The Purple Goddess Happiness Project

In an effort to create more happiness and well-being in our lives, I've been reading a wide assortment of books on love and happiness. I'm reading one now on my new Kindle: Love Skills for Personal & Global Transformation: Secrets of a Love Master.

One of the topics it touches on is self-love and the importance of loving yourself. What I like about this book is that it actually gives practical tips for the practice of these tools. For loving yourself, one of the things suggested is to keep a journal of things you do that you like. So at the end of the day, I've begun keeping a journal of the things I did that day that I liked. I began to realize that the more I wrote, the more things I was able to come up with, and the first night I easily filled three pages of my journal - much to my own surprise. I felt so good after I did it that I also wrote a list of things my husband did that I liked. It feels to easy and so light - just writing what I liked. There's no pressure there, right?

I've also helped Kiernen start a journal of his own - so he can also reflect at the end of the day on what he liked. My intention in doing this is that we both go to bed feeling good about ourselves and what we did and said - which also paves the way for good dreams and also for feeling good the next morning. He also puts his wishlist items in his journal.

I like this practice a lot - before, we were doing what we were calling "appreciations" and somehow it began to feel like pressure to come up with something significant, something big. I like just thinking of what I liked, because it still puts me in the space of appreciation, but it feels so much lighter and easier, because I don't add to it my own undue pressure of having it be "significant". It can be as simple as, "I like that I made dinner for my family," or "I like that I folded the laundry." And when I make a list of all of those things, it does seem to be pretty significant - and I just feel good. And that's really what it's all about.