A creative tool for happiness

If you have ever heard me speak at a live event, there is a good chance that I have mentioned the need to build a toolbox for life; the more tools we have in our toolbox, the more options we have to navigate life.

I have a large toolbox and continue to add to it. I hope I always will because as I change and grow, my toolbox will need to do the same.

My sister Moriam has come to visit from London. She arrived in December last year and will live with us until the end of this year.

She is ten years my junior, and because we were separated as children, we did not grow up together, so we are both grateful for the opportunity to get to know each other as adults. And one thing that I have learnt about ‘Mozza’ (my first attempt at creating an Aussie nickname) is that she is obsessive about bullet journaling.

For those of you who have not heard of this latest journaling craze, here is a link to some beautiful specimens.

A bullet journal is a creative and custom-made organisational system. It can be your everything: a place for your to-do list, doodles, notes, diary, and aha moments.

One day, Mozza was diligently writing in her bullet journal, and as I got a closer look at what she was doing, I could see she was writing a page called ‘Things that make me happy…’

The title was placed in the middle of the page and the ‘happy things’ were written around it.

I was straight onto it. I also pulled my daughter in, and for the next little while, all three of us were sat around the kitchen table, coloured pens everywhere, talking about and writing down the things that make us happy.

….writing letters, ice-cream, sleeping, the smell of grass after the rain has fallen, kissing, music, gardening, pottering, family scrabble, flowers……

Creating a happy page is a wonderful tool because it makes you happy just doing it. But also, on those days when it all feels too hard, and you need something to shift you to a different place, your ‘happy page’ will deliver. Even if you are unable to do any of the things on the list (although I think you could probably find at least one thing), just the act of reading it will shift your internal state.

Your happy page will become your reference point, and you will add to it as happy moments occur, or when you find yourself feeling happy. I certainly do.

I do not believe that happiness should be a permanent state to reach for (imagine how exhausting that would be), but I believe that moments of happiness are a gift, and we can nourish and build these moments.

Sometimes we forget what makes us happy.

It is a bold act of kindness to allow ourselves to remember.

Wishing you a weekend of coloured pens and happy things. xxx