Thank You Card Aversion (my term) has been a struggle that comes and goes, depending upon my mood and length of the mailing list. After you sort out Christmas gifts, my husband’s birthday gifts, and then my daughter’s birthday’s gifts, the cards number into the serious double-digits. I’m better now than I used to be about acknowledging gifts, which isn’t hard because I used to be terrible.

An extreme example was ten years ago after I my husband and I celebrated our May wedding and the list of people to send thank you notes sat untouched until almost October. I’d pass the pile of pristine cream-colored stationary and just shudder, adverting my eyes. As summer slid into fall, I received a polite, but questioning, call from my new in-laws, asking when were they, and the rest of the gang, going to receive their notes? Not a good first impression.

I cringe when I think how people must have thought of me as disorganized or uncaring. But underneath it was my perfectionist thinking; because I wanted to do an excellent job of acknowledging people for the gifts, I’d become overwhelmed at the task. Cascading into fear, I’d finally hit the perfectionist’s defense mechanism of avoidance. As the months past, my shame put a hard shellac over the whole process by keeping the cycle in place and me feeling more stuck and less competent.

Looking for help, I found the work by Canadian psychologists Paul Hewitt and Gordon Flett who define three main types of perfectionism.

Self-Oriented Perfectionism: This is a tendency to have standards for yourself that are unrealistically high and impossible to attain. These standards are self-imposed and tend to be associated with self-criticism and an inability to accept your own mistakes and faults.

Other-Oriented Perfectionism: This is a tendency to demand that others meet your unrealistically high standards. People who are “other-oriented” perfectionists are often unable to delegate tasks to others, for fear of being disappointed by a less than perfect performance of the job.

Socially Prescribed Perfectionism: There is an exaggerated belief that others have expectations of them that are impossible to meet. Furthermore, people who are socially prescribed perfectionists believe that in order to gain approval from others, these high standards must be met. Unlike self-oriented perfectionism, in which expectations are self-imposed, in socially pre-scribed perfectionism, the high standards are believed to be imposed by others.

When I saw how hard I was on myself around the wedding thank you cards, I devised a plan where I would essentially trick my avoidant brain into approaching the problem; I’d tell myself I’d work only fifteen minutes a day. Once started, I’d feel uncomfortable but I was going in a forward motion. Fifteen minutes would turn into thirty. The next day I’d tell myself I’d only work thirty minutes, which would turn into an hour. By the end of the week the notes were all done. Late, but done. The relief was palatable and the lesson learned. Take the Big Job and break it into smaller pieces of time. Or as my grandfather used to tell me, “It’s a cinch by the inch but hard by the yard.” Amen.

The wind was whistling in hard from Lake Michigan as I walked, and I grasped my top coat more tightly as my shopping bags banged against my legs. Crossing an intersection I made sure I was in the middle of the non-gawking locals, assuming that there is safety in numbers. Suddenly the man in front of me jumped back and knocked me into the woman following closely behind my heels. In the confusion all I could remembering seeing were people yelling and the flash of shiny yellow metal. It took a few seconds, but I finally understood that a taxi cab had run a red light and shot-gunned through our intersection, missing people by decisive inches. But then it got weirder.

One man, his face florid with anger, burst from the crowd and spit on the speeding taxi, hitting the driver’s side window with Calamity Jane accuracy. “Good shooting, Tex,” I thought, as I continued crossing before I became a hood ornament on another Kamikaze taxi. Suddenly the intersection was filled with the sound of screeching tires as the cab dime-stopped and all four doors flapped open. The driver AND his three passengers flew out like Keystone Cops from Hell. While still in the middle of the intersection with cars whizzing by and honking, the driver and his fares began to shove and yell at our Saliva Savior until the cops arrived. The show, which began so dramatically, sank into a series of questions, answers, and procedural paperwork.

Continuing down the sidewalk, I felt my adrenalin rush slowly ebb and a heaviness took its place. The holiday lights now seemed too bright, the carols too tinny and people’s faces looked cruelly uncaring as they rushed past me on Michigan Avenue. Even the presents I carried, stuffed in their colorful gilt bags, became heavier with each step I took. I realized that I had been so preoccupied with the business and doing of Christmas, that I hadn’t allowed the spirit of Christmas to live within me. It took a speeding taxi to slow me down enough to actually think.

