Happily Ever After: The Life-Changing Power of a Grateful Heart Read online

  For example, take the card that Ryan gave me for our eighth wedding anniversary. The outside said, “What Would I Do Without You?” The inside:

  Angel, Happy Anniversary! Thank you for being the rock that stands as the foundation of our marriage and the glue that holds our family together. The amount of love you possess is humbling to me. I am lucky to have some of that love and appreciate your willingness to love “all” of me, the good and bad, through both easy and hard times. You are a truly special person, a perfect mom, and a beautiful wife. Thank you for being my wife! I love you! Forever & ever & ever & ever . . . Ryan

  We do say “I love you” and “thank you” when it comes to doing the dishes or taking out the trash, but it’s nice to have his heartfelt appreciation in a way that I can carry with me everywhere.

  Remember how it feels to be validated by the words “I appreciate you,” and say it forward. If we can all remember to appreciate one another, we will all shine a little brighter. Poet and author Maya Angelou’s words on the topic say it all: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

  Start up a gratitude journal. Set aside time each day, whether it is bedtime or during your lunch break or as you sip on your morning java, to formally acknowledge through the written word one to five things you are grateful for. There are no wrong entries.

  Close your eyes and think of the best parts of your life. It could be as small as the beating of your heart or as all-encompassing as the memories of a happy childhood. Open your mind, let your imagination run wild, and focus on this quote by author Sarah Ban Breathnach: “All we have is all we need. All we need is the awareness of how blessed we really are.”

  If your day is rotten, stop what you are doing, grab paper and a pen, and let your stream of consciousness guide your hands in counting your blessings, thereby canceling out the negativity surrounding you. Put those thoughts in your pocket or your purse and carry them with you as you return to your newly brightened day.

  Too busy to grab paper and pen? Just take a moment to breathe and think about one thing you’re grateful for.

  Remember the basics: treat people how you would like to be treated. Living by the Golden Rule isn’t always easy, especially when you throw feelings and life stressors into the mix, but if there is a lifestyle you can be proud of living, that’s the one.

  Feel GREATful: The Art of Appreciating and Nurturing Yourself

  Give thanks for what you are now, and keep fighting for what you want to be tomorrow.

  —FERNANDA MIRAMONTES-LANDEROS

  CHAPTER TWO

  “YOU CAN’T INVITE YOUR FRIENDS AND LOVED ONES inside of a house you haven’t built yet.” Rev Run, the hip-hop legend and minister, definitely has a way with words, and when he posted this quote on Twitter, I immediately wrote it in the little journal I have dedicated to collecting my favorites. It was the perfect way to describe two notions that have guided the most important relationships of my life: (1) It is only through knowing and truly loving yourself that you can ever welcome anyone else into your world; (2) It is only by taking care of your personal health and well-being that you will have the energy and ability to care for the people who depend on you, including your kids, spouse, parents, friends, or even your precious babies with fur or feathers.

  If you’ve ever been on an airplane, you’ve heard the safety announcements: “In the unlikely event of pressure loss, oxygen masks will appear overhead. If you are seated next to a small child or someone needing assistance, secure your own mask first before assisting them.”

  Until I became a mother, that sounded so selfish to me. You shouldn’t offer help to those who need it most before you take care of yourself? That’s not what all those lessons of childhood taught me! I should be a giving person, right? Someone who puts others before herself, right? After all, if I don’t place the oxygen mask on the little faces of those depending on me, who will? Well, no one if I’ve already lost consciousness (God forbid!). The only way to ensure that they have what they need is to make sure that I can give them what they need—and that means taking care of myself first.

  This is not to say that you are more important than those you are caring for, but that you are as important. Just because you’ve dedicated your life, or your flight, or the past few years to caring for someone less independent than you doesn’t mean that you deserve any less of a life yourself. You are worthy. You deserve love. You deserve appreciation.

  Whether you give back to yourself in the form of an annual trip with just your buddies or a nightly veg session on the couch with your guilty pleasure on the tube is up to you. Just remember not to forget the person in your life who needs you more than anyone: you. That is anything but selfish.

  FILL ’ER UP!

  We all have an appreciation tank that needs filling. The more validation we get, the happier and more fulfilled we feel, allowing us to travel through life with an immense sense of confidence, pleasure, and positivity. Those we receive from our friends, family, hobbies, and job successes can be a wonderful addition to the foundation we’ve built for ourselves. The beauty, though, is that we need nothing more than self-love to fill the tank all the way to the top. As the American author Louis L’Amour once said, “I need nobody to make me somebody.”

  Filling our tanks is a constant process. Unless we want to stay on empty, remain stagnant, and let the beauty of this life happen to other people, we need to actively appreciate the unique blessings that we are. Whether it’s on a daily, weekly, or annual basis, doing things for ourselves is something that needs to happen to keep us feeling like worthy owners of a chunk of the world’s happiness. Besides, if we constantly give to the other people and things in our lives, we will end up resenting them unless we’ve also given some to ourselves.

