{"id":1889,"date":"2018-12-21T03:50:47","date_gmt":"2018-12-21T08:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/?p=1889"},"modified":"2018-12-21T02:55:30","modified_gmt":"2018-12-21T07:55:30","slug":"week-223-happy-heart-mas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/?p=1889","title":{"rendered":"Week #223 – Have a “Happy Heart-mas!”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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“Happy Heart-mas!” (photo credit: Grace Church)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Week #223 – Have a “Happy Heart-mas!”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greetings Happyness Tribe — Happy Holidays, Blessed Solstice, and Merry Christmas to all!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christmas arrives next week! (And…we’re throwing in a full moon just for good measure!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of you know I have been keeping up with my own “Gratitude Challenge”<\/a> in the 33 days leading up to Christmas Eve. (And, I’ll be “Going for 40” through New Year’s Day!)  It’s a way for me to ensure I’m keeping my own heart happy <\/a>during one of the most stressful times of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I wrote during the first Gratitude Challenge (Week #119<\/a>), keeping focused on finding one thing a day to be grateful for actually primes me for keeping an eye out ALL DAY for the things that I appreciate, the things that are going well, and the things that make my heart happy<\/a>.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever holidays you are celebrating, we’re about to enter one of the most stressful weeks of the year.  If you are grieving a loss, a relocation, or a big life change — it may be even more stressful than usual. Before you focus on trying to make others happy (or expecting others to magically return the favor) — take some time to figure out what makes YOUR own heart happy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which reminded me of this challenge from Week #14<\/a> — just a few weeks after Rob passed:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your Happyness Challenge for the week ahead: Have a “Happy Heart-mas!” <\/strong> It will be easy to focus on the things that go wrong this holiday week. Instead, pay attention to what makes your heart happy!  It may be as simple as your silly niece or nephew (or cat or dog), words to an old song that take you back, an irreverent or inappropriate joke you can share only with dear friend, or a quiet star-lit night…or maybe it’s a bigger challenge like limiting your time to only people you enjoy, getting that extra sleep your body is craving, or saying no to something you honestly don’t want to do.  Take note of the moments when you feel your heart lift and your body relax.  Keep a list of what makes you happy…and check it.  Twice! (And then do more of THAT!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It may be the difference between naughty and nice this holiday week!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spread Happyness — tell me, what makes YOUR heart happy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wish each and every one of you a “Happy Heart-mas!”<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

12\/21\/18 by Grace Church<\/em>
\u00a9 Grace Church
grace@spreadhappyness.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Week #223 – Have a “Happy Heart-mas!” Greetings Happyness Tribe — Happy Holidays, Blessed Solstice, and Merry Christmas to all! Christmas arrives next week! (And…we’re throwing in a full moon just for good measure!) Many of you know I have been keeping up with my own “Gratitude Challenge” in the 33 days leading up to Christmas Eve. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1889"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1895,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1889\/revisions\/1895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}