“If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.”
–Thich Nhat Hanh
This video the 2nd in a series about being happier as a parent from The Raising Happiness Homestudy. Watch the first video here.
Notes for the upcoming week:
This week, record your “bright spots” throughout the day and week. Bright spots are activities or times when you feel bliss, joy, play, fun, flow, etc. And then consider: How can you add more bright spots to your life?
As an example, I feel total bliss if I wake up a few minutes early, make myself a cup of coffee, and let myself read before the rest of the family comes downstairs for breakfast. This is a bright spot for me, and so I know I can’t stay up late the night before if I want to wake up early.
With my kids, my bright spot is bedtime: cuddling (well, when they were littler…now I take what I can get) reading together on their beds, talking about “three good things” from our day. I miss this time when I give a talk at night, and so I reschedule it for after school: I leave work early, pick up the kids, and we hang out together until I need to leave for my talk.
Sometimes it’s not about adding something blissful to the calendar, but instead transforming existing activities, e.g., afternoons with the kids, into something that we enjoy more.
Join the Discussion
We can also clone bright spots from other people, or other parts of our lives. Please post your bright spots in the discussion here so that others get ideas.
This post is taken from “The Raising Happiness Homestudy,” an online course I created as a companion to my book Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents. I’m sharing one “class” from this online course per week here, on my blog. Want to see previous posts? Just click this Raising Happiness Homestudy tag. Enjoy!
Interesting about emotions being contagious. I bet that applies to interaction with pets too. 🙂
Yup.
Oh, and one other thing I was thinking about. Ultimately, I think the goal in raising a child is to raise a good citizen—someone who cares about others and is genuine interested in making the world a better place. If you lovingly raise a good citizen, the rest of the important stuff will follow. They may not make straight A’s, but they will be diligent and responsible.
I think the idea is of raising a good citizen is foreign to most American parents these days.