Oxygen Mask

I recently found Big Think, and at the moment it's my favourite site to visit when I have a few minutes to fill with something awesome. I love watching the videos of smart people (sadly, mostly smart guys) talking about things they are passionate about, and sometimes it's useful or affirming, like this one, where Tal Ben-Shahar, a psych lecturer from Harvard, talks about Five Ways to Become Happier Today...



As I was watching this, I realised that I'm already doing some of this stuff... I'm getting better at separating out and naming my negative emotions instead of trying unsuccessfully to pretend that they don't exist. It's far easier to mitigate loneliness, money worries and fear that I can't cope, for example, than an un-named and dreadful turmoil pressing in on my mind. And not-so-strangely, I really am much happier...

... And I exercise most days, for at least half an hour and I do Jenni's TiLT and I do try to make sure that, at the end of the day, I spend some time really appreciating being with my boys, cuddling and reading and talking and making sure that they go to sleep knowing I adore them... which has the fabulous side effect of making me feel adored too!

And thinking about all that I was reminded of this...

...which arose out of a conversation with my friend A, after he visited from the UK 18 months ago (just after I changed jobs) and came on holiday with me and the boys. I think it's fair to say that he was pretty worried about me at the time... He compared my situation to a incident on an aeroplane where I should put on my oxygen mask before helping the kids with theirs. I didn't (and don't) believe things were catastrophic, or my behaviour was life-threatening, but he made some pretty accurate observations about my mental state and some recommendations for weekly goals, which I wrote down (there were some other goals too... getting divorced and moving to Wellington, but they aren't relevant here). I started exercising more regularly and by the middle of last year had begun habitually exceeding 30 minutes/day. I don't always manage the requisite dose of 15 minutes of Karen time (which has to involve intellectual activity... ideally something that would make me say "Hmmmm"... A assumed a Thinker pose as he explained this) But, realising that A is right, and that thinking about cool and interesting things does make me happier, I am going to try and generate a new habit. 'Dr Bunny hops and hops and hops and...' started as a blog about learning to cope as a single parent, but when I lost my job and during my divorce it became a blog of failures and self-indulgent whining about bad choices.

I haven't felt comfortable here in recent months. I've even been considering starting a new blog, but I think I should 'own' my bad times as well as my good ones! So, instead, I am going to reclaim this one and try and establish a new habit. In the spirit of 'history has expired due to inactivity' (which has expired due to inactivity, but some people may remember), I will don my oxygen mask, seek out and blog about at least two things each week that I think are cool or interesting or thought-provoking. Let's see how it goes...