But where was the spirit, the essence, the heart of our most holy day? It was no longer in the presents and cards I had bought, and approaching my hotel, I didn’t even glance at the dressed-up sidewalks. In turning the corner I found my Christmas spirit.

She was a middle-aged, heavy-set woman with lovely dark hair flowing past her shoulders. Her dress, simple and neat, she wore a red and green rhinestone broach pinned to her past-its-prime dark blue woolen coat. A microphone was attached to her wheelchair’s arm rest, and her music stand, crammed with Christmas carols, was clamped to the foot pedals. She had just smiled at someone who had dropped money in the cup by her side, and with great dignity she reached up and arranged her sheet music before beginning to sing.

On this street corner, between a drug store and a McDonald’s, her voice shimmered through the air with the fine delicacy of the underside of a butterfly’s wing. Her classically-trained voice, void of amateurish libretto, sang “Silent Night” with such forgiveness that I felt a chill run through me.

I didn’t find the Christmas spirit in her voice, but rather in her face. The traffic hammered by, the crowds swirled around her and the icy wind, like bony fingers, riffled through her sheet music. Despite the chaos and the cold, her face shone with pure serenity and peace and joy as she sang. Turning to leave, I picked up my bags which now felt as light as air.

Dear Leslie,

My wife drinks every night, stays in her room all the time, and won’t engage with us as a family. She works a full-time job and doesn’t miss work. Is she an alcoholic, and if so, what should I do?

Signed,
Lonely in the Next Room

Dear Lonely,

That must be really hard to have someone close to you physically, but still be so many miles away emotionally. You didn’t say how much she drinks every night, but if it’s more than two drinks nightly then she may be alcoholic. According to the American Medical Association, normal drinking is (depending upon body weight) one drink daily for women and two drinks daily for men. Social withdrawal and isolation are also factors of depression, and if she’s drinking on top of that, then alcohol can depress moods even further.

You didn’t mention how long this has been going on, but have you tried talking to her in caring, non-judgmental way? Let her know how much you miss her company and that you are concerned because she seems to be slipping away from you and her family. Understand that people who are degrading deeper into their alcoholism may lose their job last because employment pays the bills and foots the booze tab. Family, friends, and health can be the wreckage cast along the way for the individual caught in the insidious disease of addiction.

Since you mention you’re not alone in this situation, I suggest you and your family attend Al-Anon meetings, and if age-appropriate, Alateen, for education and support. Here is the web-page for Austin meetings: http://austinalanon.org/ed6sml.htm.

I know it can be scary to go forward, but to stay stuck and feel powerless may be more painful for you in the long run.

Take good care of yourself!
Leslie

Dear Leslie,

I found another woman’s phone number in my husband’s pocket. What should I do?”

Signed Fuming after the Searching

Dear F&S,

Your e-mail reminds me of me a story my grandfather told about a woman who was married to the meanest guy in their 1920’s west Texas county. Now he was mean from the moment his feet hit the dirt-covered floor of their clapboard shack until sunset when he collapsed drunk into the sagging metal cot that served as their bed. The poor wife would have been thrilled if he had been a “happy drunk”, but he was the black-eye smacking kind of spouse if the pot roast was late getting to the table. This man believed in spreading his anger far and wide, like a perverse Johnny Appleseed. He was known for dirty fights in town where he attacked unsuspecting drinking buddies with a hidden screw-driver, kept tucked in his belt, if his buried resentments toward them hit a high boil once the gin began to blossom. In other words, he was the local son-of-a-bitch.

Which brings us back to the wife. She was poor, uneducated, and had no friends to help her that weren’t a day’s horseback ride away. Zero women’s rights to combat spousal abuse were as common as the sun rising in the east; you’re married for life, happy or not. But even the downtrodden have a bubbling cauldron of rage and injustice, which in her case (allegedly) simmered into a toxic brew of possibly thinking, “If I go to hell, it’s better than this one.”

The sheriff’s department received a message one evening from the wife to go out to their homestead as there had been a domestic disturbance. Once the officers arrived, and they probably had been half-expecting to see the wife the worse for the wear, but were surprised to see the husband spread-eagle, face-down on the floor with a kitchen knife neatly buried into his back. The wife stood over the body, looked them with a straight steeliness, and stated it was a suicide. A silence stretch between the newly-minted widow and the officers over the ever-stiffening body of her husband, and a silent agreement was sealed; of course it was. She lived the rest of her life in relative quiet and contentment, an accepted part of the community.

