Choosing Happiness, part 2

This post is a part of a humble blogging project that I have started off recently to pen down some of my learning points and reflections from reading Stephanie Dowrick's Choosing Happiness: Life and Soul Essentials. As mentioned, this series of post shall be dedicated to one of my friends, XS, to honour her for being the first to introduce to me the concept of choosing happiness.

Yesterday evening, I spent about an hour reading the book at the Singapore Botanic Gardens. I decided to find a spot away from the crowd to read the book. At the same time, the spot that I had chosen was close enough to the speakers from a nearby stage such that I could hear beautiful live music performed by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra while I read the book. My favourite piece of music that was performed was Mendelssohn's The Hebrides Overture (Fingal's Cave).

I realised it was nurturing to be kind to myself and to treat myself to fresh air from Nature. Somehow, the act of taking care of myself by going for an activity that would recharge me seems to coincide well with the topics that I was reading today: self-love, and soothing oneself.

Here are two strategies that I have found very useful from what I have read from the book thus far:
1) The strategy of emphasising and thinking of what had went well, what we appreciate and enjoy.

2) The strategy of telling ourselves "I can deal with this" when we recognise symptoms of panic, anxiety or fear in our body. I figured that this strategy can help us to shift the focus of the mind to something more positive, and hopefully we can look at the issue at hand more effectively.

So far, I have enjoyed reading the book. I am delighted to realise how enjoyable it can be to read a book out in the Nature. I've got to listen to the lovely sounds of Nature, breathe in fresher air and feed my mind with insights.

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Entries in the series:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4