Not a Happiness Project

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.  :)

A project in the making

I can't believe how long it's been since I've blogged.  While on one hand I need to simplify, on the other hand, I think writing could be therapeutic right now.  So.... I guess I'm doing a "just do it" type of experiment to see if this needs to continue.

Earlier in 2011, I read The Happiness Project.  I was inspired, and I loved it, and I wanted to start my own project on some level.  Well, here we are....late November...and all I really want to do is kiss 2011 good-bye.  Yet part of me really craves the intensity and structure of a real "project."  Something inside of me just can't get with the "happiness" project, yet I'm craving a project.  The uptight part of me likes the idea of starting in January and doing a year, just like in the book.  The cranky part of me says I should just do a chocolate project and see how happy THAT makes me. 

Well, here I am...stuck between my conflicting personalities.  When I really sit and figure it out, I think my "project" for the rest of this year needs to be to kiss my perfectionism good-bye, and make myself stronger.  Somehow, they go together.

I don't know how many people are interested, and even if no one else were to read this, it is my own therapeutic way of trying to squeeze some drops of wisdom out of the blood, sweat, and tears that have become my life recently.  In realizing how much I can't control, I am learning to focus on what is important.

I've read blogs about editing your life,  decluttering, and minimalism.  Tonight, I read the most powerful one yet.  It compared clutter to an arm with gangrene.  It said to look at everything as a "rotting limb that could kill you." (From charliebroadway.blogspot.com)  Not only is that a cool concept when letting go of physical "stuff", but how cool to think of other aspects in life as rotting limbs.  Now, I know that's kind of gross, but seriously....

For the rest of the year, it is my goal to look at everything in my life, and decide whether it is a healthy part of me, or a potential source of gangrene that can poison my life.  Whining and complaining?  Gangrene.  Doing things out of obligation that I really don't care about?  Gangrene.  Letting life pass me by because I'm feeling overwhelmed?  Gangrene.  Trying to figure out how to "fix" all the brokenness I see?  Gangrene.  Rotting on the couch instead of running.....GANGRENE.  Okay, so I'm rambling...

There's only so much we can control.  I realize this now more than ever.  But I can control what I allow to define me as a person.  I can control my priorities in life.  I can look and listen to something...anything...and shout, "Gangrene!" (in my head, of course) and run for my life, whether it's literally or figuratively.

I will document this journey, as much as possible, on this blog.  I couldn't decide what I really wanted to focus on when blogging, so I haven't blogged (perfectionism!).  I wasn't sure if people would have any interest, or think it was stupid, to read what I wrote (uh, perfectionism!).  In the end, I'm realizing that part of my happiness/sanity/anti-rotting-limb project is acknowledging that life is complex and messy, and as you try to navigate your way through it and improve yourself, there will be people that inspire you and "run" along side you, and there will be people that criticize or scoff or whatever (gangrene).

If you choose to read, and follow, I hope we can both find some inspiration along the way.  And, I'll ask you a favor.  If I go too long without writing, please hunt me down and pull me off the couch, throw the bag of Peanut M&Ms away, and drag me behind you for a run or something.  :)