  There are millions of ways we can show self-love—it’s just up to us to know what will give us the most bang for the buck, and to find a balance between too much and too little, inspiring and discouraging, wise and foolish, self-centered and altruistic, right and wrong. A glass of red wine after the kids go to bed may be just what you need to perk up your mood, but if you’ll find satisfaction only when the bottle costs upward of $1,500 and you have debt up the wazoo, you may need to rethink your personal validation strategy.

  To help get the expressive juices of gratitude flowing, I enlisted a few friends to share their favorite ways to fill up their tanks. I think you’ll love what they came up with as much as I do.

  •My friend and once-upon-a-time fellow coworker Tracey Moses said this: “I blast the music and simply dance around the house. And I mean blare it!”

  As Vicki Baum, an Austrian writer, once said, “There are short-cuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them.” Even without rhythm or coordination, getting the wiggles out does a body, and a mind, good—and there’s heaps of research to prove it. Study after study reports mood improvement, stress relief, increased self-confidence, diminished depression, better health, and greater energy levels, even if it’s done in the privacy of your own home. I’d say that’s a perfect way to move the appreciation-tank meter up.

  •Nathalie McNeil, one of my friends from Miami Children’s Hospital, told me she’d been doing some of Deepak Chopra’s 21-day Meditation Challenges. “I started them because I have a hard time winding down to go to bed and have read about the documented benefits of decreasing anxiety and relaxation. It definitely helps me fall asleep faster, which results in more sleep and a better mood the next day.”

  Nathalie is as honest as they come, but you don’t have to take her word about the benefits. The world of science has been investigating this practice for years, and many studies have shown that meditation can decrease stress levels, induce calm, manage chronic pain, and improve brain function. In addition, one recent study, published in November 2012, found that transcendental meditation significantly reduced the risk of stroke, heart attack, and mortality in people suffering from coronar
y heart disease.

  With many different types and elements, there are possibilities out there for everyone—it’s all about finding the right fit for you. And don’t worry about breaking out your credit cards. Meditation can be done anywhere at any time. It could be just what you need to keep your engine running on happy.

  •My fellow mountain mama Allie Cross told me, “I throw myself parties! I am past the stage of wedding showers (married ten years) and baby showers (two kids) but I still love to celebrate. Last year I rented a big party bike and treated all my friends to a tour of downtown Denver—complete with party favors and everything. It was all for me. I am already planning this year’s celebration and my friends have totally gotten on board and started to plan events for themselves too. Next month a bunch of us are going roller skating with a friend who planned her own party. We are all having so much fun!”

  I bet! I actually started talking about doing something similar with my Vail friends after my fortieth birthday party in 2012. It was truly one of the most fun nights of my life and I decided that I would love to re-create it every year, but not with any particular guest of honor. My vision is to have one big blowout birthday bash to celebrate everyone all at once. After hearing from Allie, though, I’m thinking more frequent get-togethers throughout the year are the way to do it. I love this idea and its potential for profound investment in each of our appreciation tanks.

  •While we were out to dinner with one of our friends, Bernard David, who is always inspiring and insightful, he told me of a friend of his who attends laughing groups. Yes, he said laughing groups.

  I had heard of groups that laugh, of course, but groups that specifically got together to do only that . . . never. I soon found LaughterYoga.org, and after clicking on the video on their home page, I couldn’t help but smile and laugh right along with the giggly people on my computer screen. Started in India in 1995 as a complete well-being workout, these gatherings are based on the scientific fact that the body can’t differentiate between real and fake laughter, and when we laugh, we get happy and more joyful. As the American philosopher William James is quoted as saying, “We don’t laugh because we’re happy—we’re happy because we laugh.” I asked my Twitter followers if any of them had ever attended one. Nickie George responded, “OMG yes and it was better than 2 years of therapy!!!” Even without ever meeting Nickie or knowing her story, her tweet was enough to convince me that an organized group of strangers doing nothing but laughing could flood all of our tanks with happy juice.

  •My college friend David Liberatore had this to share: “I work very hard, so I make sure to PLAY very hard. You only live once . . . so I make sure I take vacations whenever possible, even if it’s just a weekend of skiing in Vermont or a 3-day visit to South Florida. Spoil yourself if you deserve it. Traveling (experiencing new places and new adventures) is what I do to treat myself for all the hard work I do.”

  As you should, Dave. As we all should!

  SO MANY CHOICES

  You make hundreds of decisions in a day. Should I brown-bag it or order a Double Quarter Pounder with cheese, extra-large fries, and a Triple Thick chocolate shake for lunch? Should I wear a white T-shirt and jeans or my ever-so-comfy sweats? Should I listen to Bruno Mars or Miranda Lambert? Should I this? Should I that? Should I? Should I? Should I?

  Life is certainly filled with lots of choices, but the ones that truly matter affect the big picture—the ones you make with each breath you take. They determine your attitude, outlook, legacy, and integrity.

