Sundays

I am not sure anything gives me as much pleasure as watching my kids play together outside in the fresh air. Especially at the cottage.

Rummaging through the garage and finding whatever it is that catches their attention and just playing with it. Badminton nets made out of wheel barrows, volleyball nets made out of branches. I find up here their imaginations take over.

They run around in old and too small pajamas with bandit hats on their faces and sweaters and boots of mine that are too big but with which they manage because they are too lazy to find warms stuff of their own.

They don’t care who is looking-they are not in the city. If they do see the rare kid here they are country kids just like them.

Here they play. At home they “chill” .

We are so not city people and glad our kids have inherited the cottage gene. The fresh cool air, the stream running down our property with the lovely little blue jays and squirrels searching for food. Long walks and reading outside in the sun.

Never worrying or carrying about getting dressed or staying cozy all day.  The morning running into the evening with lunch in between lit by the cottage candle around the big  kitchen counter.No exotic place or travel in the world could measure up for me. I am content here. I love it here. My family is happiest here.

So today was really my definition of a perfect way to spend a weekend Sunday. Even though it was rainy out and chilly it was perfect. Eventhough last night my Hubby felt sick and went to bed early this morning we took our time and stayed in bed and talked for a couple of hours with a beautiful view of the mountains and lake.

Coming downstairs and pulling out the computers for a couple of hours while the kids watched TV, we did our own things and got our work out of the way and then made plans together for excursions for our next trip with Bear.

Beauty having the idea to go bowling and giving the kids a few dollars (so cheap in the country too!) to go play a few games of bowling while we took a long walk outside.

Coming back and having the kids beg to play outside before they move on to homework, showers and cleaning up before we go back home.Luxuriating in the last few moments of the weekend before it is back to business. Wanting to let the fresh air seep in as much as it can into all of our bones and sustain us until next weekend.

Her Dad searching for hours with her for the perfect tree to hang a swing. Knowing that one day her own daughter will swing there too.

It’s funny as where we live “”in the city” is not actually city at all. It is a beautiful suburb but our kids are so different there. They do play outside because I oblige them to often.  They  definitely enjoy to play street hockey and bike around, but it’s just not the same. They have friends in an out, and appearances to make and keep, pick up times, and drop offs for play dates and movies. They have schedules and we clean out closets.

We don’t make the time there that we do here for each other. We don’t look at nature in the same way as at the cottage. We are very cosmopolitan there and country cows here.

It’s a whole lot of work to get here every weekend, all the planning and packing. Once here there is even more to take care of as a second home. Cottage life certainly comes with a lot more than just plain enjoyments

But I still hold it as the best decision we have ever made as a family. If there is one thing in our lives that I love the most is our decision to spend our time in the country. Be it the old cottage that we are on the verge of finalizing the sale in 2 weeks or our new one now.  For me this cottage life represents togetherness, family, leisure fresh air and keeping our kids young for as long as we can.

I am so happy that we have fallen in love with Trent in the way that we always were with LDF. It has found its way fully into our hearts now.

I am not sure I will ever get enough of it.

Resignation

I unexpectedly gave a course this week on Change Management at work (aka the supplier was hospitalized and I was asked to step in with three hours’ notice).

All that to say I learnt a lot in those three hours; I basically needed to become an expert. Quickly.

One thing I really learnt is how we all go through 4 stages whenever there is a change in our lives. Denial, Resistance, Exploration and then Commitment. Some take hours to pass through all stages, others days and other years.

It occurred to me: what about Resignation? Do some people get stuck there? Do I get to be stuck there on some issues in my own life? Is resignation sometimes misinterpreted as commitment or is it still part of resistance and just covered up?

I also see a lot of people around me in my life both at work or in personal life seeming to be resigned to various element of their lives that have happened to them. They make the best of the situation but have they accepted it or committed? Have they found peace?

I know there are a couple of areas in my own life lately that I find myself going through the different stages of transition and change and becoming closer and closer to commitment where for years I felt resigned in a lot of ways to basically accept things the way they are , but not be happy about it.

I know the difference because I went through a phase of resignation for years about my relationship with my father and then before he died got to the commitment and acceptance stage and I know the difference.

The difference is purely Peace. Surrendering to what is. Finally. Your heart and soul get to feel quiet.

So as I taught that course, and appeared an “expert”, but was in truth far from it, the point of resignation was on my mind. I struggle with it, and see people around me doing the same and wonder what it really means.

In particular this evening I find myself feeling very peaceful sitting here alone near the fire writing.

I find myself feeling like stopping to fight in some areas and embrace what is.

I find myself wanting to be kinder to myself. To others too.

It was a good lesson to me to give that course the other day. I learnt a lot about myself, what I am capable of and what are my limits. I learnt that adrenaline is a drug for me and I crave it, seek it out and use it to fuel me.

I have had lots of adrenaline around me for quite some time now, these last month’s specifically. At work, at home, in my marriage, in my friendships and everywhere else it seems. Postive or negative adrenaline-doesn’t really matter for me they both seem to be the same . As long as there is energy..it’s all ok. Stop that energy…and what is left?

I have been on a quest loaded with adrenaline.

