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Choose Happy

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I laid the law down.  Firmly.  Without  rancor or anger I spoke softly.  “This Christmas if I can do it so can you.”  So on I went face-to-face with hubby.  This Christmas no depression, no blues, no hiding.  This year it will be smiles and having a good day!

Friends, if you are not married to a Veteran you do not know how miserable that Vet can get on Holidays.  Well this year Thanksgiving was a win-win.  So I’m taking the bull by the horns (When don’t I?) and declaring this year we will have a grand Christmas.  Even better then Thanksgiving!

At the beginning of last week, I realized I had to do something fast because the sadness I was sinking into was getting me nowhere.  I pulled way back to get quiet and assessed.  What could I do to help ME get that smile back even if my Heart still is much too sad?  Answers came and I acted upon them.  Consistently.  Even on the days I didn’t wanna.

And just like Thanksgiving, if tears should happen to fall on Christmas, they will.  But I will not stay in the puddle of tears, that is for darn sure!  It is my choice to be Happy this Christmas as I was for Thanksgiving.

Some of you may think I’m stuffing my emotions.  I’m not.  The pain is still very fresh and there are times within a day that I tear up missing my Mom so darn much.  But I refuse to stay there.  It is dangerous for me so I am now doing things to tickle the gladness back into my Heart.

We all have choices.  I know many of you have lost Loved Ones and the Holidays are difficult to get through.  But.  Please think. Would your Loved Ones want you to be sad and spend that day crying the blues?  Or would your Loved One want you to enjoy the Holiday and remember Christmases past with them, not with sadness but with a smile?

By gosh!  If I can do this Happy bit on my first Christmas without a woman I Loved with all of my Heart and Soul, then you can do the Happy bit on Christmas too.  It’s a choice.  You really won’t regret choosing Happy.  I will vouch for that!

This is not the sugary-sweet-teeth-on-edge-fake-phony-baloney-happy.  No sirrree Bob!  This is the genuine article straight from my Heart Happy!  

The photograph is a picture with my cellphone as hubby was driving on a rainy night.  I was experimenting with the pro settings and was very happy with the results I obtained.  Then I wanted to play so I did in PS until I got this effect.  I’d say it represents choices.  Don’t you?  I used several different filters and just pushed sliders until I just “knew” yup, I got what I was after.  (smile)

Photography/ “Choose Happy”/ November 2017©AmyRose
http://www.herladypinkrose.wordpress.com

💝🤗💝

 

56 thoughts on “Choose Happy”

    1. I did not say it would be easy by no means. It boils down to a choice, Dan. My heart cries for my Mom yet she would not wish me to be unhappy this Christmas, a season that was her favorite. I deliberately incorporate positive things into my life to bring joy back into my heart. May all of us this Christmas celebrate with warm memory of those who have gone before us to the heavenlies. May you have a wonderful day this day! 💕🎄💕

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    1. You got it, Joey. Life has its ups and its downs and there are days that the tears just don’t stop. This I admit freely. Yet I am so determined to stay as happy as I possibly can, there by avoiding sad. Life is far from perfect and those of us who are real do not deny the tears. I hope you have a really good day today! 🙂

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  6. I’m so happy to read your post today, Amy 😀
    We need to make the choice, each of us, to stay happy and remember all the good times, as we had together with our loved ones, whatever they had 2 or 4 legs. We miss all of them and I choose to be grateful to have known them and for whatever they taught me in this life.

    Much love to you, dear friend ❤

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    1. Yes making a choice to be happy is active, not passive, and some days so much harder to do then others. By choosing happy for Thanksgiving I really had a wonderful day. That’s not to say my grieving is over. No. Sometimes I don’t know how I’m going to make it through Christmas Day without my Mom. But I will and I will do my very best to have a smile.
      Are you a Grandma yet? I’ve been on eggshells hoping to hear some news. Please let me know, dear friend, if all is well. (((HUGS))) Amy 💞

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    1. Absolutely! Maintaining happiness when your Heart is still so raw and in pain from a recent loss is SO not easy. It takes great determination to do so. Thank you for the encouragement and for understanding. ☺️

