Something I’ve been realizing a lot lately is that feeling healthy and happy isn’t just something that miraculously happens to us without effort. And when I say effort, I don’t mean we should be pushing an forcing and making things hard – but I do mean there’s usually intentional strategy involved. Whenever I wake up feeling hopeful, excited, healthy and energetic, it’s usually because I’ve been following a set of strategies, even loosely, to get me there.
But it’s easy to let those slide, and forget about their sheer power, until you find yourself feeling slumpy and you don’t know why. In those instances of slumpiness, it’s really easy to blame external circumstances. Your job, your partner, your apartment, the city you live in, your workload, your whatever suddenly becomes this outside source that’s causing you to not feel good. In many cases, though, it’s because you’ve taken your own personal “feel good list” too lightly.
Of course, there are times when we DO need to shift our external circumstances. But I think it’s worth looking at ourselves first.
When you take care of yourself to the best of your ability, your external circumstances reflect that – and it’s easier to decipher which of your external circumstances actually need some shifting and which ones just seemed more difficult because you weren’t feeling your best.
I remember this line from Landmark, “When your life sucks, who’s always there? YOU.” And I thought that was funny and true. Because sometimes, we can clean up whatever’s going on inside our vast inner worlds…with a quick visit to the feel good list.
What are the things you know you need, that would boost your health and happiness levels? Is there a possibility that you’re blaming external circumstances on your unhappiness when really, your inner world could use some cleaning up first?
Take some time to write your feel good list.
Here’s the list I wrote the other day, directly from my journal word for word. It definitely doesn’t include everything, and we all need different things at different times. But it’s a start.
Things I Know Would Make Me Feel Better Every Day:
- Journaling
- Praying
- Appreciating
- Visualizing the life I want
- Asking for help
- Asking how I can be helpful
- Writing more (not just blogs)
- Collaborating on projects with others
- Being with people
- Yoga
- Runs and walks
- Being outside
- Being near the ocean
- Affection and touch
- Somehow plugging myself into community
- Taking a class
- Taking beautiful photos
- Laughing
- Cooking
- Being generous
- Connecting
These are just a few. I didn’t even touch upon diet or hydration or any of that. But of course it’s important. Chewing too. ;)
It’s nice to have a list like this, that you can reference and troubleshoot with when you’re not feeling your best. It’s amazing what a little tender loving care can do…
What’s one thing that’s definitely on your feel good list?
Have you ever made one?
Today might be the perfect time. :)
Hugs-
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