My how times have changed. And thank God, because now women have choices that don’t involve cutlery. You can hire a private detective. Pricey. You can attach a GPS devise to the undercarriage of your husband’s car and determine exactly where he spends his time and when. Devious. Or, if suspecting his affections are straying, have frank talks with him and trust your intuition if his energies are being diverted outside of your relationship. Assertive. Proffer the paper under his nose and ask to whom does this phone number belong?

Going to a couple’s counselor or working with a religious leader may be your healthiest way to get to the bottom of a suspected affair. Because as they saying goes, affairs are symptoms that something is wrong in the relationship. Repairing the broken relationship is the goal, and by all means, leave the kitchen tools for slicing pork and lamb chops.

The jack-o-lanterns have long since disappeared from the front stoops of homes and Christmas decorations are still fairly contained to only the larger department stores. It must be that magical, middle holiday called Thanksgiving. For over three hundred years Americans have been gathering around tables filled with foods and encircled by friends and family. And within the heart of these celebrations is a sense a family and gratitude for all the blessings of the past year.
I read about one family who found two unique ways of counting their blessings. Each Thanksgiving they bring out a paper scroll that is partially unrolled and tape it to the dinner table. Each family member takes a section of the blank scroll and draws a picture or writes a paragraph of something for which they are thankful for in the past year. They would draw or write about friends, vacations, toys, and so on. Once this was completed, they would unroll the entire scroll in order to look back on past years of the people and events for which each person had been grateful. Later, during the Thanksgiving meal, five kernels of corn are found at each place setting. Everyone takes a turn and names five blessings they received in the past year.
I can imagine that something so simple could also be very profound. In listing five things that I am grateful for, what comes immediately to mind is my husband, John, who has stood by me these past dozen years. My precious daughter, Lauren, is my sweetest gratitude as she always amazes me with her creativity and humor. I’m grateful for my two best friends, Claire and Doris, who ground me when I lose my way. I’m grateful for my good health that continues despite my cancer fight five years ago. I’m grateful for my therapy work and all of my clients who never stop teaching me new lessons and insights about the power of grace in the face of hardship.
As I write the five things for which I am grateful, I’m filled with a sense of richness that is all around me. But it was the naming of each blessing that created my warm sense of gratitude. Growing up in my family we never said prayers before meals. It was rare for us to even darken the door of a church. Yet when visiting my grandparents who lived in west Texas, every meal, no matter how simple, wasn’t started until the prayer was completed. I remember how that one act of saying grace and acknowledging our richness in everyday life, suddenly made our efforts more meaningful, more special.
Dale Carnegie once wrote, “If only the people who worry about their liabilities would think about the riches they do possess, they would stop worrying. Would you sell both of your eyes for a million dollars… or your two legs… or your hands… or your hearing? Add up what you do have, and you’ll find that you won’t sell them for all the gold in the world. The best things in life are yours, if you can appreciate yourself.”
Thanksgiving is a holiday often surrounded by the rich smells of amazing foods, laughter from friends and family, football games in the background and too many people crowded into the kitchen, talking all at once. But in the midst of all the life that surrounds you, find the moment to take a step back and say Thank You that I am, and that this is my life.

How do you explain the evil side of human nature to ten little Brownies who are touring Austin for an outing badge? That was one of the questions facing the two troop leaders and myself recently when we took a gaggle of third-graders, my eight-year-old daughter among them, to tour four Austin landmarks on a golden Indian summer afternoon. The plan was to introduce the girls to Treaty Oak, the State Capital, Littlefield Fountain at UT, and end with a frozen custard at Sandy’s on Barton Springs Road.

Walking up to our first stop, Treaty Oak, the 500-year-old Southern live oak, we stood beneath the towering tree, its limbs stretching high as if to brush against the lapis blue sky, while a skirt of branches spread heavily to the ground, curving up into a lace of leaves in deep shade. The girls peered up and up, marveling at its size. A woman in the crowd spontaneously walked up and began to read the monument marker, describing to us how it was part of the council of oaks, a circle of trees that served as a spiritual meeting place for Native Americans hundreds of years ago. She also told the girls how the tree had been poisoned in 1989. Ten little heads swiveled back to us as the bewildered girls asked why? Why would anyone try to kill such a beautiful tree with branches to swing from and acorns to hunt underneath a rustling carpet of  leaves?

