Emotional Fitness - Happiness

This post comprises my thoughts for several activities this week. First, Novel Heartbeat's topic for Life of a Blogger this week is Fitness. Because I've been focusing so much on my own mental health lately, I'm going to cheat a little bit and talk about emotional fitness. Don't get me wrong. Physical fitness is really important. And usually I'm out there training for triathlons and zombie runs, etc. But this year I was whacked upside the head with mental illness which gave me pretty severe fatigue. So, I'll have to focus on emotional fitness and hope that physical fitness will follow. I thought this post would also be nice for Create with Joy's Friendship Friday. 

So. Mental fitness. What is it? I think the first step to such fitness is happiness. I found this little book stashed in my mom's sewing basket today. It was rather uplifting if you like thought-of-the-day sorts of books. 

In  Instant Happy, Karen Salmansohn tries to break negative thinking patterns by introducing positive thinking patterns - with the belief that every time we think a negative thought, it reinforces that negative thought in our minds; therefore, if we break that pattern, we can become happy. Although I'm skeptical of instant happiness being anywhere in my near future (that's just too easy, isn't it?), I did enjoy the book, and I appreciate the theory behind it. Obviously, I can't tell you all of the thoughts that I found compelling - that would take the fun out of it for you. But one page asked: What's your pet excuse? It listed a bunch of typical excuses. My pet excuse is: I can't until. I can't start working out again until I'm not fatigued by my mental health. I can't find the perfect job for myself until my metal health is better. If I hadn't planned for a couple of months for my Suicide and Mental Health Awareness theme, I probably would have postponed even that for "this year," just as I'm thinking about postponing my Social Justice and Human Rights Awareness theme at the beginning of next year. Because I can't until my mental health is better. I read a fantastic post about NOT waiting for the "perfect moment"  on Jeff Goins' Blog.

Another activity that I'm combining into my happiness post is a pre-assignment for the upcoming MOOC from edX The Science of Happiness. (Yes, everyone, you can still sign up! It starts on September 9th and is free open enrollment!) Our pre-assignment is to introduce ourselves with a short video saying what makes us happy. :)