The Pursuit of Happiness
“Im on the pursuit of happiness and I know
Everything that’s shine ain’t always gonna be gold (hey)
I’ll be fine once I get it, get it in, I’ll be good.”
I think everyone needs a hot pink frenchie cookie jar.
I had an epiphany today. Its crazy, all this time trying to battle depression and anxiety and I realized that in reality it’s almost like you’re chasing happiness.
I have been working really hard at trying to change my attitude and change my mindset. As you all know, I have been journalling and I have been meditating and those actions alone have made a big difference. I am finding that things (aka my mood) really don’t change over night. I knew that in the beginning but I can’t believe how long it is taken to consistently feel good.
One thing that contributes to my happiness is my morning routine. I love my morning routine. It sets the stage for my entire day.
I use to sleep for as long as I could before having to get up. Then I would quickly rush around, get dressed and get out the door. Now, I usually spend about 2 hours at home before going work. I wake up, make an americano, let the dogs out, journal, meditate and relax. That usually takes up my first hour. Then I spend an hour getting ready for work, I listen to a pod cast, make my lunch, finish my coffee and I am out the door.
Just recently I have incorporated a couple of new items into my “beautiful morning”.
One of the new things that I incorporated is a new way to journal.
Meet one of my new fav things! The five minute journal!
The Five Minute Journal
If you have not tried this - you need to!
The Five Minute Journal
A few weeks ago my good friend Tia launched her women’s conference “Passion & Purpose”. It was a phenomenal success, she also had the cutest swag bags. Everything in the bags were so well thought out and perfect for the themes of the conference. It was there that I was given the five minute journal.
This journal forces you to start your day with happiness and end with happiness. Thats the part that I love.
You start off writing 3 things that your grateful for.
Then you write 3 things that would make today great.
Lastly, you write your daily affirmations.
In the evening, before you go to bed you finish off your day doing the following.
Write 3 amazing things that happened that day
Write what you could have done to make that day better.
I have only been using this journal for a couple of weeks, but I have found the positivity that it has brought me has been infectious. It’s hard to describe in words, but I just feel happy and feel that I am going in the right direction.
Another new tool that I have introduced into my life is Chakra Oracle Cards.
These cards have been great with assisting in setting intentions. The cards are all positive. They have all align with the chakras in our body. Each card has keywords, a story, insight and something to think about when meditating.
SO, I am sure you are thinking….…What the hell are chakra’s? Chakra’s are energy centre's within the body. They start at the base of the spine and go all the way to the crown of the head.
Here is a list of the 7 Chakra’s.
Note: (Like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you need to start at the bottom)
1) Earth/Root Chakra
2) Sacral Chakra
3) Solar Plexus Chakra
4) Heart Chakra
5) Throat Chakra
6) Brow Chakra (Your 3rd eye)
7) Crown Chakra
I first learned about Chakra’s when I took Colin Hall’s Yoga Class in the University of Regina. The idea made sense to me then, but I find that I “feel” it more now. I promise to do another post just on Chakra’s alone and how it is intertwined with yoga.
Anyway, back to my oracle cards, I have been getting a lot of indigo cards. Indigo Cards are symbolizing the 3rd eye or minds eye. They have to do with intuition. The card I have been getting a lot has do with making change. I have always been a fan of oracle cards, tarot cards, psychic’s etc. Side note: My mom told me that her grandpa had psychic abilities. He use to read tea leaf’s. Unfortunately he was in the war, and stopped reading them as he was able to predict who was going to make it and who wasn’t and it made him feel uncomfortable.
That being said, I am not saying I am psychic or anything, I am just saying that I have taken a liking to these cards and I find the positive messages intuitive and they always seem to bring positivity to my mindset and assist with following through with my affirmations.
The one card that has come up many times is “Despondence” according to the card creator Tori Hartman. Here is what she says the card means:
Intuitive knowing & focus
Tori Hartman
“It may indicate an emotional tie that no longer serves you”
She then reminds you that obsticals are removed when you change your relationship with them.
