Dear Sabrina - A lifestyle blog for the thinking woman (and man)

Happiness Project: January: Self-knowledge resolutions

March 30, 2021 By Jodi

Starting a happiness project is all the easier when someone does the legwork for you. Freed from having to think too much about it, it was easy to get started on January's theme of self-knowledge by picking up a handful of suggestions from Gretchen and throwing in a couple resolutions of my own.

The idea behind starting the year-long project with the theme of self-knowledge was to get closer to identifying the things that make *me*, Jodi Elliott, happy. The more insight I have into myself, the better I can arrange a year's worth of resolutions that are actually meaningful to me—not stock platitudes or goals that meet some outer "should", but concrete actions that will help me to manifest my me into the world, whatever that looks like at 41 with three kids (!!!) and a husband and a life in the Pacific Northwest.

So what are the actions that I thought would bring the most insight into myself for this journey of happiness?

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Happiness Project Redux

March 23, 2021 By Jodi

In my previous post, I mentioned that I'm endeavoring a Happiness Project again. I've written a lot of background about happiness projects, and why I find the idea meaningful—as opposed to mere frivolity––so I won't go into that again now. This time, though, due to some Black Friday margarita drinking*, I'm actually doing the official course led by Gretchen Rubin.

It's been wonderful—I dare say life-changing—so far.

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A Soft Restart

March 8, 2021 By Jodi

Well.

Here we go again.

A confluence of minor life events—a card we sent out, a drunken email I wrote to a popular website, the launching of a new happiness project—led to the unbearable, inevitable sentiment that I have to start doing this again. I want to start doing this again.

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What Have You Been Thinking About Lately?

December 13, 2019 By Jodi

Dear readers—I wonder, what have you been thinking about lately? What is on your mind, what are the questions you keep coming back to? What are the situations you can’t solve? Who are the people you’re loving? Do you find yourself pondering different questions in the darkness of winter?

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Missing My Dad, Three Years Later

October 13, 2019 By Jodi

My dad passed away three years ago today. We were still living in Sweden; I was five months pregnant with Zoë. It was late evening when my mother called, the sea and sky outside our windows dark. I felt helpless, and so far away from everything that mattered.

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A Life-Changing Way to Create Community

May 30, 2019 By Jodi

Years ago, when I was in the midst of an impromptu solo road trip around the West Coast, I was Couchsurfing (that's a real thing!) in Vancouver, B.C. at the home of a wonderful man called Simon. Simon is a life coach and a magnificent person, and he had this knack for flipping my world upside-down in every conversation.

One night we were having dinner in his loft, and I was telling him about my upcoming flight to Puerto Rico and the generous friend, Rich, who had offered to take me to the Seattle airport at 5am a week hence. I was saying that I felt a bit guilty asking this person to get up so early and drive so far, even if he had volunteered to do so.

Simon stopped me and asked, "Jodi, how do you feel when you help someone?" I felt good, I answered. It's always nice to help. It feels great when you can do something for someone that they really appreciate

"So why would you deny someone else the opportunity to feel good?"

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The Surprising Uses of Melancholy: Watercolor Painting and Reading Poetry

April 9, 2019 1 Comment

I may have mentioned that I went through a spate of melancholy recently. 😉 The good news it that I'm through it; the better news is that I got a lot out of it.

Adult Supervision (not) Required

March 8, 2019 Leave a Comment

Chances are you have a memory of something you did as a child that made you feel free, independent, brave, capable. Something that society has now decided is unsafe. Where once children were allowed to play outside unsupervised, such an action is now perceived as negligent and possibly criminal.

How to Tell Who's Writing

March 7, 2019 Leave a Comment

Sonia's next post is coming soon, and we want to make sure you can tell who's writing. If you haven't noticed already, just under the title of each post is some identifying information: when the post was published, and who wrote it. You can probably tell by the difference in our writing voices, but if...

The Subtle Art of Showing You Give a F@ck

March 3, 2019 2 Comments

James and I are taking a parenting class offered by August's school. The class is called Parenting with Love and Logic (the link goes to a book by the same name). The basic idea is to use empathy with our children in order to empower them to handle their own problems and decisions. One of...