  In every moment of every day, you can either choose to accept your circumstances with a smile, be thankful, and strive toward happiness, or choose to sit back with a scowl succumbing to self-doubt and not fully appreciating that you are here to live your own unique life. A life that may not be full of daily roses and fairy tales, but a precious life that is yours to live . . . yours to experience . . . yours to mold and shape and appreciate.

  Whether you feel good, bad, or somewhere in between, you have the ability to accentuate your time on earth through the power of thought—making it better, worse, or drearily indifferent. As Mother Teresa once said, “There is no key to happiness. The door is always open.” All it takes is forward motion over the threshold. To take that step, you have to harness the power of your mind, guiding it in the direction of your life’s bliss. It may not seem easy, but if a seventy-five-year-old man, exhausted from tip to toe, can do it, I have a feeling that you can too.

  Let me explain.

  It was October 16, 2004, and my husband of almost one year had just finished his first attempt at the formidable Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii. With a smile across his face, he finished his third triathlon ever, in a respectable eleven hours and thirty-eight minutes. After getting showered with congratulations from the group of friends and family (me included, of course!) who had joined us on the big island, refueling at Kona Style Fish ’n’ Chips, and taking what was likely one of the most satisfying showers of his life, we returned to the bleachers at the finish line with about an hour to spare before the race officially ended. It was late and Ryan had fatigued his body like never before, but he decided to put his much-needed rest on hold for what we had been told would be the most inspiring part of our Ironman experience, and I’m so glad we did.

  Sitting among hundreds of others, Ryan and I anxiously awaited the participants who were striving to finish before the strict cutoff time. I was prepared to be heartbroken for those who didn’t make it by midnight, but I wasn’t prepared to actually see the human mind in action right before my very eyes.

  I’ll never forget it.

  Bib #200 was approaching the archway that he’d had in his sights for over 16 1/2 hours; he was literally running diagonal to the ground. Though the miles he’d traveled and the minutes he’d suffered had begun to alter the way his body functioned, he wasn’t letting that stop him. He was going to make it across. He had already made the choice, no matter how badly he hurt or how tired he was.

  At sixteen hours, forty-five minutes, and fifty-four seconds, a man in his seventies crossed the finish line, and with his very next step, he collapsed into the arms of a volunteer. He had exhausted the perceived limits of his body, finishing the race with the remarkable strength of his will. Accomplishing his goal to finish, his mind relaxed its supportive grip on his weary muscles as they collapsed into a heap of satisfaction and accomplishment.

  I have never met him, but I was touched by his incredible display of determination and willpower. He had a choice and he chose to cross that finish line. He chose to achieve his goal. He chose to leave a lasting impression on all who urged him under the final Ironman archway.

  Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”

  When this man chose to train, compete, finish, and not give up on what was surely one of the most grueling days of his seventy-five years, he demonstrated an indomitable will. He exemplified the tremendous capacity of the human spirit that exists within each of us. We are all capable of summoning the powers of our mind to help us push through pain, grow through adversity, and appreciate the beauty we see in even our most challenging times.

  Only one person can choose how you respond to adversity and how you live your life. It’s not your mother or your father, your brother, your boss, or your kids. It’s you.

  You are your conscious thought. You have control. Take it. Own it. Live it.

  THE NEGATIVES AND THE POSITIVES

  On MathIsFun.com, students learning basic math are told, “Subtracting a negative is the same as adding.” If only people in the midst of negativity could take themselves back to elementary school math and apply that lesson to their lives, they could embrace this piece of common wisdom: “Every time you subtract negative from your life, you make room for more positive.” To remove negativity, though, you must first acknowledge that it exists. As journalist Oliver Burkeman stated in a 2012 New York Times article titled “The
Power of Negative Thinking,” by deliberately visualizing the worst-case scenario, you usually conclude that you can cope.

  However, allowing a negative thought to momentarily enter to keep us safe from harm is one thing. Allowing negative thoughts to persistently dominate our psyche and destroy our self-respect is another. So other than scheduling regular sessions with a licensed psychological expert, how do we overcome those nasty little notions and maximize our happiness level?

  After doing a little research, I found a really interesting three-part study coauthored by Richard Petty, a psychology professor at Ohio State University. In the first part, the scientists showed that if you want to free your mind of a negative thought, you need to literally throw it out. They started by asking eighty-three high school students to write down a positive or negative thought about their body. After three minutes, they were all asked to reflect on what they wrote. Half of them were then told to throw their written thought in the trash and the other half were told to check for any grammatical mistakes and hold on to their piece of paper. Next, everyone rated their attitudes toward their bodies.

  The results showed that for those who kept what they wrote down, their ratings were directly influenced by whether their written thought was positive or negative. If they had initially written something positive, their positive attitude was accentuated. If they wrote something negative, that too was accentuated. On the flip side, for those who trashed their recorded thought, their attitudes weren’t affected by what they first thought of their bodies. In fact, their first thought wasn’t even a blip on their radar, whether negative or positive.