friday’s “secret”: “this life right here, right now is beautiful.”

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writing in the night

“This life right here, right now is beautiful.” – Jessica Flannigan

As I am writing this, it is 12:45 AM, on a Thursday morning. Now anyone who knows me well, knows that I value my sleep. I am one of those individuals who needs 9 hours a night. Or should I say, I use to be one of those individuals who needed 9 hours a night. With the arrival of Buddy Man, 7 hours is an absolute luxury!

Sleep often eludes me once I have had to wake up and tend to Buddy Man’s needs; my brain will often go into overdrive thinking of all of things I need to do, worrying about stuff, just refusing to go down again. Buddy Man often follows his pattern of refusing to go down again, which keeps me up even longer.

However, over the past couple of months, instead of fighting valiantly to the bitter end to go back to sleep, which is really nothing but staring at the clock as the minutes tick mercilessly by, I have decided to embrace the solitude and do things that, if attempted during the daylight hours, would be interrupted.

One of my very podcast is The Lively Show and on October 29, Jessica interviewed Jessica Flannigan of Live the Fancy Life. You can listen here. It was a good interview and a lot of things were very helpful to me but the quote that stuck out and that I am trying to remember daily is the quote that I started the post with and bears repeating again:

“This life right here, right now is beautiful.”

Even though my eyes are slightly heavy, and I know I will have a sleep-deprived headache in the morning, my life, “right here, right now is beautiful.” I chose to enjoy that I am able sit in my bed with my Mac Book Pro and write in the stillness of the night. I chose to enjoy this season of life. “Live in each season, as it passes,” said Henry David Thoreau. I chose to enjoy the seasons, as tired as I may be.

enjoy life…

 

friday’s “secret”: to be happy, you gotta step outside of your comfort zone, sometimes

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“Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.” – Pearl S. Buck

Every Friday, OK, most Friday’s, I like to post a “secret” to being happy. Of course, they are not really secrets, at all; they are just things that I have learned over the past few years, that have increased my happiness quotient.

Today’s secret comes from the events of two weeks ago – I gave a presentation, up-front, speaking in public – to about 90 individuals at a weekend-long health and wellness retreat. I have been deathly afraid of public speaking in the past. I think it has something to do with my introverted personality, among other things, and it is not something that I say I enjoy. But I have made a decision to stop letting fear make MOST of my decisions, and so I accepted the engagement.

What I learned from doing it is the most important thing that I take away from the experience.

While I was preparing for it, when I didn’t concentrate on how scared I was and other random emotions, it was exciting. To be sure, there were a few nights when sleep eluded me and I was up at 2 AM working on the presentation, but I decided to embrace those nights of beautiful solitude, as I worked on a topic that I am very passionate about. While I was speaking, it became enjoyable. The audience was kind of enough to listen and be engaged with me and that made things a whole lot easier. Afterwards, peoples’ responses were kind and they seemed receptive to what I had presented. Gretchen Rubin speaks of this phenomenon in her book The Happiness Project. She states, “Many activities that I consider enjoyable are not that much fun while they are happening.”

I was proud of myself for doing something that I don’t normally do and there was a satisfaction in knowing that I had accepted the challenge, prepared, and delivered my best effort. That made me happy.

How about you? Have you found this to be true? Tell me about it.

enjoy life…

what i’m into – that’s keeping me sane {october 2015}

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Pic. What I'm Into. October 2015The usual Friday’s “secret” is being preempted by a new type of post for Shannan Enjoys Life. Today, I’m excited to be  linking up with Leigh Kramer who does these wonderful round-ups called What I’m Into of what she’s into for the month. I found her through one of my absolute favorite haunts on the web, Modern Mrs. Darcy and her monthly What I’m Into posts. The idea to create this kind of post once a month appealed to me because it will help me be more mindful of what I’m doing throughout the month.

So here’s my first of what I hope to be many What I’m Into That’s Keeping Me Sane posts. October has been a particularly busy month for me.

  • My kid, who we’ve kind nicknamed The Buddy Man, turned a year-old this month. I can’t believe it’s been a year all ready! As Gretchen Rubin says, “The days are long, but the years are short.”
  • Gave a presentation at a health and wellness retreat in Orangeburg, SC (Ugh, public speaking, as shivers run down my spine). Learned some things though and will write about them soon.
  • Ran my first 5K race since Buddy Man’s arrival. Trained with my friend, Mel, and it was great to spend time with someone who’s becoming as addicted to running as I am. Oh, it feels so good to be back out there running regularly again – definitely keeping me sane! Posted about the race here.
  • Being a vegetarian, you wouldn’t think that there would be anything for me to eat at Longhorn Steakhouse but you would be wrong! The sides are amazing and my family and I had the greatest waiter at the Statesboro, GA location, a young man who was so pleasant that it was refreshing. I aspire to that level of pleasantness; an aspiration that I, sadly, will never attain in this lifetime.
  • Reconnected with my love of writing letters thanks to the Love Notes project. Thank you, Jennifer, for creating such a wonderful project. I’m so looking forward to the next round in January. Previous post about this here.
  • Facebook and Instagram. Yes. Facebook and Instagram are keeping me sane. I am in the process of weeding out negativity from my feed and following only inspirational and positive people. It’s working.
  • The Challenges with my friends have helped me get more steps this month than I have gotten in a long time. Thanks so much Grandma, Mommy, Alicia, Joy, and Nicole!
  • Read a number of books this month; you’ll have to wait for my first Quick Lit post to find out what – hint, it was heavy on the self-help shelf. I’m going to be reading some lighter fare for November – to stay sane.
  • Listening to The Lively Show and Happier podcasts. Jess Lively interviewed Elizabeth Gilbert this month, one of my new favorite writers of all time. Speaking of Gilbert, I’m sad that Magic Lessons is done for the season. But I’m enjoying Gretchen Rubin’s Happier podcast series right now on the Four Tendencies. Obligers, where are you? She should be covering our tendency next week.
  • The fall shows are back and my DVR is working overtime. Have to mention three of my personal favorites though: (1) Survivor – it so interesting to watch the dynamics between people and observe each one’s level of self-awareness and how it plays out in the game. (2) The Amazing Race – I have watched every season of this show! Love it! (3) The Big Bang – same thing here. On a certain level, I can relate to those nerds and, of course, laughter is the best medicine!

 What have you been up to this month to…

enjoy life…