How to be happy!

7th March 2018

By Emma Kirkham

Last night I lead a wonderful network meeting at Cannock, in Staffordshire with the brilliant guest speaker Jo Howarth talking to us about how we can all be “Happy” with everything in life.

Happiness is indeed a choice, we can be happy about how things are and how we react to the events in our life.

I heard yesterday of a very special young man who lost his life in an accident. I was shocked, I shed tears, and it threw me off balance and then I chose to be happy by remembering all the joy he had brought to everyone’s life, his amazing personality and the legacy that he has left behind through his amazing videos and teachings.

Whilst Jo spoke she shared with us how easy it is to make that decision to be happy and why it’s her mission to help more people make that decision. She believes everyone should feel the joy of happiness each and every day!

There are many things in life that we can’t control but our happiness is one of thing that we can!

Jo Howarth guest speaking at Cannoc evening

Jo “happiness” Howarth.

Here are Jo’s top 3 tips for Happiness.

Be responsible!

We are all responsible for our thoughts, feelings, behaviour, actions, reactions and how we respond to anything. The only person who can make us “feel” a particular way is us. So why wouldn’t you choose happy?

Be present

Secondly Jo shared that if there is one thing that will really help it is to be in the here and now, not in the past or worrying about the future but to be here at this very moment in time, enjoying reading this blog article and totally focussing on it for example and keeping your mind focussed on one thing.

Take one minute per day to just sit with your eyes closed and breathe in and out, focus on that breath. Let the thoughts flow freely. Then after a few days build up by one minute, until you are at 5 minutes in stillness and focussing on your breath. Then you are officially meditating.

Finally, gratitude and appreciating everything you do in your day and seeing all the positive things and focussing on them.

Jo told us a fab story of a client she was coaching and she had asked him to write down each evening a list of things that he was glad for each day and they could assess how things were moving forward for him.

When they next spoke he said he couldn’t think of anything so he had written I’m really glad I had a cup of tea and I’m really glad I had porridgetoday.

As Jo said, how brilliant are they, 2 things that we need to survive, food and drink. She then went on to explain that something so seemingly insignificant as being able to make a cup of tea is actually a work of art.

Think about it, the water that gets cleaned so that we can turn on a tap, that have pipes laid in the ground running to our homes, to fill a kettle with just the right amount of water, and then put a plug in a socket which is supplied by electricity that is run to our home. We can then walk to the cupboard and reach for a mug that has been produced and shipped to us where we can buy it from a shop, like the tea bags we then take from a jar. The tea has been carefully picked and selected and then packaged into small square or circular bags. All this effort to make a cup of tea and its not even finished there is so much there to be happy an grateful for.

Each night at the end of the day before you switch out the light, say out loud at least 5 things you are grateful for and are glad to have had or experienced. And if you really can’t face saying it aloud then write it down in a notebook and just see how much there is to be happy for.