Tips from Dawson’s Sustainable Happiness community to weather rough start to 2022

Published: January 19, 2022

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Chris Adam, Co-developer of Sustainable Happiness Certificate, Sustainability Office:

Create micro-restorative places that calm you, bring back pleasant memories or contribute to pleasant family moments. It could be an outdoor garden project, constructing a backyard “snow restaurant” with a special lunch for young children or an indoor sitting area with plants and photos that pull at your dreams.

Thinking about positive actions influences well-being, sometimes more than the actions themselves. For example, children who are excited for many days before a birthday or adults who can’t wait for that vacation to see family. This positive anticipation of excitement and joy facilitates positive conversations with friends and builds relationships, so stretch them out!

I suggest looking for calm in the special place, within you…cradled in your experience, in your memories, in the loving ties of your family and friends. I suggest writing because writing has a special magic. It connects us inward and projects us outward. It is proven that writing can help us take care of our own mental health and that of others. Write a personal recipe for “attracting calm” inside you.

Step outside (balcony, front door, building entrance) making sure you are dressed appropriately! Take three deep breaths, then take six breaths holding each nostril in turn (in right, out left, in left, out right). Open your eyes and take in any natural element, appreciating its texture and colour. Ask yourself a curiosity question about that natural element that you don’t know (i.e. Why does the squirrel run with its tail out? Why haven’t the oak tree leaves fallen? Why are the clouds shaped that way?) Explore this question on your own or with a friend/ family member later. Nature, and your curiosity, as mentor!

As we always say in Sustainable Happiness, we cannot support the well-being of others and the environment if we do not care for ourselves first. During these times, make sure to take time for yourself and schedule daily “down time”. During my down time, I enjoy picking up my loom, knitting needle, and making items for myself, family and friends. I recently knitted a pair of mittens and head band.

Before you go to sleep each night, think of three things that you are grateful for.