I found that part of the message to be very insightful. One of my biggest challenges has been getting back into a workout routine and consistently keeping my kitchen clean. I know that a messy kitchen is a trigger for me, yet sometimes I get lazy AF and leave it..well then we know what happens! LOL. Another reason why I love these cards is that there is a serious of messages to think about. Each card has a message, a legend that goes with the image, inspiration, a personal inquiry, key ideas and keywords. As mentioned above, the messages are all postive and I love reviewing one card to see how it can adjust my mindset and impact my day.
Another key to my happiness lately has been taking time for myself. Me time is soo important. I found I use to hate being alone. I would rather be with my friends or out with people. If my friends were busy, I would go work out or call a family member or a friend, I wasn’t really comfortable doing things alone. When I moved to Saskatoon, the majority of my friends lived here (Regina), so I had no choice but to learn to get comfortable doing things alone. My boyfriend at the time worked 6 days a week, so if I wanted to keep busy, I either had to wait for him, find a friend or get comfortable going solo.
Lately, I seem to be doing a few different things. This are a few of my fav “me time” activities.
Taking a bath:
I love taking baths! When my boyfriend and I designed our home, I said a major need for me is we need a stand alone bath tub. When we first moved in, I use to bath every night. Now I find I bath maybe once every couple of weeks. I take this time to unwind, sometimes I read. A friend suggested to me that meditating in the bath is great! You have your alone time, and your able to close your eyes and just “zen the ef out”. She’s not wrong, its awesome!! I recommend you try it. One of the other things that I really wanted when building this house was natural light in the bathroom. Our bathtub is surrounded by windows. If you have a window in your bathroom, I reccomend that you bring a good book, put on a face mask and have a bath during the day!! It’s unreal!
Chelsea Anne Photography
Painting:
Painting has been another amazing “me time” activity. There is something about putting paint to canvas that is extremely relaxing. I love to sit at my kitchen table, turn my record player on and just paint away. Painting during the day is great because I get a lot of natural light in my kitchen but I also love painting at night. Sometimes I find, I will bring out a canvas and just paint away for a couple of hours. I use to paint as a kid, then I dabbled a little bit in a art class in high school. I am not a good painter when it comes to painting something you would recognize, I am more of an abstract painter. Which is perfect for me because you can just do werid stuff and you will eventually get soemthing that you love. If you don’t love it, hide it in a drawer.
This summer, I took a water colour class taught by Justine Marie Studios and I fell in love with painting all over again.
Water colour is awesome, after the class I went and purchased a bunch of supplies. It was just so calming and relaxing. Now, I am attempting a new style. I love texture when I paint so I want to try and use water colours as a base, then put in acrylic paint for texture. This weekend I bought a few different molding pastes, some glitter and some new paint colours. I will have to keep you guys posted on how that goes.
Myself & Justine from JMS
Reading:
Raise your hand if you love to read! (Insert arm up emoji) My mom use to take my sister and I to the library as kids. I loooved going there. I would get so excited that I would pick out at least 10 books! I remember always signing out waaaay more than I ever could read in the month. My mom also use to take us to used book stores, I don’t know why, but I love the smell LOL. It smells like an old, funky library haha. To this day, my mom always buys my sister and I a book for Christmas. It’s the best.
I have found over the past couple of months, sometimes I want to come home and I don’t feel like watching tv, so I just sit on the couch and read. Once I am tired I go to bed. The pics below includes a couple of the books I have read over the past couple of months. I have just started reading “A Tribe Called Bliss” by Lori Harder. The book is about breaking through superficial friendships, creating real connections and reaching your highest potential. In my opinion, you can only go up from here!
My girlfriend Tia, aka Lady Getz (I have linked her) has started a book club. She always reads the best books so I love following along to see what she’s reading. I recommend you do the same. (She has a post on her site about 5 books you will love but have probably never read) - go find it!
My latest reads are below.
