A few years ago I read Gretchen Rubin's book "The Happiness Project." In it, she takes a year and breaks it down month by month, focusing on some aspect of her life to work on to increase her happiness. I've been tempted to do my own version of a happiness project, but in the last couple years my life has been turned upside down, mostly due to a teenager with undiagnosed reactive attachment disorder (RAD). Apparently, facilities and professionals either believe only Russian orphans, who are "incapable of having ANY feelings" have attachment disorders, or due to insurance classifications just don't seem to use the term. So we cluster together mood disorders and PTSD and trauma and attachment and depression and personality disorders and no one seems to call it for exactly what it is: a condition where due to past trauma, you hurt the people closest to you in unthinkable ways, over and over. In parenting a "RADdish", happiness has felt a bit out of my league, but the other day I had a small revelation.
I was looking through my Bible during church last week, and I saw a place where I wrote into my Bible something about the difference between happiness and joy. Happiness, I wrote, is a word rooted by the stem for "happens", and is based on what is happening. It hit me that I couldn't bring myself to start a happiness project, because I was overwhelmed by what was HAPPENING to me. Lately, my focus has shifted away from what has happened to me. Instead, I am focusing on doing things that will help me be okay no matter what is happening around me or even TO me. This is easier said than done, but it has mostly focused on self care. Sometimes we have to say no. Sometimes we have to take a nap. Sometimes we have to say, "I refuse to allow this any more" and we make choices we never thought we would make.
In the next few days, I will be exploring something that may be a Joy Project type of thing. I realize I need some kind of structure and accountability. Otherwise, potentially healthy changes like drinking adequate water and getting more sleep could get mushed into "after I binge on ice cream, I should drink some water and sleep for 10 hours." I need to develop some structure, and a blog will let me see my own progress and potentially share it with others. I see other people in daily life and online who seem to be going through the same struggle. We want certain things, but our lives drive us other directions.
When I think of what has brought me pure joy recently, I think of Rubencito giggling, Genesis coming out of her shell at her birthday party, and Anna confiding in me with some of her deep, teenage thoughts. Ruben preached at our campground today, and a young man came up to him and said, "I felt like you were talking directly to me." My heart swelled with joy. These are the things that make me happy... and they are based on things that happened. I will continue to appreciate them. But when the kids cry, or the husband is discouraged... should I just fall apart? I hope not.
This blog will be where I process my own thoughts as I contemplate life in a family of six. For myself, I love blogs that reassure me that mine is not the only family with issues, that I am not the only mother that feels crazy 85% of the time, and that there are ways we can simplify and slow down and appreciate the things that matter most. Feel free to comment and engage with me on this journey. My plan is to brainstorm a bit and show up with a plan to begin some kind of theme for August. Please feel free to comment and share in this journey with me. Have you read the Happiness Project? Tried a similar project yourself? Share! Thanks. :)
