digging deep

My current favourite quote.  I am finding myself having to revert to this quote quite a fair bit this week, and its only Tuesday. Yes, my little sparkles of happiness are rapidly eroding. My liberal carefree daily cycle to work has been replaced with being stuck in traffic in a tin can. My precious lab space - the zone in which I feel happiest has been eroded to half of what I had before, and frankly I have been struggling to find the happiness.  This moment, that I have been building slowly towards for the last 18 months is finally here - the site has finally closed (or is closing) in Cambridge, and we are being located 40 miles away.  Time to implement happiness project phase II.

Its  hard to stay positive and focussed when you're decontaminating an entire lab space, and watching thousands of pounds of chemicals and reagents being tipped into biohazard bags.  Its also hard to find the happiness when your closest friends at work - the sisterhood - have decided that this is the end for them, really leaving you alone to face the harsh truth.  So yes, dig deep.

phase II, what is it then?  Self analysis once again, but the big realisation, making other people happy actually makes me happy. It works for me. So of course my first guinea pig is the child. We played hide and seek, I let her "scare" me so she gets her kicks and we had a cuddle in bed until she fell asleep. That really brightened my day. Buying a coffee for colleauges at work, telling someone you care - seeing that smile that someone has did its magic.

There are actual studies to support this. In science there was an article about how spending on others makes you happier than spending on yourself. For someone like me, I relate to that. Whether its spending time or money, pampering others gives me a great deal of satisfaction - and especially with children, when you get very little back in return for it (in my case a cuddle is a rare commodity), I still don't mind.  Action plan for tomorrow - make someone happy, you might find it might just make you happy too.

sisterhood

I feel lucky to be a woman. Really I do. I know there is much gender inequality out there, and don't get me wrong, I am a feminist. But I still think we have special features that men just don't have - sisterhood.

Relationships that women have with other women fascinate me.  If I reflect upon my own life, my female friends are my rocks. Maybe its partly because I was brought up in a predominantly female household; the female relationships we form are special. Whether it be with family, friends, colleagues or neighbours. I have spent alot of time pondering over my own relationships with the women around me, and I have come to a conclusion: there are three catagories of female-female relationships.

The first - the inner circle. Of which there are just a very very few. Those people who probably know too much about your life. Those people you weep with, you rely on, you laugh with, you take criticism from. Those are the rare relationships, and every women for sure should have them. This inner circle seem never to upset you - even when they are your harshest critics.  Those are the people who make you happiest. And those are the people you need to keep close and invest in.

The second, the double edged sword. The women who you kind of say things to. But those also, after a long conversation, you leave feeling bad about yourself. And you don't really know how it all happened.  There is not much genuineness in their advice, you think they are your friend, but they are perhaps not. They are the predators who go for the kill. These are the women you have to stay clear from.

Then the third, the bitches. Never nice, always spiteful. Don't even go there and don't do it to yourself.

If the people around you are making you feel bad about yourself, then walk away. Life is too short.

Its the second group really that fascinates me. Why do us women do that to ourselves? Why are we just plain nasty to each other from time to time?  And its always the fattest of your friends who tells you you're fat, or the childless one who tells you how to raise your children, or the working mum who makes you feel guilty that you are working.  Is this just the way its always been?

I like to think not (the optomist in me!).  I like to think that there was a time, particularly in post-war Britain where women HAD to pull together and help each other and the bitching stopped. The reason, many husbands never came home, and there was no other choice. I turned to the internet to back my theory up, and was shocked at the responses. The close female relationship in category 1 is basically dead. Guardian, telegraph, its all there. Female friendships, of pure concern for each other is gone.

I, however, totally disagree, the female friend is still alive, I am the proof of that. And maybe thats why more and more people (or women) are unhappy, we have lost our close circle of friends. I certainly know that these people are central to my happiness project, so here I am reaching out to the world - stop being bitchy to your friends because you are insecure, because we all need that shoulder to lean on every now and then.

Managing the bad

Its been a long while. I know. I haven't found it in me to write my blog. My happiness project is waning. I know why. There is too much going on in my life that its sucking out the time to enjoy the things i need to make me happy.  I am going through changes in practically every aspect of my life. This has left a cleft of uncertainty in my mind, and happiness is certainly the last thing on my mind.

So with much activation energy, I am sitting here tonight wondering how it is you need to combat the blues.  We are all going to have times in our lives where we feel down, unmotivated and where we loose focus. The happiness project hasn't eliminated those, but there must be a way to manage this. It might not just be feeling down because of the pressures of life, but you might have a sudden traumatic shock that you weren't expecting, how do you manage this when your aims are to stay happy and focussed?

This is a difficult issue to address, and I can't claim I have the answers either.  I tried to google it. I got nonsense most of the time, talk, find the positive things again in your life. Too airy fairy for my liking. However what started to catch my eye was other peoples blogs on their personal journeys and this really sucked me in.  These seem to be the key facts of bouncing back:

1) ask for help. ESPECIALLY if you are one of those people (like me) who never do. Having friends to lean on in times of need is priceless.

2) fake it. Apparently, putting on a big smile and pretending everything is ok actually helps the recovery process.  Certainly I felt that believing that you will get better and convincing yourself that things will change helps. I find a little memory helps me to remember this - like wearing a bracelet or ring to remind me...

3) Reminders. Every morning wake up and think of three things that will remind you of being happy. Starting your day happy does have rippling effects throughout the day.

4) Cry. Yes it helps weep like a baby and get it out. But then re-compose yourself and inspire yourself. When you hit rock bottom there is only one way - up!

5) Know your worst case scenario. This helps you to manage your expectations.  When you have already replayed how bad it can get, it doesn't feel so bad anymore.

I also saw this quote which helped me too. I know i don't do quotes, but this one inspired me:





I am going to bookmark this page of my blog. There will be times that will be hard and I have to refer to this page to pull myself out of it. One thing is never to feel alone, there are many people out there who care and want to help. While you may only be one person in this world, you may be the world to one person.