Flipping through client files my hands cross over the stiff manila folders, touching names printed in the corner. Unbidden, each person come across in flashes as bright as a snapshot. The man who struggles to be successful, especially when it’s at his fingertips. Here is a woman who loves the boyfriend who only loves her for what she can do for him. My long-term client who comes in monthly for a check-in, keeping it light and breezy at the beginning of the hour then honing it down to her fears toward the last few minutes. Every person’s essence courses up from the files via my fingertips, their sadness, hopes, resentments, dreams, and fears of dreams that may never come to pass.
For the past several months I have passed over the file of one client. “Jackie” (not her real name) was a petite woman in her early-sixties who dressed as if she had just strolled out of a Coldwater Creek catalog. You would never know she was living with Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. Engaging and bright, she had that Texas charm as soothing as honey on a warm buttered biscuit. Her hair, wavy brown with subtle gold streaks, was a little too perfect, hinting at her baldness underneath the styled wig. But it was her fear of death that filled up the room. Her eyes peered out intently, riveting you. With some clients you can sit back, relax, and just talk in a more conversational way. In our sessions I found myself sitting up straighter, my mind sharpened like a tennis player facing a pro with a wicked serve. When Jackie spoke you paid her your full attention because that is what she gave you. We discussed how to live a life when death had pulled up a chair and was waiting patiently as each cancerous cell methodically divided into another daughter-cancer cell.
Jackie was not scheduled for a session, nor had I seen her in almost six weeks. Usually I would have shelved the chart out of my active file in order to make room for more current clients, but something in me refused to allow that. If I put the file away it would mean our work was put on hold and left in limbo. Not knowing her current state of mind, I wasn’t ready to let her go. The file stayed put.
I tried calling her a few weeks earlier to reschedule a previously canceled appointment. She had picked up the phone sounding frazzled and distracted. “Jackie,” I’d asked, relieved to hear her voice, “am I calling at a good time?”
“No,” she’d replied tersely. I’m driving and my friend and I are trying to find a house in this rain. Now isn’t a good time to talk.”
“Okay,” I said, “call me when you can to reschedule.” Before we hung up I could hear a woman’s voice in the background asking Jackie a question. I found it comforting to know that while she was out-and-about driving through the rain reading house numbers, she had a friend riding shotgun beside her.
One morning I saw on my phone a text message from her husband and I breathed in cold dread, punching the message open: Jackie had died the previous night surrounded by loved ones. My six-month-old kitten, Roxy, wound her warm, sleek body around my ankles, purring, her world unchanged.
The amazing thing about denial is that it is a defense mechanism made of a stretched-thin membrane lashed to keep hard truths, such as cancer patients die from cancer, at bay. Once punctured, reality rushes in with icy clarity leaving us gasping at its starkness. I felt dizzy reading the small words set in heavy block type on my phone.
She was a fighter. She was responding well to the chemotherapy. She was making plans to live with cancer and make the best of it for the next ten-to-twenty years the doctors said may actually be open to her. She had just made the determined milestone of dancing at her only child’s wedding two months prior. At our last session, with a cane propped up against the couch and her face paled from her recent chemotherapy, she relaxed into the couch cushions, her voice warming with the memories, saying, “The wedding was just lovely. I felt so happy and blessed to have been there. My boy is married to a wonderful girl and I made it.” Her eyes brimmed with tears as memories swept her back to the ceremony and reception, easing the pain of the cancer.
Jackie was a study in opposites. She was stunned and angry that cancer had returned after lying dormant for over a decade, often asking “why.” Some days she could be totally filled by her life, bubbling with a natural love for helping others. This gift showed up one morning when she came into our session carrying a large tote bag lined with a pink bathrobe and spilling terry cloth out from the sides. Something inside was rustling and she gave me a small conspirator’s smile, setting the bag down between us.
“I want you to see my babies,” she said, her Abilene accent icing each word. Reaching down, she pulled out a little orange-and-white scrap of protesting fur, a kitten with eyes welded-shut and body trembling. From a side pocket in the tote she expertly snagged what looked to be a doll’s baby bottle sudsy with milk.
A practiced flip of the wrist and she turned the kitten over on his back, inserting the nipple past tiny milk teeth. A church stillness filled the room.
She looked up at me and said, “We came home last week and found four of these babies lying on our driveway, almost dead from the cold. It was barely above freezing. This little guy,” she said, gesturing to the orange tabby nestled in her lap, “I thought for sure was dead. But I gathered them up, rushed inside and began rubbing them all over with a warm towel. He seemed to have already died so I set him aside and began to work on the others. I heard a tiny squeak and looked around to see him wiggling. That’s why I named him ‘Lucky.’” Cradling kitten and bottle in one hand, she reached down into the folds of the pink bathrobe and pulled out another kitten, a little gray tabby with a snowy chest and four white socks, saying, “Do you want to feed one too?”
Sitting opposite from each other, feeding the kittens no bigger than decks of cards, we began our session speaking in quiet voices so as not to disturb them. A calm stretched between us that was as soft as velvet. While she delicately held the tiny bottle I noticed her knuckles stood out large, the muscles and skin causalities from the wasting quality of cancer drugs and radiation. My client’s peace was evident as she looked down at the kitten while talking about her own fears of dying. “I know no one can tell me how long I have to live. But when I look down at this little creature, I know that what I do matters. I know I’ve done good.”  She smiled at me, and I saw twenty years slip away and give me a glimpse of her centered, happy self.
Later that evening I told my family about the kitten I fed during a session; my eight-year-old daughter was smitten and began imploring my husband with her “please” eyes. My husband reminded our daughter we already had a cat, an old fellow set in his ways. Jackie brought the kittens one more time to a session and, with their eyes now open, they explored my office, showing their curiosity by avoiding our laps in favor of nosing around plants and bookcases. Again I told my family how the kittens had walked around the office on legs stiff as little toy soldiers. My girl’s eyes turned again to my husband, “Just one?” she asked. Then I told them that Lucky had died, too damaged for this world after all. My husband hesitated, “Well, maybe one.”
Jackie called the kitten “Lizzie”, but we renamed her “Roxy”. I felt the name had more of a spitfire quality since she had been born mewing on a frozen driveway and now was attacking my bedroom slipper, raking it with fierce slices of her back claws. I brought Roxy home around Easter, but now that the August sun is blazing hot as a baker’s oven, it seems as though the six-month-old kitten has always been with us.
Roxy jumps onto the arm of my chair, as light as a sparrow settling onto a branch and I give her a little hug, placing her on my lap and feeling her purrs rumbling from deep inside her chest. My client is gone, but living in our home is evidence of her love. A little flame has been passed down, giving more love. I can imagine all the love Jackie gave the world, a world where cancer, war, and petty cruelties often frame the reality that life is difficult. But against such a backdrop, when we do come across grace and love, the flame appears to burn a brighter gold because of its gentle nature. These daily acts of compassion can give us faith to go forward, reminding us how to love others, and in so doing, love ourselves. Passing the flame of love may be our gift to soothe us when our body dies and we can hope we made a difference.