A few of my most recent reads
Yoga:
I love yoga! I love yoga so much! I have membership to “Quan’s Hot Yoga” here in Regina.I absolutely love the Yin & Yang Class. I also have been going to the yin class. Sometimes with work, I am not able to get the classes that I love going to, so I just recently subscribed to a online yoga studio. Its called Yoga Anytime. This way if I get lazy and don’t want to leave the acreage now I can do Yoga at home <3 .
Image from upsplash
Snuggles with my Doggos:
Lastly, sometimes you just want to stay home, drink tea and watch movies. My dogs and my boyfriend are my fav parters in crimes to do this with. Putting on my smash and tess romper, a pair of reading socks and snuggling up with my dogs and a fuzzy blanket might just be my favourite!
About a month ago we adopted a new dog. Her name is Molly. Mike our frenchie loves her. We will all pile on the couch and snuggle up until it’s time for bed.
Dogs really are the best!
Mike & Molly
Quick side story on how we got Molly.
My younger sister Jess is getting married, I am her MOH. She asked if I would go to one of the bridal shows here in Regina. Of course, I said yes. Our plan was to get dressed, check out the show, talk to a couple of the vendors she is booking with, get limo info for her fiancé and then go for brunch! Talk about the best type of sunday funday! Soooo…how did Molly arrive into this story? Trust me, I am getting there.
Jess and I check in at the bridal show, they give her a sticker that showcases that she is the bride, the give us a map of all the vendors and then they proceed to tell us that “Lucky Paws Dog Rescue” is here with puppies. You can pay a donation and then go snuggle some pups. Obviously we said were 100% going to do that on our way out. So Jess and I do our thing, we check out the venue, talk to her vendors and completely forgot about the puppies. As were getting ready to leave, we end up finding them. We pay a few bucks and start snuggling. All the dogs are adorbs, but none of them were really for me. I had my Mike at home, he’s our little Frenchie and I was completely satisfied with just having him and boyfriend. Jess had adopted her lab retriever just over a year ago, we literally just wanted to donate, get some snuggles and get a few mimosa’s in us. Were now walking away…..Shit, you can imagine where this is going.
I noticed that there was one small laundry basket with two little puppies in there that we missed. Jess and I turned around, looked at each other, put on more hand sanitizer and picked up the puppies. I melted.
Like I am talking I melted. I picked up this little girl, who was so small and she was licking my face. She had the cutest white paws and was a strawberry blonde colour. The shelter lady told me that her mother was eaten by coyote. Her and her brother almost didn’t make it, but another litter of puppies were surrendered and the mother of that “new litter” ended up being a surrogate mother to the two dogs.
- Insert all the tears - Like all of them.
Jess, I need this dog.
But for real….I do!
I look at my sister, and I ask her to take a photo for me. There was something about this dog, I just wanted her. After about 10 minutes I had to give her back so other people could snuggle her. I started to get a little bit jealous. I told my sister we had to leave. I immediately sent my boyfriend the photos of me and this beautiful dog. He got back to me and told me not a chance.
“I did what any girlfriend would do and posted my suggestion to Facebook”
Unfortunately for me, boyfriend had to work that night. We were not able to really have a proper discussion. So I did what any other girlfriend would do and posted my suggestion to facebook, I tagged him in and asked all of our friends if they agreed that we should get another dog. Clearly, everyone said yes, and boyfriend still turned me down. Ugh Why? I mean I get it, we got Mike a year ago and were no longer in the puppy stage. BUT this dog needs a family and has no mother…sooo hello!
Long story short- I dropped it and two days later he asked me “When do I get to meet the dog”, I set the appointment, we all played, two days later the dog came to our house to meet Mike and then we had a new baby girl!! <3
Ahhhh so now it really is bring on all the dog snuggles or boyfriend snuggles. It really is the best.
There are so many things that we can do to be happy. Some things can be done alone, and other happy activities can be done by hanging with friends and family.
The moral of this story is, happiness really comes down to doing whats good for you!
I find that there are a variety of things that make me happy. Me time, nights out with my girlfriends, talking with my sister or my mom, hanging with boyfriend, traveling. However, all of these things lead back to having a postive mindset and gratitude. When you have positive mindset and are grateful its hard not to be happy.
Peace & Love
J
