Happiness - marykatekopec.com

What you give power, has power …

Hello Gorgeous Loves,

I haven’t always been strong. For a very long time, I wasn’t very strong at all. And there are still times when I don’t feel strong.

But there’s this thought in my head, this guiding principle I use to grow:

What you give power, has power.

This guiding thought is an offshoot of a quote:

“It all begins in your mind. What you give power to, has power over you.”
Leon Brown

Thank you Mr. Brown! I find his original quote helpful to me when thinking about facing my anxieties, and I am grateful for his words. To me, they tell me my anxiety is in my mind, and I can control it … which I try very hard to work on. This quote is a part of my Happy, Healing Place Toolbox of Goodness!

But today, I want to talk about my offshoot thought … What you give power, has power! To me, this version isn’t about something having control over you. This version is about growing. Taking something important to you and investing in it, so that it will grow and grow and grow.

What you give power, has power.

And I’m talking about you!

Me. You. All of us!

If you grow your love, your love will be powerful!
If you grow your self-confidence, your self-confidence will strengthen and become powerful!
If you grow your ability to self-care, your self-care will be powerful!
If you grow your self-worth, your self-worth will be powerful!

When you invest in you, you invest in your values and what you can do for yourself. You make yourself stronger, more self-reliant, more capable. Better prepared to handle life and its obstacles and challenges. You will be more open to the gifts of life. The goodness for you!

It doesn’t mean you won’t stumble or even fall, ever again. But that’s okay. You keep investing, learning, and growing. What you give power, has power.

When you give yourself power, you will have power!

It doesn’t mean you will always have to stand on your own if you don’t want to. You can surround yourself with people who will love you, care for you, grow with you, support you, and who will bring you up and walk forward with you. That way when life throws the hard curve balls, you don’t have do it all on your own. That’s just you being strong and knowing what you need, when you need it, and doing your best to be prepared for when life happens.

What you give power has power. Mary Kate Kopec. Love And Big Hugs. POSitude — Live with POSitude!

We aren’t born knowing how to be strong, but as we face life and learn the lessons it is teaching us, we can grow our strength. We learn who we are and what we are capable of. We learn what we need and want to grow – what we want to be better at or stronger at. This is all good!

In the process, we’ll fail, make mistakes, and need time to heal and grow. That’s okay. It’s how it works. What’s important is not letting our failures or mistakes bring us down (at least not for too long). Look at them for what they are, life’s learning and growing moments. Learn and grow, and become stronger. Also, it’s vital that we give ourselves the time we need to heal and grow. (No one else gets to determine what that amount of time is. It’s up to each of us. It’s individual. And it happens when it happens.)

The bottom line:

What you give power, has power.

So … will you give YOU power, so YOU have power? The power to love, laugh, be happy, be kind, find joy, feel gratitude, be healthy, be strong, be confident, be whatever you value … be your best you. It’s up to you, but for sure, what you give power, has power!

Ready to take my Arting It Up for Happiness and Healthiness: Color Me Happier 7 Day Challenge?

Arting It Up for Happiness and Healthiness Color Me Happier 7 Day Challenge Mary Kate Kopec Love and Big Hugs

Each day support your healthiness with feeling less stress, less anxiety, more happiness and more positivity!

Easy, fun, happy, silly, adorable, and totally supporting you!

7 days of Love and Big Hugs!

Delightfully cheerful & colorful art will lift & brighten your smile!

11 loving, big hugging, and supporting pages include proven happier and healthier promoting strategies:

Smile-making, positivity-promoting, happy coloring blocks
Gratitude Acknowledgements
Self-acknowledgement Reaffirmations
Includes “how to get the most out of this challenge” intro page & a summary reflection page

Arting It Up for Happiness and Healthiness Color Me Happier 7 Day Challenge Mary Kate Kopec Love and Big Hugs get button

You can also check out my new ETSY shop!!!

Get Your POSitude On!

Feel happier! Supported! Loved! Hugged!

Bring brightness and goodness into your day, and into your life!

Get inspired every day with a deck of my new POSitude cards! Available in my Etsy shop. Check them out and learn more, now!

Thank you for being here – my heart is bright with joy for you! May your day be powerful with you and filled with love and happiness!!!

Love and Big Hugs,

Create your very own Happy Healing Place toolbox of goodness!

Hello Happy Hearts!

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how kindness saved my life. In my story of me, I talked about having a safe place to go and be while life was beating me down. In our happy chit chat today, I want to grow this idea into a bursting toolbox of goodness that will help you tackle the tough times!

Firstly, lemme explain what I mean by a safe place. To me, safe can be physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually … it can refer to any plane you are existing on. So to me, a safe place is a place you feel happy, relaxed, calm, at peace, … to me, it is a place for you to heal your heart, mind, body, soul … whatever needs healing.

So let’s call it our happy, healing place!

Depending on whatever trauma and drama your life is dealing down on you, this place can vary, as well as how you use it.