This was what I had left a previous career as a photojournalist to do. I had left a secure job in a postcard-pretty mountain resort town with four charming seasons, had buried myself in GRE books to scrounge up enough points to squeak into graduate school, and once in the graduate program, I had worked several day jobs in order to attend my master’s classes every night until 10. The past two years were a blur of semesters where I had attempted to stuff knowledge into my brain while pinging from the library, to my day photo lab job, to my home to study more, and then wake up in order to do it all over again. My sizable student loans payments were going to kick in that month and what I had envisioned for myself as a new career in helping others was unfolding right in front of me outside my windshield. Now all I needed to do was get up out of the car.

I rested my head against my knuckles that were gripping the steering wheel. Take deep breaths, I told myself. You can do this. They want you to succeed, I thought, a mental trick I had learned to repeat to myself as a way to ease into any situation I felt was pulling me away from known safety zones. Which oddly, was pinging from classrooms, libraries, troll-like photo darkrooms and back to my little track house stuck out in a Johnson grass patch surrounded by cornfields.

“Get a grip,” I told myself grimly, swinging the door open and letting in the 90-degree heat that was already radiating around me, all the while breathing in and out my mantra – they want me to succeed. I pushed open the heavy glass door and a rush of musty damp cool from the foyer met me and went in to talk with the director, now my new boss.

