Welcome 2020

Ok so I have completely failed this blog in terms of posting my progress etc but I have not failed in working on my happiness.   I was inspired by a post in my Happiness Project Book club FB post, our leader asked what we accomplished.

As a reminder, this is what 2019 (and this blog) were meant to be.

2019 - The year of putting on my own oxygen mask on first. I believe by doing this it will help me live a fuller and happier life. Moving me to be the better person, wife, and Mom that I want to be and creating some amazing memories along the way.

First of all, I want to say that I am still a work in progress but I am certainly on my way and I am better than I was before.  And I know that I want to focus on progress not perfection.  

I focused on my health, the mental, emotional, and physical aspects of it.  Honestly, I think our health is like a plate of spaghetti you move one noodle and it moves another.  So even when I focused on one aspect I was still making progress on the others indirectly.  I know that I feel better now on January 2, 2020 than I did on January 2, 2019, and that some of the key numeric numbers are healthier.  For one my weight is down (even if it did stall for 1.5 months), secondly, my blood pressure numbers are vastly improved.

I thought that I would be most proud of those indicators, however, really I am most proud of the intangibles.  I feel like I have been living a fuller life, I have been able to let go of some anxiety. This has let me 'live and let live' a bit and be a better slightly more patient parent.   I would like to be even more patient, but that work I have done on my emotional health has allowed me to cut myself slack, and focus on my progress not on what I haven't achieved YET!

Just today I was reading Gretchen Rubin's post in which she interviewed author John Tierney.  And this bit really struck a chord with me:

Psychologists have done lots of studies of what they call the “positivity ratio,” which is the number of bad events or emotions for every positive one. They’ve found that it typically takes about four good things to overcome one bad thing. Because of that ratio, it’s much more important to avoid bad than to do good.

Why you ask?  Well because over the course of the year as I was focusing on cultivating my own happiness I found that I had to keep repeating my wins and positives and I was thinking that needing to repeat those things was a weakness of mine.  As much as I don't like to focus on outside validation, sometimes you just need it and that is ok.  So I will keep repeating my wins as a mantra to help keep my positivity ratio up.

What else did I do?

I allowed myself to spend out a bit more than I used to and I acknowledge that I need to do it more because there is no reason to "keep it just in case" because we are blessed.  Keeping things in a closet just in case does not create joy, it does however, keep me longing and not making memories.

I survived, no I did far more than survive my family vacation.  This trip was a huge stress for me because it would contain a lot of firsts involving my son who is allergic to tree nuts.  We were going to be away from home, which we have done before, however, in those cases we were traveling in our car and going to see family so the food environment was defined and recognizable.  So we were taking our family of four on a plane and then on a short cruise, YIKES!  Stress was out the wazoo for me as I made my lists and plans and backup plans.  After we hit each milestone I started to relax. You see while I don't have any food allergies my son does and that impacts me, and the whole family.   

In 2019, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) and its food allergy division, Kids With Food Allergies (KFA), conducted a three-part food allergy study titled “My Life With Food Allergy.” These surveys aimed to understand the burden of food allergy from three populations: parents of children with food allergies, teen/young adult patients with food allergies and adults with food allergies.

• 59% felt they could never let their guard down
• 74% said eating out was challenging
• 75% of parents said food allergies give them fear and anxiety
• 82% of parents think about food allergies all the time

While we were on our trip we at out at two new to us as a family, restaurants not to mention all the food on the cruise ship. What I learned is that yes I need to vigilant, but I can open our horizons.  I know that planning vacations are still going to be stressful and require thought and planning, however, we can and will have a ton of fun.

What will I do?

I am going to capitalize on my gains and keep moving forward.  I will have setbacks but I can overcome them.  I can draw on my experiences from the past years to inspire myself, get myself back on track, and be a bit more gentle with myself when I make regressions.  The point is that I did it once, so I can do it again.  I can and will live my best life and each year will be better than the one before and that is exciting to me.  

So this Padawan is learning and enjoying the process so much more than I had expected and looking forward to the horizon and what is yet to come.  I am looking forward to the challenges, the victories, and even to a small extent the failures because they will help guide me to my future successes.