Still and quiet may be the next phase. And not to resign to either, but rather to invite.

Peace and joy not as the second place booby prize but as the trophy.

Not because I think I should want it, but because I need it.

To move from Resignation to Commitment on what will take me to that place.

Honest to Goodness Conversations

I had the perfect conversation this week.

I took my son out for ice-cream and we talked and talked about everything under the sun together.

The conversation took a lot out of me. It called for every ounce of honesty and integrity that I had in myself.

It was not a child conversation but an adolescent conversation. It changed the both of us in a lot of ways and set us in a new direction.

It was an amazing and great outing and talk.

I won’t disclose what we talked about because it is private between Bear and I, but I realized that we have created between us this open and honest dialogue and I could not have been more grateful for it.

And boy stuff  too! I had not known I had it in me to be good at that.

So he asked me a ton of questions, and at times I had the urge to tell him what I wanted him to hear but instead I went for the truth each time.

And let him make his own choices based on my own truths.

I always wondered a bit what was wrong with me as I had so little joy making puzzles, and doing crafts, and chasing toddlers around shopping malls when they were little. What was wrong with me as a Mother that I did not seem to love this stage at the same level as most others do?  (I still liked many parts of this stage but also did not like alot of other parts if I am being honest).

But now…BRING THIS ON!  Motherhood is joyful when I get to listen, and coach and answer intricate and tough questions. Analysis, complexity, emotions and feelings. This is the best! And with a cone of ice-cream out in the sun? Even better.

It seems that most I speak to start super close to their kids but end up more distanced as they enter their tweens.  For me it seems to happen in the opposite way I guess. I guess we all do mothering differently.

So although I always thought I would be the Mom of girls and secretly prayed for girls my whole life, although I feel more than blessed to have my beautiful daughter, I feel so grateful to be the Mom of boys.

I LOVE being Mom to Sons.

I love their ways, their differences and their way of being.

I love that they love and need their Mommies in the ways that daughters love and need their Daddies.

These boys have completed me in the way I always knew a daughter would.

I love this Boy Bear a ton.

Are they OK?

For me, since I became a parent 14 yrs ago for the first time, this seems to be the question that is most often on my mind.

Taking priority over many questions and concerns of the world really.

And even though I know they are perfectly ok, I still wonder, and still worry and still ask myself that question sometimes many times a day.

And this anxiety is not situational at all-it is not necessarily caused by external stresses, it is just always there and seems to follow me around.

And it’s not because I would change anything in our lives or circumstances in the least. Some may wonder-would you rather have more time with them, stay at home with them, walk them to school in the morning to ensure they are ok?

The answers are solid: No. No. No. It’s all good the way it is. Exactly what I want.

Would you prefer to homeschool them and keep them at home to make sure they are out of harm’s way?

The answer if: Definitely not-are you trying to kill us all??

But I love those kids to bits, I really do and if you asked me my most important wish in the world it would be that they all three just be ok. Happy, Healthy, Well-Adjusted and Fine. And I want them always to have their Dad and Didi….always (and me too).

It’s funny that the things we worry about in life are often the things that take care of themselves the most naturally. That happens without our interference. But as we worry, we forget this fact.

It’s also interesting to note, both from what I have observed in my own family and many other families whom  have made the same observations, that often the more we “take care” of kids the less ok they actually become  in the future.

We see it with first children vs. second and third children. Many first children are made to feel like Kings and Queens and the world resolves around their every need. We solve all of their problems for them, and nurture every wish they may have in some cases. Not a day goes by that they are not constantly on our minds when they are little. Nothing is good enough for them.

Then comes the Second, and then the Third. The reality really shifts for everyone.

Suddenly we have three and our brains are not big enough to have all three and their constant needs on our mind. So our brain often still resorts to the first kid’s needs taking up the most space because we are accustomed to it and also because they go through everything in life first. Firsts of anything are always the toughest. First births, first day care drop offs, firsts day of kindergarten, first fight with friends, first kiss, first heartbreak….

So the Second and Third fend for themselves much of the time. And we worry less about them.  Hence they become more autonomous, more able to solve their own issue and more self reliant.

And much more ok in many instances really.

In my family, my Third even took up jogging and as of this week goes for a run everyday after school by herself!  No one ever suggested this to her, we never discussed this and she decided to do this completely on her own. She is a runner now and she is more than ok.

She is on her path of what is good for her. She is blossoming into what is perfect for her.

So all that to say , I am conscious of my anxiety of “are my kids ok?” and also the way that my worry does not seem to be evenly distributed among my children for no other cause then birth order.

I look around the world at the people I know well and the strangers around me too and I think to myself-they are all ok and every thing will turn out just fine. From the girl from the gym who seemed to put on a little weight, to my friend going through a complex divorce, to another friend struggling with infertility, another contact who lost their job…. it all somehow seems to have a way of working itself out.

Why wouldn’t I naturally expect the same for my own kid’s lives?

So for me the perfect parenting blend continues and will always be careful considerations, big packs of planning, drizzles of deliberateness, tweaks on traditions, focus on family time and load and loads of love.

The absence of anxiety would be great and fabulous. I am sure if I want it hard enough I can add it to that mix.

And then we would have the perfect martini.