All Blog Postings by Mary
Choose To Be Happy
Archive notice: This is a historical post from Mary’s years of blogging. Some older posts may mention products, courses or shop items that are no longer available, as Mary now focuses her time and energy on supporting widows inside her private Facebook community. The guidance and stories remain here as a free resource for widows.
For current ways to connect with Mary’s work, you can:
- Read her book on Amazon .
- Request to join her private Facebook group for widows .
Have you been told that you can “choose to be happy”? Let’s settle this upfront, happiness isn’t available just because you want it. If it were possible to simply choose happiness, you and I, as well as all the other widows out there, would be happy.
Widows who try to force themselves to be happy are going to be disappointed. Happiness isn’t simply mind over matter and widows just can’t yank themselves out of their grief.
Widows can’t be happy just by insisting on it. Your broken heart has a lot to say about your happiness. Yes, you want to be happy again, but it means nothing if you don’t take positive actions. First, allow grief to exist and give it time so it doesn’t block happiness from coming back to your life.
You can read all the self-help books out there, and fill up on antidepressants, but they won’t get rid of all your pain. Nothing moves until you first let yourself grieve. Let your emotions be, write them down and let yourself feel the loneliness, the pain and the disappointments.
Grief is scary and it may be with you for life. But that doesn’t mean that happiness can’t also share the same space in your heart. It’s difficult in this crazy world to be a happy person. Of course, you can’t solve the problems of the world, but what can you do right now to make life better, to bring happiness into your life?
No matter who you are, I believe you can take positive action to bring happiness into your world. You can’t turn happiness on and off like a light switch, but you can choose to focus on what makes you happy.
Be careful about where you spend your energy. Focus on nurturing the relationships and opinions that matter the most to you and don’t worry about those you can’t change. Be a widow with a mission. Find an organization, passion or cause you believe in and commit your time and energy into it. Passion is contagious so hang out with others that make you feel alive.
When you feel a burst of excitement, stop a moment and focus on what it is. That’s your mission/passion talking to you. You can’t just “choose to be happy” and by magic you are. You can, however, choose to take some positive steps. Every morning when you wake up, think about how you can do one thing that day to make your day better. Each one of us has the power right now to make changes for the better. All it takes is the desire to change, and then take that first step forward.
Mary Francis, The Sisterhood of Widows
#thesisterhoodofwidows, #widow, #grief, #griefsupport, #widowsupport, #howtogrieve. #widowshelpingwidows