Can you thank yourself?

Do you sometimes feel sad or depressed or just neutral – neither happy nor sad – just empty. Do you chase your happiness and do you actually wonder what happiness is? Do you find meaning in the phrase ‘happiness is what you make it’?

I’ve got someone in my life that does and once I gave her that talk. What’s amazing is that she heard me and she understood. And changed!

So I thought … I need to share it.

Popular definitions of happiness are:

Happiness is that feeling that comes over you when you know life is good and you can’t help but smile. (vocabulary.com)

Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being defined by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. (wikipedia.com )

So then next questions that follows would be ‘when do you know your life is good?’, ‘when do positive emotions come?’.

My answer is:

When we CHOOSE to. My answer is: GRATITUDE

Many people would disagree it’s a choice, but let’s consider the following situation:

Your tooth hurts. Badly. It drives you crazy. All you want is to be over and you’ll be FINE. That’s your only worry at the moment. You go to the dentist, they fix it – it does’t hurt anymore. You feel relief. You have that moment of happiness. ‘life is good and you can’t help but smile’.

And then 5 minutes later you start wondering what your next PROBLEM is, why should this happiness stop RIGHT NOW.

Let me ask you a question:

Would you EVER wake up in the morning feeling happy about having healthy teeth, about feeling no pain?

I’m pretty sure I know the answer. But why not? If this brought you happiness once, why don’t you let it make you happy again, without having it making you sad? Why don’t you make yourself feel good about yourself – it’s so simple – just say THANK YOU. CHOOSE to bring it back.

In my opinion, GRATITUDE is a synonym to HAPPINESS. Actually I believe happiness is built of gratitude. Here is why:

You’re an athlete. You go to a marathon. You finish first. HAAAAAPPPPPINEEEEESS. YAAAAAY. You are so GRATEFUL it happened. You can’t believe it, but you are so grateful.

You are in a long distance relationship. It’s your birthday and he/she walks through the door. HAAAAAAPPPPINEEEESS. You’re so grateful he/she is here.

Do you want to be happy NOW?

Easy peasy.

Just wake up and say THANK YOU.

Today for your perfectly functioning lungs, tomorrow for that award you won last year, next week for this delicious dinner you had, next month for this cool joke that you said and everybody loved. Bring back the FEELING.

Bring some happiness to your day every day.

CHOOSE to say THANK YOU.

Thank you for coming back to my blog. I also thank myself for writing it. Hope you found something for you in here.

Love,

Maria