1/13/2011

The challenge of a bad day

This morning when I woke up I felt blue.... not just a little but massively! I couldn`t really tell why but the day just seemed to be wrong! Usually that would mean that I find myself feeling sad for myself all day and just lock myself in...with a block of chocolate in most cases. But one of my New Year's resolution was to "feel bad emotions" instead of ignoring them in order to find out ways to make them go away...without the "help" of food.

So I am reading this book at the moment called "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin, in which the author dedicates one year trying to be happier in life! It is a very interesting book and although everyone has his own definition of happiness and different "happy moments" it is yet surprising how many parallels I found.

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In January, she is approaching the task from a different angle each month, she sets the goal to "tackle a nagging task" and in fact that is what I often find myself in. Whenever I have something rather annoying to do, and that can be even just a small task, like cleaning my room, which I am trying to avoid I often tell myself "I'll do it tomorrow!". Although I now that I would actually benefit from doing it now. And if more of these little tasks come together and become a bulk i tend to stress out and be overwhelmed.

Reading this book inspired me to think about how I could improve my mood and turn the day into a good one! In order to become happier I had to first figure out what actually makes me happy and what, on the other hand makes me unhappy!

First up was things that make me happy and cheer me up:

1) Food
I know this is actually what shouldn't be on the list but let me explain. Whenever I get stressed and find myself in uncomfortable situations i either eat to much or restrict to much. So the challenge is to eat the right amount (and not get carried away) and therefore avoid binges later in the day.

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So I had this lovely bowl of muesli with apple and mangoe topped with almond butter.


2) Exercise
again the golden rule is not to get carried away! So i did my usual routine that i planned for the week. After that I enjoyed a very hot shower, which was originally not on the list but it felt so good that I had to put it up there.

3) Browsing blogs
I did that quite a lot today! It is just so inspiring and motivating!

4) Listening to music
and so I listened to my new favourite radiostation NOVA 96,9 Sydney via live stream, God bless the internet!

I could think of some other things that make me happy, like talking to my best friend on skype, which I did earlier this morning, but looking around my room there was something very eye-catching that was clearly on my list of things that make me unhappy.

Can you tell what it is?!

1) Messy surrounding
So I did what had to be done and cleaned my room and it was actually a good opportunity to collect some stuff for the flea market next week. Because I move to France on February the 2nd I have to get rid of a lot of stuff and keep the amount of furniture and boxes that go into storage as little as possible. First off was my desk!

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A blogger need an organized desk!

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looks much better!

I took a little break from cleaning to enjoy some very nice lunch.

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Salad of mixed vegtables and scrambled tofu with some apple slices for dessert

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it was very yummy and in fact made me happier!

After lunch there was still heaps to do and so I cleaned the rest of the room! And it went from this:

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To this:

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Ok maybe I should have put the vacuum cleaner away before taking this picture! You can tell by the change of light that I took it easy and it took me a while to finish this nagging task, but I did it and it makes me happier!

So this was my day challenging my bad mood, and although I might not be the happiest person in the world at night either I really think I completed my task to try and find out what makes me happy and unhappy. I am finishing off my day with two things that never failed to make me happy!

Dinner:

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which included bean, brocolli and sweet potatoe masalla, mashed up avocado and half a whole wheat pita


And my beloved friends from Gossip Girl. Oh this show just makes me happy! It is funny how after watching one episode you feel like one of them, or is that just me?! EHHHM...anyways, I hope you guys had a great day!

What is your secret to boost up your mood on a bad day?

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous14/1/11 23:57

    Girl you are awesome at tidying up! Weird compliment I know, but seriously come and clean my place please! :P

    I agree with all your mood boosters! Good food and exercise are the ways to go for me! :D

    Your food looks delish by the way!

    ReplyDelete