All the front offices had a dull, dark-brown paneling which tended to blend in with the greenish-gray carpet. The nap was so thin you could barely feel the cushion as you walked. A heavy-set secretary looked up from her window, an orchid of color and plumy perfume, and gave me a bright smile. She told me the director, Paul (all names have been changed), was waiting for me in his office. I wound my way down the hall, peering into the rooms as I went by. I remember thinking that when I had come for the interview I hadn’t noticed the stacks of manila folders containing client charts that poked out from filing rooms, covered desks and nestled on the floor near people’s chairs. Now I considered them anew, seeing that each folder represented one person’s life story and their willingness to come to this clinic in the hope for a bit of hope.

Turning the corner, I came to Paul’s office, and it was as though I had burrowed deep into an ant hill’s inner-sanctum and found the queen ant, startled,  churning out eggs, but in this case it was triplicate chaos. This was the mother-lode of charts; piles of papers hanging on to each other by the thinnest of paper clips, threatening to tremble to the floor like 8X11 fall leaves.

Paul stood up to greet me, almost knocking his coffee cup into the trash can.

“Hi! Glad you’re here! Have a seat and let’s talk about getting you started,” he said, gesturing to an old wooden chair that squeaked with protest when I sat down. At that point, I felt my fear unhitch in my chest by the tiniest of bands. My mantra began to migrate from, “They want me to succeed,” to, “They need for me to succeed.”

Often in science, when researchers sift for clues toward a cure for a disease, a population that is studied are those individuals who appear to have natural antibodies against the invading virus or bacteria. What is it about those individuals who are able to ward off polio, AIDS or even the common cold? Researchers examine the mechanics that are in place which keep the hosts hearty and hale, and attempt to use the information toward either a cure or vaccination.

Social psychologist, David G. Myers, in his book, The Pursuit of Happiness, studied the habits of people who self-reported general feelings of happiness in much the same way as a medical scientist. What are happy people doing that makes them happy? Dr. Myers came up with a list of ten things happy people do to stay that way.

1. Realize that enduring happiness doesn’t come from making it. People adapt to changing circumstances – even to wealth or a disability. Thus wealth is like health: its utter absence breeds misery, but having it (or any circumstance we long for) doesn’t guarantee happiness.
2. Take control of your time. Happy people feel in control of their lives, often aided by mastering their use of time-setting goals, breaking them into daily aims. Although we often overestimate how much we will accomplish in any given day (leaving us frustrated), we generally underestimate how much we can accomplish in a year, given just a little progress every day.
3. Act happy. We can act ourselves into a frame of mind. Manipulated into a smiling expression, people feel better; when they scowl, the whole world seems to scowl back. So…put on a happy face. Talk as if you feel positive self-esteem, optimistic, and outgoing. Going through the motions can trigger the emotions.
4. Seek work and leisure that engages your skills. Happy people often are in a zone called “flow” – absorbed in a task that challenges them without overwhelming them. The most expensive forms of leisure (sitting on a yacht) often provide less flow experience than gardening, socializing, or craft work. Off your duffs, couch potatoes.
5. Join in movement movement. An avalanche of recent studies reveals that aerobic exercise not only promotes health and energy, it also is an antidote for mild depression and anxiety. Sound minds reside in sound bodies.
6. Get REST. Happy people live active, vigorous lives, yet reserve time for renewing sleep and solitude. Americans suffer from a growing “national sleep debt,” with resulting fatigue, diminished alertness, and gloomy moods. Even a literal day of REST (Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy) or smaller, daily doses of solitude in meditation or prayer can spiritually recharge.
7. Give priority to close relationships. There are few better remedies for unhappiness than an intimate friendship with someone who cares deeply about you. Confiding is good for soul and body. If married, resolve to nurture your relationship, to not take your partner for granted, to display to your spouse the sort of kindness that you display to others, to affirm your partner, to play together and share together. To rejuvenate your affections, resolve in such ways to act lovingly.
8. Focus beyond the self. Reach out to those in need. Happiness increases helpfulness (those who feel good, do good.) But doing good also makes one feel good. Compassionate acts help one feel better about oneself.
9. Count your blessings. People who keep a gratitude journal – who pause each day to reflect on some positive aspect of their lives (their health, friends, family, freedom, education, senses, etc.) experience heightened well-being.
10. Take care of the soul. In study after study, actively religious people are happier. They cope better with crises. For many people, faith provides a support community, a sense of life’s meaning, feelings of ultimate acceptance, a reason to focus beyond self, and a timeless perspective on life’s woes.