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  8. Hi Amy 🙂 I love the photo at the top!! ❤ It looks like an impressionistic painting. 🙂 I have known and do know people including family that get the blues during the holidays. I don't go way up or way down. I have fun putting together little gifts for my immediate family. Healthy food treats and little things I think they will enjoy. I send cards to my extended family. If I can, I spend the day outside which is my way of saying "Thank You!" which I do frequently when I am outside along with …. "Look at That. Isn't that beautiful!" … Usually, there is no one around to hear my talking or rather talking/praying out loud. 🙂 When I was a child, I loved how the house smelled of evergreens and the candlelight service on Christmas Eve where we would sing Christmas carols. A church filled with tiny lights from many candles and music. And the cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Yum! I can't eat such things anymore, but I have fond memories of the homemade cinnamon rolls and Christmas cookies. If it is nice out, I will be outside this year. If it is storming or too cold, then I have a good book my Mom lent me that I've been saving to read or maybe I will be inspired to work on one of the creative projects. I go to bed early in the winter which I find helps. I love the very early morning hours. They are the best idea time along with outdoor time. Being outside is good for creativity. I am practicing letting folks have their moods and their emotions and their space. I have spent too much time feeling pressured by others to be one way or another and I don't want to put that kind of pressure on someone else. It doesn't mean I am taking on their mood, though. I have done this in the past before I understood how not to. I took a meditation class a couple of years ago and one of the things we learned was about how to have emotional boundaries. The instructor used the concept of the permission rose. The permission rose sits at the outer edge of your space. The energy/emotions from others goes into the rose instead of your space. You can see the energy/emotions and understand them, but you don't have to let it into your space. In your space, you have absolute seniority with respect to energy and emotions. I have found this has increased the gracefulness and ease of my relationships. There is still (at least) one family member who probably wants to argue with me if I gave them the opportunity. I am not letting their conflict energy in my space. I am not letting anyone's conflict energy in my space. I don't want to be a re-transmitter or reflector or creator of it. The same goes for pain. When I feel pain and sadness, I consciously let it go and ask for help letting it go. I don't fret that it showed up or feel bad it is there. I think…. Okay. I know what to do with this. I wish to let it go….. It might take a while. For me, happiness comes when I am connected to spirit. The times when I feel the strongest connection are when I am in the space where I Know that this connection is all there really is. That living from that place, I am Being who I wish to Be and sending out the kind of energy I wish to send out. This is the best way I can help others because the happy and the joyfulness come from something solid far larger than me. Wishes for love, joy, and gentleness for you! ❤ ❤ ❤

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    1. Beautiful, Sarah! I LOVE the analogy of the rose and I am going to use it. I can so relate! Just recently I had sister #2 throw cannonballs of anger at me and I felt it. I did not have time to put my shield up for it was from out of the blue. It took me a while to let the hurt go and in the process I had to ask myself why I was hurt. I figured it out and then when I let the anger go, I forgave and actually was able to make a pleasant connection with her. I know how to not get dragged into others’ pain BUT. When you live with someone and that someone is in a low state every day for a long time, yes it does effect me. This is why I was very firm with hubby this year. My heart is so raw and heavy and I will not tolerate something he needed to have let go a long time ago. Every Christmas he starts thinking about his buddies from Nam who died and so refuses to allow Joy into his Heart because of the survivor guilt complex. This year WILL be different! That is what I am putting out and that is exactly what shall return.
      I am most connected to Spirit when I am flowing in the space of who I am freely and without alarm. When I am in the flow I too am able to help the most by just being myself. I so enjoyed reading your comment today. Thank you so much, dear friend! 🤗

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      1. I hope Joy and Peace and Love reign in your home over the holidays. 🙂 ❤ Maybe you can think up a new fun tradition to add to the day. 🙂 Love and blessings to you. ❤ ❤ ❤

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    1. OH how I bless you for your words! Thank YOU! I’ve got tears in my eyes now as I read your comment. I am so touched. I promise you and myself I will do my very best to honor my Mom this Christmas with many a smile and laugh. BIG (((HUGS))) from me! 💝

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  10. Your doing great Amy, allow those return to sadness days, they have purpose too. To ‘let go’ what is held within, an expression of what you are. Holding onto those blocks us within and without. Just be you, no more perfect can you be. Your mom is still in your heart and celebrating right along with you ❤
    Great pic too. I've never had the chance to play with my photo's and create some magic as you do 😀

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    1. Some days are a struggle to not curl up in the fetal position and stay there. This pain is still so acute. You should know me by now I do allow my emotions to surface and flow over. Yet I have gained wisdom in knowing where the danger lies for me and so with determination and strength beyond that I thought I had, I move upwards into the light and joy after the shower of tears have come. As for my photograph I just had so much fun doing what I did. It’s been a while since I played in PS so I did. Thank you, Mark, for your continued support and encouragement of me. My appreciation goes further then I think you realize. 💝🤗

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      1. My pleasure young lady, and thank you for your kind words. It is a big journey, but slowly your heart is throwing down the walls and opening to a new you, one built on the love that has been waiting inside to be set free ❤

