The Hangover

Most of us have had a hangover of one kind or the other at some point in our lives. The kind that comes to mind most readily is the kind that make you say, “never again.” You vow to never over imbibe to this point. You may or may not remember what you did after a certain point in the evening the night before. What you do remember may be embarrassing to say the least. In short you feel like shit and never want to feel that way again. For some lucky people all it takes is one hangover and they never do it again. They are those smart people who actually learn from their mistakes. I am not one of those people unfortunately. I’ve suffered through my fair share of awful hangovers and every time swear that will be my last one.

What I’m going to write about today is what I’ve come to start calling “Happiness Hangovers”. These are awesome and the kind you DO want to repeat.

Since I’ve started taking care of myself again I wake up many mornings with what I call a Happiness Hangover. I know it is dorky as hell and I’ve been trying to come up with a better term but this is what keeps coming back to me. These are what happen when the day before I managed to stay in the moment, find joy in everyday things and just live as well as I possibly could for that day. I wake up refreshed with energy and a positive attitude for the day.

Let me compare this again to the nasty kind of hangovers for a second. Often when I have a bad hangover I may wake up initially and not feel too bad. I may have a little headache or a bit of cotton mouth but I figure I can get up and get moving and everything will be alright. But then as the morning progresses something happens and the effects of the hangover get progressively worse. I start to feel nauseous and dizzy and even the idea of food makes me queasy. Now to compare that with a Happiness Hangover. With these I may wake up just okay. Maybe I didn’t sleep as well as I’d have liked or some little annoyance from the day before keeps coming back to my mind and I can’t leave it alone. Then I get up and do the work to get myself to that good place. I take a walk, I meditate, I listen to inspiring music, I do my yoga practice. Then the happiness starts to settle in again. I feel calm, centered, balanced, in charge.

Sometimes just like with the bad hangover the effects of a Happiness Hangover hit me by surprise. One day last week I was walking in the morning and all of a sudden the sun hit a tree in just such a way that the red and gold fall leaves lit up and I stopped and just smiled and was overcome with a feeling of peace and happiness. I just stopped there in the middle of the trail and said to myself, “Holy shit Beth, you are about as happy as you’ve ever been right now in this moment. Stop and take this all in and remember how it feels. This is a big deal.”

Now every day since I look for those little moments and I try to stop and appreciate them. I’d totally tweet or Facebook status them but I’m sure I’d start to really annoy people with my Mary Freaking Sunshine act in short order. And these moments aren’t for anyone else. They are strictly for me. I hold them and store them away for those dark times when I need to feel love, peace and yes, happy.

I’m building up an arsenal of daily practices that unlike alcohol, you can’t overindulge in. The more I do these things the better I feel and the stronger the Happiness Hangover is the next day. I think I will start making a list of these things and start sharing them one by one and how I’m using them in my daily life to stay on this path.

It has been just about 7 weeks since I started to change how I am living my life and to make positive changes. In many ways it is getting harder to maintain the momentum. In others ways things are getting easier. At first the growth was huge and it was easy to keep the motivation going. Every day I felt a little clearer and stronger than the day before. Now the changes are more subtle and some growth has slowed down. But I must keep going forward and trust in the process.

If all else fails, I have a bottle of this in my shower. Seriously, the morning of my happiness epiphany I got home and jumped in the shower started laughing out loud when I realized the name of my shower gel. Synchronicity works in amazing and very silly ways at times.