A little bit of happy

Two years ago I found myself in no man's land. At least that is what it felt like. Yet I hadn't suddenly become marooned on an island. In fact, from one day to the next nothing significant had changed. I just woke up feeling... lost.

If I was to list what was going on in my world (and I did so with infinite listing day in, day out) I was able to easily identify where I was at and why:

• an at-home-Mum to a soon to be school starter (who was diagnosed with a social and communication disorder and undoubtedly nerve filled about being a big school kid) and an energy filled almost four-year-old.

• plenty to do in the day (daily runarounds, house tasks, food on the table and replenished stores in the pantry, the list goes on), but at the same time it often felt like too little to do. My daily activities lacked meaning and immediate reward.

I tried to end each day acknowledging at least one thing I was grateful for, but in reality my mind settled on a sentiment that ROI was low.

I felt really flat, tired and well... fragile. The strategies I'd deployed time and again over my life simply weren't working. In the past I'd refreshed and reset with; distraction (taking on more and keeping busy to avoid being idle), denial (convincing myself I was overthinking things, wobbles were nothing and mental health isn't my issue, "she'll be right") and define (planning out in detail everything, and I mean everything, so life couldn't throw me any curve balls).

Fast forward 9 months, a few psychologist visits and a handful of self help books under my belt, I found that the answer and antidote to my low mood and lack of motivation, lay in my graphic design skill and creative intuition. I needed to be creative. I needed to express myself. I needed to communicate. So I did what I knew best. I wrote a creative brief and set about answering it.

Over the next 3 months, I transitioned from: [I'M FR AGILE, below]. A reminder that...

1. I'm precious. You are too. And we all need a bit of love from others and a lot from ourselves. We need to 'handle ourselves with care' in order to be the best version we can be when we interact with the world.

2. Nothing and no one state of being is permanent. "This too shall pass"

to this: [a little bit of happy, below]

It is small things that contribute to the bigger picture and little moments that make up the day.

If you piece together little moments of happy, before you know it you've moved yourself towards a place of a whole lot of happiness.

I arrived at this thinking, and expressed it in 2 'stickers'  by answering these 3 questions:

At a time in my life when I was my happiest...

what was something/s I did every day?

who mattered the most?

what was I not prepared to give up?

And with these thoughts firmly placed in the front of my mind, and the two graphic stickers as reminders in and around my home, I set about capturing little bits of happy. One at a time.

Today, I make sure I find a little bit of happy in my every day, and that I bring a little bit of happy to my family everyday too. And I take note of them, sometimes recording them in a notebook beside the toaster. At a glance I see how these individual moments become a whole.

Mental health is getting an increasing amount of spotlight it seems. Be it policy promises, celebrity social media sharing, or dinner table conversation with friends. And I'm of the opinion that this air time is positive stuff. Whilst a problem of this nature shared, may not exactly be a problem halved, it is still a problem shared, so we can better understand and better support one another. 

I hope today you too can find your small moment of joy.

Here's to being happy!