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  11. Your photo is magical, Amy, so well done. I’m glad you had a positive Thanksgiving, and I know you’ll succeed at Christmas as well, I can hear it in your words. I wish there was better PTSD counseling out there for veterans of all wars. Vietnam was so long ago, it is time for him to heal and I hope he gets the support he needs. I know it is hard to not be affected by someone in pain around you, and I wish you the very best in staying true to yourself. You/we can all choose to be happy with the right sense of determination. I’ve had a few very depressing holidays over the years. One in particular…I was out feeling sorry for myself and I witnessed a lady I knew who had just lost her 9 year old, struck and killed while at a school bus stop in my neighborhood. I saw her buying gifts, holiday decorations and wrapping paper and was amazed at her resilience. It snapped me the hell out of my own funk, helped me to heal in a way that was very surprising, and most welcome. Just one of many examples…

    Take care of yourself, keep writing it out. We’re listening.

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    1. Thank you, Van, about my photograph! I had so much fun playing! I read your words yesterday and have been thinking about them ever since. Tears stung my eyes when you said, “Take care of yourself, keep writing it out. We’re listening.” I am throwing my entire being into rising above the massive pain within my Heart in order to walk quietly and with joy. Your story about the woman who lost her son struck home and even I cannot imagine the strength within that dear woman to choose Happy over the pit of despair. Your story encouraged me! I can do Christmas with a genuine smile and Happy in my Heart. And as for hubby, he has had counseling and still is in counseling. I’ve seen changes in him recently that I’ve waited for more years then I can say. I believe it’s taken him to see me utterly broken over my Mother’s death to start getting his act together. That and his counselor and I are finally are on the same page, so what I am saying here at home, hubby is hearing in counseling. Also the positive changes I am making as well as hubby in our daily life, are contributing to his state of mine as it is mine, and consistency I am seeing the peace in this house I’ve always dreamed of. Now if I can get hubby to start walking/hiking with me … ;). Forests remind of Nam and he must work through that issue first before he can enjoy where I go. And, oh, I’m really intending to write from a positive point of view. If I published some of my writings …. no. I’m beginning to see the more I focus on the up and positive the more that is what my life becomes. I’ve always said this and now I’m seeing it in spades, much more then ever before. I choose to keep on living with Joy and in Love. Bless you, dear friend, for this comment. Know I took your words to Heart. Much Love to you this day! 💞

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      1. I’m glad you focused on “We’re listening”. Because we are. Sometimes, we just want to know that we are being heard, and there is no reason to suffer in silence. Your words resonate here, Amy, be proud of that.

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    1. My gratitude to you this day knows no limits. I am determined to keep the intention of having a Joy-filled Christmas this year. And thank you for sending me to the poem you did. I left a comment. Know your words touched me ever so deeply! 💞

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    1. Oh, Eliza, this high road is one that is so not easy some days yet I dig to find the strength to smile and to bring Happy to my Heart that is so broken yet. Bless you for your encouragement! (((HUGS))) Amy 💝

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    1. Zia, I really am doing my best and that is all I can ask myself to do. So far so good thank goodness! FYI… That spectrum light that I was speaking of really does work. The only thing is you have to stay in front of it for a while so that’s kind of a hassle. But other than that I do recommend it. Much love to you this day, dear friend. 💕🎄💕

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  20. Pingback: Choose Happy – SEO

    1. I am very touched you would like to do a guest post. Honestly, I do not have the time but you are more then welcome to reblog any of my posts. Thank you so much. 🤗

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    1. Sue, I just came across a TED talk that explains why I choose happy and have done so for years. I never understood WHY I felt better and looked better too because I choose Happy. Now I do. That post is coming probably this weekend. This was a major Lightbulb moment for me!!! Much Love to you! 💞

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  24. My hubby is a Vietnam War Veteran…He remembers seeing his friends killed right before his eyes…He misses them terribly and suffers from dysthymia, PTSD, and Seasonal Affective Disorder…In fact he is 100% disabled due to his PTSD…I just spend lots of time snuggling him during the holidays…I wrote this to help everyone who misses a loved one during the holidays…https://www.nearariver.com/miss-someone-love-today-near-river-bj-rae-eagle/…bj, author of near a river, http://www.nearariver.com...

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    1. God bless you! My hubby is 100% disabled as well due to his PTSD. We just broke through “again” what I have come to call the Christmas Misery … my man is back from hell and now ready to cuddle. He carried some of his friends out of the jungle in body bags and more … This all happening to a child, a mere 18 year old kid. Hubby can’t read articles like this … I wish. May you and your husband have a very Blessed Christmas. Huge (((HUGS))) for the work you are doing! Thank you! 💞🎄💞

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