Finding the Happiness Channel

When the bell strikes midnight, your gown ball turning from glitter and fairy tales to ashes and drudgery and you from the belle of the ball to the scullery maid, you can be sure you're in the heart of February.

It's time for a winter retreat. Our brains and bodies cry out for unplugging, turning down the volume, finding a way out of the 24/7 cacophony of email, meetings, to-do lists.  It's time to rest and notice the everyday things that make us happy, the things right within reach. Betsy Lerner calls it "that which cannot be extinguished even in the face of silence, solitude and rejection" which pretty much sums up February.

Credit: K. Thorne (Caltech) and
T. Carnahan (NASA GSFC) -
 See more here

 Recently scientist discovered the faint sound of two gigantic black holes colliding, the silent boom echoing for billions of years, only now heard.  Happiness is like that ancient echo.  It's ready for the taking, only you've got to have the right receiver to pick up the signal.

February, especially this Leap Year February with it's extra day gives us an extra chance at discovering happiness.

Happiness used to seem random and chancy to me, like a fairy god-mother who can change you from scullery maid to princess, but only for a few hours. Most days ended without even a squeak of happiness. Life felt like a forced march towards some gloomy end. Years went by with happiness just out of reach, each day another grey and gloomy February day.

Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue. -- Eugene O'Neill

My happiness receiver was broken and needed mending. Fortunately we are never alone when we've lost our way, God or Jesus or a higher power, however you think of it, the Universe even, is right there with us in our muddle and confusion willing and able to help us dial into the happiness channel, to find our way.

Rest
The natural world is resting in February. The Universe makes sure we get the point by covering the fields with feet of snow. Sure the Bible quotes God's call for resting on the seventh day, but did he really mean me?  Does he really mean you?  As it turns out he did mean me and he does mean you. We were designed to need at least seven hours of sleep.

After a few months of getting enough sleep passed, a little of the cloud and darkness of my February mind started to lift. I'd found the happiness signal, even if I couldn't quite hear it clearly.

Practicing Gratitude
I found the happiness channel by noticing who and what makes me happy.  Sounds simple, but the reason I wasn't dialed in on the happiness channel 24/7 was that happiness is so ordinary, I didn't notice it like lint clinging to everything.

I began a practice of noticing by recording five things I was grateful for each day, a gratitude journal. Journaling, every day, did a lot to fine tune reception of the happiness channel.

At first, there was a lot of static on the happiness channel, only the most obvious signals got through like a good cup of coffee.  Getting bored with finding ways to describe that first cup of coffee in the morning, I started noticing subtler happiness signals.

Like grapefruit spoons with their serrated edges, cutting out all the messy slicing of grapefruit flesh from membrane. Prince Charming introduced me to grapefruit spoons and to so much more happiness.  When I look at the the grapefruit spoons nestled neatly in the silverware drawer, it reminds me of spooning with Prince Charming before we fall asleep, the happiest moment of every day. Now, even when I'm not eating grapefruit, just opening the silverware drawer brings me happiness-- static-free, clear happiness channel getting through the clutter of a busy life.

Still some days static drowned out the happiness signal.  The static sounded a lot like the voice of the Crazy Old Lady who lives in my head, busy making judgements about me and everyone else. The Crazy Old Lady is always striking the midnight bell,  anxious to turn us from Cinderella back to the scullery maid we all know we are underneath whatever thin veil of success and accomplishment we may have used to cover the humbleness of our "true" talents.  The static screeches, "who do you think your are?!" over and over until it can drown out the happiness channel signal.

Meditation
Some good people I know, Pastor Peter, and  others I've read suggested they'd been able to filter out the static with meditation practice. Imagine my delight at the easy-peasy and oh so indulgent sounding sitting and do nothing for 20 to 30 minutes each day.

I thought they said that the meditation practice would shut-up the Crazy Old Lady.  I misunderstood.

It's not easy to sit for 20 to 30 minutes while the Crazy Old Lady rips. She's got a lot to say. She's not going to shut-up and she resents my shushing her. Given a platform, she takes full advantage.

After a while; when she's broken every dish in the house, hurled all the insults she can think of, and questioned your worth, her act gets boring.  You don't take it all so personally anymore. She runs out of new things to accuse. And maybe you start to think OK. I'm really as bad as she says, but I'm still a child of God, human, broken, impaired, selfish, egotistical and still here.

Maybe you move just the tiniest way towards accepting even the most broken parts of yourself.  You learn to live with the Crazy Old Lady in your head, her constant banter fades into the background. It's still there and she can crank it up from time to time, especially when you do anything new and difficult or life tosses you into a storm. The happiness signal may fade in and out, but you know how to dial the channel in anytime you choose.

February, with its gloom, grey, silent days when the thrill of winter is gone and spring is a breathy promise unrealized, is a time to dial down the the daily static and crank the happiness channel. God is the glue that can mend our brokenness, if we will only sit silently, after getting enough sleep and counting our blessings.

You, dear reader, are one of my blessings. Wishing you well into this leap year. Take good care of each other until next week.