I am not by nature a “happy” person. People who haven’t known me long usually seem surprised to hear this, “No! You’re so Positive!/Upbeat!” I consider myself more of a “perky pessimist.” I’m not all mopey (I don’t think. Not all the time, anyway) and droopy like Eeyore, but..I’m definitely closer to the dark than the light.

And because the message out there All The Time is Smile! Be Happy! Choose Happiness! I can start feeling “less than,” because I just don’t UNDERSTAND “choose happiness.”

I choose it ALL. The bad and the good. The happy and the sad. The dark and the light. It’s All HERE, it’s All Part of Every Life, why pretend an entire part of life doesn’t exist?

I’ve always failed at daily gratitudes and gratitude journals. Not because I don’t FEEL grateful for things…but because I ALSO feel FRUSTRATED or PAINED or MISTREATED or UNLUCKY or HURT or any number of other things, and it just doesn’t feel right to me to pretend those things don’t exist. It’s like saying “half your feelings don’t matter.” And oh, my feelings MATTER.

Like, when writing things out, or talking to someone about my day or an experience, or whatever, I need to START with the bad. I need to acknowledge and get through the bad before I can feel good about the good. Did someone hear me? Did *I* hear me? Do you GET that it’s not all easy and that maybe I’m struggling or in pain or confused? Okay, good, now we can go on. It’s like…the BAD is my context. Hmm. I never thought of it like that before right this second (see how therapeutic writing can be??). And like some people say “into each life a little rain must fall,” mine feels more like “onto every dark a little light may fall.”

And against the darkness, I will SEE the light. And appreciate it and be GRATEFUL for it. But if I don’t appreciate the dark first, it’s like I just can’t SEE the light. Does this make sense to anyone else?

Anyway, all this is a preamble to an exercise I saw from a book called “Ten Minutes to Happiness,” (which grated on me right away CUZ WHOEVER SAID HAPPINESS WAS THE BE ALL AND END ALL?!) by Sandi Mann. She suggests journaling daily, asking yourself these six questions about your day:

1.         What experiences, however mundane, gave you pleasure?

2.         What praise and feedback did you receive?

3.         What were the moments of pure good fortune?

4.         What were your achievements, however small?

5.         What made you feel grateful?

6.         How did you express kindness?

And I think I kind of like this. It’s not all about HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY, the questions seem more reasonable than that. And to these six *I* would add, 1) Did you say or do anything you regret? 2) What made you feel anxious or emotional? 3) What are you feeling apprehensive about? Because those are my main downers.

So I’m going to try this exercise. Will it make me HAPPY!!!? Eh. Probably not. But maybe it will help me see a little more light through the dark.

What I’m Wearing:

  • Avenue Floral Kimono, no longer available. Comparable here and here
  • White Daily Ritual/Amazon tee, 4x
  • Charlotte Russe skinny jeans, 22 short. No longer available. Comparable here
  • Sam Edelman flatform flip-flops. No longer available. Comparable here

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