I Am Happiest When [No.20]

Posted by Jill Chivers in Happy

How do you treat yourself?

I’ve discovered that our personal levels of happiness have a lot to do with our relationship to ourselves. Which begs the question: What is your relationship like to yourself? Are you good to you? Are you kind? Are you generous and supportive?

Or are you your own worst enemy? I recently had a conversation with a woman who disclosed she treated herself abominably. Her behaviour toward her self was rude and disrespectful and unjust and a host of other awful things. She was not her own friend, let alone best friend.

I’ve noticed this about myself sometimes too. I beat myself up. I compare myself unfairly to others (based on assumptions I could never verify). I say awful things about me, to me. And I do this over and over.

If anybody else treated me this way, I’d call the human equivalent of the RSPCA and demand sanctuary, and removal from their company.

So a large part of my journey into the landscape of happiness has been to be kinder to myself. Gentler. More gracious, more generous. More of the time.

I hope my experiments with happiness, and the sharing of those here every Saturday, inspire you to have your own experiments with happiness.

I am happiest when (#20)

I am watching great stories. I love stories of all kinds and those told on-screen are a particular favourite. The big/silver screen, and the small screen – I don’t discriminate on the size and location of the screen. But I do discriminate on the basis of a well told story. I like most genres (except horror which terrifies me, and sci-fi which confounds me) – I’ve even been known to watch a string of westerns during ‘Hang ‘Em High’ month on the classic movie channel of subscription TV. I love TV series and have watched dozens of them on DVD – they’re like an extra long movie. Stories told on-screen engage my imagination and my feelings.