The Happiness Project

Over the summer my relief society in the Philippines book group read The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. The book was great! The author took a year of her life and devoted it to work on becoming happier. She was not unhappy, she just wanted to increase her sense of feeling happy or as I say increase her well being. The book did not have any profound revelation that was life changing for me but it did help me set some resolutions that I have implemented into increasing my well being. The best way to learn is from others experiecnes, and I learned a great deal from her happiness project. 

Anyway, I got to meet Gretchen herself the other night at her book signing for her second book, Happier at Home. I have not started reading it yet but I am excited to see how she incrased happiness in the home. I did not plan on going to her book signing but she has a blog that I recive a monthly new letter from and it was the first time I actually looked at the news letter and saw that her book signing was the next night in NYC. I thought why not go? And it turned out to be great!

I took a few notes on her words about how to increase our own happiness. Here is what Gretchen says: 

She started out by talking about how happiness has a bad conotation. Most people think that happy people are simple minded, silly, ignorant, or whatever. But this is not the case. If you are happy you are thinking about others more. People who are unhappy tend to focus on their problems and thus themselves. So being happy (especially as a parent) is important because your thoughts will turn outward and to others. The number one thing she said that would increase our happiness would be to get enought sleep. By enough sleep she means is eight hours every night. You can get quick hits of pleasure through smell. For example,  smelling freshly laundred clothes and then move on, or have a nice smelling candle. If you are in a real happiness emergency jump up and down. There is something about getting our feet off the ground that helps us get a little extra jolt of energy and make us feel better. Arrange your possessions in a mindful way. She said that she has created a kind of "shrine" in her home to childrens literature. If you have read her work you know she is a huge childrens lit fan. She said all of the childrens lit was scattered about her home and she  took all the childrens literature in her home and put it in its own section in a book case. That is something that she can look at and feel happy. Face facts about what you want to and do have. Make your bed. There is something about order that calms people. We can think more clearly. Build relationships through small traditions. She says that she does holiday breakfasts with her family. Cultivate the type of atmosphere you want in your house. She got her family involved in a resolution to have warm greetings and farewells. When someone comes home everyone there gets up to greet them or say goodbye. For her family she says it has made them a stronger family. About half of these things she talks about in Happier at Home.  

Me and Gretchen. Yes, we are besties. 

The Barnes and Noble where the signing was has a lot of events. They have a lot of authors that come for book singings and lectures. Lois Lowry the author of The Giver, is coming out with a sequel and will be there the begining of October. I think I will attend that one. If you live in the city come with me. It will be fun!