Happiness in 2017

Happiness is within you…

 

Hi, I wanted to share some of my knowledge and experiences with you and will start on this blog. I absolutely was inspired by one of my amazing clients from the past. While I’ve met with many over the years, quite a few have influenced my life too.

I thoroughly enjoy my job, as it’s me doing my thing and not just a job, so how could I not enjoy it? I show up and am myself, not a bad deal. I hardly ever talk about myself, but you get what I mean. Before becoming a therapist, I was already a curious person who was fascinated about people and wanted to help them all. I went to school for many years and became a smarty-pants for a minute. Nope, I’ve learned a lot and have plenty of learning yet to do. I’ll be on my death-bed and still thinking about existentialism.

I could make a specific list of things to do to help you be happier this year or link to some article perhaps, but don’t feel that will help you so much. That’s all over the internet already. I’ll share- my favorite thing to do is random acts of kindness. It brings me absolute joy. Anyways, to get back to my point…the answers are within you, don’t underestimate yourself! Do we listen to help from others? Sometimes, right? We often help ourselves and listen best when the ideas come from within our own minds. This is how the motivation will last longer than a day or week. You have to figure out what works for you. A helper can shine the light here and there, but you have to go look for yourself.

When was the last time you were truly happy and is it possible to do that again? If not, what could come close to it? What’s convenient and simple enough to do quite often? The answer is within your mind, your thoughts itself. You can imagine and believe enough in you to create your own happiness right now, as what we think becomes who we are.

Let’s put happiness into perspective too. What is happy? To me, happy is a moment of joy, but mostly free and content. You’re not angry or anxious, sad or crying, just kind of at peace and smiling more often than not. Increased moments of “happy” lead to overall feelings of happiness. People are bound to negatively affect your happiness, and you’ll need to not let them. Making your happiness be all about something outside of you will often lead to problems too.

Happiness is created by our brains, and I will write more about that at a later time. Please be sure to always at least get a physical with thorough blood work, as the mind and body are absolutely connected. Lots of people are unhappy (meh status) in direct relation to what’s going on within their bodies, and it will be extremely difficult (if not impossible) to sustain happy for long.

I’ll leave you with a little list of a few ways that I get my brain to send the happy:

• Dopamine-learning, listening to music, completing tasks and feeling accomplished, and physical affection/sex
• Serotonin- workout daily, eat well, take my vitamins, spend time outdoors in the sunshine, relaxation, and limiting sugar while having awesome carbs
• Oxytocin- love, being in love, being around people and pets who I love, and being around people who are in love..relax and enjoy being close to good people
• Estrogen and Progesterone- yoga, meditation, don’t smoke, relax again and have a nice bath, eat well and let it all go

-Rebecca Perry, LMHC, LMFT