gifts you can give

that will make you happy

7to yourself this holiday season

GossipDetermine never to gossip again.

Gossiping hurts others, and eventually you too. People know they can’t trust someone who gossips. Gossiping will hurt your relationships with people you care about. A gossip ends up hurting their own reputation as much the reputation of the person they are gossiping about.

Take a Nap

Sleep is an important ingredient to happiness, health and all aspects of your well-being.Give yourself the gift of getting enough sleep for a night, or taking a nap in the middle of the day. If you want to give yourself a really big gift, take a stay-cation and make getting caught up sleep a priority.

Appreciate you

Get a piece of paper and a pen. List all the good things about yourself. Now dig deeper and list some more. Keep your list in your wallet or nearby. Read it oftenAim to add to your list each time you visit it.When the paper gets full, get a bigger one and start again, re-writing all the good things you already found about you.

Be at One with Nature

Bundle up (if its cold) and take a long slow walk in your neighborhood park, spend a day in the mountains or country, or take five minutes and get mesmerized by your favorite houseplant (or your friends if you don’t have any).

When cooking, take some time to fully appreciate the patterns in a half head of cabbage, the symmetry of an apple or the beauty of a broccoli stem.

Silence

Give yourself some quiet time. Allow yourself to rest in silence and daydream, follow your breath or just let your mind wander.Take a few minutes or a half an hour. Try to do this for a few days running.

Take a Bath

This may mean you have to clean the bathtub first! Make the effort. Take a bath with all the trimmings. Light candles. Use the bath salts or bubbles you have been saving for a special occasion. Make yourself a cup of tea and a glass of ice water (so you can cool down if you get too hot!). Set up your laptop so you can watch a show or listen to music while you soak. Lay out lots of clean towels.

Be creative

A few ideas if you don’t think of yourself as creative: Do something in a new way: clean up and arrange your kitchen cabinets so its beautiful when you open them, make a completely new dish, spend some time drawing or tracing your favorite image, or download an app that lets you play with your photos ( like turning them into sketches or make double exposures).

If you are creative, set some time aside to explore creative expression with a new medium.

Your Happiness Counts

Count Your Happiness

www.happycounts.org