Happy Birthday to a great person and allow yourself to be happy

Market pansies in a cream jug
work in progress
Acrylic ink and marker
on watercolour paper
5.5 x 8.5 inches
Barbara Muir © 2023

Today was an amazingly beautiful day after 2 feet of snow fell yesterday.
And today was our young family member's birthday. We're glad she's
a winter freak, and had a wonderful day!

I'm thinking about happiness because aside from constantly finding in
research that it's good for your health, it feels like a form of resistance
now.  As I say every time I express this, I mean that if we are living in
comfort -- have a roof over our heads, food to eat, enough money to
pay our bills -- we are blessed in a world full of turmoil, and need to
be grateful.

As artists our rebellion involves sharing the beauty we see. As people
we can rebel by doing everything we can to help others, and by
appreciating our joy.

It feels like a good moment to share this information from
a former post.  I taught positive psych as a college prof for
10 years.  Loved it and learned so much. I edited this a 
bit for the current moment.

"The Happiness Trick

Is there a trick to happiness?  Yes.  People have written books
about how.  But there is a secret to being happy.  We have to
allow it.  I heard about this phenomenon called the "Nocebo
response".  In medicine it is related to telling a patient that
they will not get better. This message apparently has such a
profound effect on the person's mind that she shuts the door
on hope, and may get rapidly worse.

My great happiness magic for today is to talk yourself out of
it.  Of the depression you could get because in this city many of
our cars are buried in snow banks, and digging them out takes a 
long time. It's been quite grey but today it was quite sunny for a while in

Toronto. And in painting of the fear that you can't do it.

Try this.  Instead of freaking out about what you can't do,
start with "This is easy!"  Just repeat that a few times, and
watch your shoulders quit tightening into a vice grip.
As for painting or drawing -- we need to take a look at how
tough things are in the world, and let ourselves know how lucky
we are to be compelled to make something, and to have the
 freedom to create."

Have a loving your life day!