Anyhoo, one of my friends posted an article on Facebook yesterday that ended up being a game-changer for me. I'm pretty picky about about the articles I read from my Facebook feed, but I'm a sucker for certain types of articles, especially the ones that tell you how you can be happier and lead a better life, and blah freaking blah. This particular article promised happiness based on actual science, which has double appeal for me. Yeah, dudes, I'm sooooo all over that! A SCIENTIFIC FORMULA FOR HAPPINESS? What's not to love about that?
But the interesting thing about the article is that it suggests four things that I pretty much already do:
- Be thankful. Or at least TRY to come up with reasons to be thankful. Even just LOOKING for reasons to be thankful has the same effect on your neurotransmitters as ACTUALLY being thankful.
- Label your negative emotions. Apparently if you can describe your awful feelings in words, your brain doesn't care about them as much.
- Make a decision. It doesn't have to be THE BEST DECISION EVER, just 'good enough.' Just do it.
- Hug people. Touching other people is good. If you can't don't hug, get a massage.
Upon reading it, it struck me that I'm actually pretty happy. I've written before how much I enjoy my 40s. But looking back, there are a lot of things about my 40s that have sucked. I welcomed in my 40s recovering from hip surgery and DVT. At about 40.5 years old, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I dealt with that for over a year, and then I had more hip surgeries. So basically my 40s have been lots of bad medical news and lots of surgeries. Yet... I'm pretty happy. I mean, dude, WTF?
But ya know, I think I have the first three points here covered. Weirdly enough, all the medical crises have given me a lot for which to be grateful. Before my medical crises, I don't feel like I was ungrateful, but I do think maybe I was complacent. When everything is copacetic, you don't necessarily make time to be thankful, express gratitude. You take your blessings for granted. But when you're faced with Big Things, you start thinking things like, I'm so glad I found this doctor; thank goodness my physical therapist noticed my swollen leg; I'm thankful I caught this early; I'm grateful this nurse advocated for me; I'm so happy to be out of hospital; I'm so glad that's over. And apparently, your brain doesn't know the difference between Thank God that lesion on my rib isn't cancer and Thank God I'm a billionaire and I'm gorgeous and famous and have a huge house! It's all the same to your brain. I also think when you're faced with Big Things, you start looking for silver linings, any positive news you can cling to. And apparently even just LOOKING for positive things has the same effect as Thank God I'm a billionaire and I'm gorgeous and famous and have a huge house!
With regards to the second point - putting your negative emotions into words - I think that's why I write here. I always knew that writing had a therapeutic effect for me, and this makes perfect sense. Putting my thoughts into words puts my mind at ease.
Likewise for third point - making decisions. I'm a high stress person, and even decisions about stupid, trivial things stress me out. But once I make a decision, I don't look back. I'm so relieved the decision has been made, I don't have the energy to look back, nor reflect on whether the decision I made was the best. What's done is done. I used to see this as a weakness, not having enough energy to revisit my decisions. But then again, maybe my brain just understands that making a decision, even if it's not THE BEST decision, is better than making no decision at all, as long as that decision is 'good enough.'
As for the fourth point, I don't do the hugging thing. Never have, and probably never will. But, I love massages! Ha ha. Interestingly, I woke up on Friday of last week in a world of pain. Something I did on Thursday afternoon just destroyed my back, and even walking with crutches was causing me a lot of grief. This was particularly upsetting because I'm right at the three month mark and feel like the crutches need to go, but my back and my left hip are giving me just as much trouble as my right hip, which is making it super hard to progress in PT. Fortunately, Friday morning was also when I read the article about being happy. It made me think to myself, Now there's a good idea - I should go get a massage! I called two different massage therapists - one Jerry recommended to me who works part-time out of their PT office, and another I saw when I was recovering from breast reconstruction (which also destroyed my back). The one I'd seen before didn't have any openings for a week (!!!), so apparently I'm not the only one who loves massages. LOL. However, the woman that Jerry recommended could get me in at 2:30 on Friday.
Best. Decision. Ever. Normally I'd hem and haw over spending that much money, but I was inspired by the happiness article and my pain level was pretty out of control. So see, I killed two birds with one stone! Sharon was AMAZING. During the massage, I didn't feel like she was pushing hard enough, but as Jerry explained, the latest research shows that if you push too hard (e.g., elbow in the back, like I usually prefer), it will actually make the muscle feel threatened, and it will push back and actually tighten up. He felt that Sharon applies just the right amount of pressure, and wow, he was right. I got up to leave, and oh my gosh, I felt so damn good, I could have walked out of there with no limp and no crutches (except that I had to, you know, get the crutches out of there, and I felt stupid carrying them). Considering I had dragged myself into the appointment in massive pain even with crutches, that was a pretty amazing turnaround.
Then when I got out to the car, I checked my voice mail, and apparently massage therapist #2 had a cancellation, and said he could see me on Saturday. So I called him back and took that appointment, too! Just because. Because of the article. LOL. I felt amazing for the rest of the weekend, and thought maybe this week would be my coming off crutches week, but I decided not to push it. And it's a good thing that I didn't, because today at work my back started acting up again. Grrrrrr, it's so frustrating! Fortunately, I have another appointment on Thursday with Sharon. In a way, it feels sort of extravagant, but at the same time, it's practically a medical necessity. Plus, you know, it makes me happier. There's actual science here, people.
People will often tell you that happiness is a state of mind and yada yada yada, and it's hard to accept that when you're in the throes of a crisis. But happiness explained in these terms makes more sense to me. It also makes me feel like I'm not delusional or in a state of deep denial to have remained relatively happy throughout all of this crap. Sometimes when I explain my medical history to people, they look at me with pity - hell, even some doctors do, and you know they see a lot of shit - but I really don't feel that sorry for myself. I'm grateful for so much. And although this recovery seems to be going on forever and ever and freaking ever, I'm grateful that I'm recovering (even if slowly), that I have a good support system in place (family, friends, Internet groups), that I have good insurance and good medical care (trustworthy surgeon, responsive PA, fantastic PT), and that I have the financial means to splurge every once in a while on something that makes me feel better (occasional retail therapy, massages).
Going forward, I vow to make a note every day of my blessings. I hope you feel them, too. Thank you for being here with me.
Going forward, I vow to make a note every day of my blessings. I hope you feel them, too. Thank you for being here with me.
I love this post. Perspective is something I've been thinking a lot about lately, and as simple as those 4 things seem, I think they can be very impactful.
ReplyDeleteHave you tried calling your insurance company to see if they will give any form of discount? Some plans will give a discount for some services like that.