Let’s grow your Happy, Healing Place Toolbox of Goodness. You can fill it with anything that makes you happy and helps you heal. Things like:

happy memories
happy imagined places
photos of happy times
happy meditations
songs or music that make you feel happy
happy books you can read
a journal for creating, drawing, arting it up, and writing out thoughts that lead you back to happiness
favorite places you love that make you feel calm, peaceful, and happy
spending happy time with a friend
… and anywhere or anything else you can think of

To give you an idea of something you can put into your toolbox of goodness, here is a drawing of my favorite imagined place and the words I use to meditate it into my mind. For me, this place is perfect. It’s nature and delight. It’s comfortable. Peaceful. Relaxing. And it makes me smile. The sun is always warm and bright. The tree is always strong and protective. The birds are always delightful. Even the bugs are filled with mirth (and they never sting or bite!). My blanket is soft and great for sitting, laying, and napping. The breeze is always soothing. Sometimes, I add bunnies, squirrels, and/or chipmunks. And since Baby Bear (our beloved cookie cat) has gone on to live in the stars on Betelgeuse, sometimes even he visits me here … he always did love a good sun warming. And if Pauli is away and can’t be with me right then, he comes and sits with me, too.

Your place can be anywhere, with anything and anybody that makes you feel good, happy, peaceful … anything and everything that helps you relax and heal. That gives you and your body, mind, soul, and spirit a rest.

In last week’s post, I talked about how all the forms of stress (mental, physical, emotional …) wear your body down and impact your health. I talked about when you don’t feel well, you likely don’t feel very happy. So whatever trauma or drama is causing you stress (be it at work, home, in a relationship, anxiety, whatever, wherever, whoever), it’s hurting you, your health, and your happiness. Your Happy, Healing Place Toolbox of Goodness helps you get needed rest to rejuvenate and cope by spending time in your safe, happy, healing place.

Your toolbox is a tremendous asset to your wellness!

So a very good reason for you to grow your toolbox and to have it pre-made/thought of, written out, collected (however you want to assemble it for readiness) is that it becomes an easy go-to and reminder of all the tricks you have up your sleeves for when times get tough and your stress levels go up.

Because, honestly, once you are already feeling down, bad, low, stressed, and anxious, it can hard to remember the goodness in your life. It can be hard to remember the happinesses in your life. It can be hard to remember what to do and how to help you feel better. This toolbox is for you!

To help you get started, I’m giving you 2 coloring pages – all you have to do is click below. One is for you to be able to create a visual of a happy place you love. The other one is for you to list out, write out, explain, draw, … whatever works for you … your list of happy, healing places to spend healing time in. Perhaps even a reminder checklist of your options. Whatever works for you. Keep in mind, some of your happy, healing places might work better for certain kinds of trauma and drama than others, and etc. So be creative. Think happy! Grow your Happy, Healing Place Toolbox of Goodness, and get to healing and feeling happier! This is self-care that loves and big hugs you tight!

Create your very own happy healing place toolbox of goodness Color Page get button. Mary Kate Kopec. Love and Big Hugs

Ready to take my Arting It Up for Happiness and Healthiness: Color Me Happier 7 Day Challenge?

Each day support your healthiness with feeling less stress, less anxiety, more happiness and more positivity!

Easy, fun, happy, silly, adorable, and totally supporting you!

7 days of Love and Big Hugs!

Delightfully cheerful & colorful art will lift & brighten your smile!

11 loving, big hugging, and supporting pages include proven happier and healthier promoting strategies:

Smile-making, positivity-promoting, happy coloring blocks
Gratitude Acknowledgements
Self-acknowledgement Reaffirmations
Includes “how to get the most out of this challenge” intro page & a summary reflection page

You can also check out my new ETSY shop!!!

Get Your POSitude On!

Feel happier! Supported! Loved! Hugged!

Bring brightness and goodness into your day, and into your life!

Get inspired every day with a deck of my new POSitude cards! Available in my Etsy shop. Check them out and learn more, now!

I’m so happy you are here! You make my day brighter, and I thank you for your love and totally PINK hearts and smiles!!! Wishing you a delightful day filled with kindness and hope!!!

Love and Big Hugs,

Arting it up for happiness and healthiness – color your stress away!

Hello Sparkling Sprites of Joy!

I’m so excited to talk to you today about THE something that has helped me calm my anxious nerves and tackle overwhelming stress more than anything else (except for Pauli’s hugs and soothing voice) … but he can’t be by me 24/7, and let’s be real … even heroes need a break now and again! :0)

So what do I do to calm myself, to relax, de-stress, and squelch the anxious voices and energy that can take me from peaceful to freaked out in zero to instantaneously? I art it up!

I’m more of an anxious person (had my first full on panic attack when I was 11) than someone who gets stressed out. But anxiety and the anxious, negative energy it produces creates physical and emotional stress … so even though it’s a different input for the stress, it’s still stress. And blossoms, stress is B. A. D., baaaaaaddd!

Whatever form it comes in, stress is inflammatory, and chronic inflammation has been identified as a key player/root cause in many, many diseases and states of unwellness: heart disease, type 2 diabetes, some cancers, ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, asthma, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis, just to name a few.

So let me hit some highlights about chronic inflammation. Don’t worry, I’m gonna zoom through here without scary scientific words just so we can be on the same page.

If there is a chronic inflammation, you might think there is likely an acute inflammation, and if so, you’d be right. So what’s the difference?

In the big picture: acute inflammation is the body’s healthy response to injury and illness to help your body heal, and it only lasts for a little while. Whereas, chronic inflammation is your body continuing its efforts to heal you for a long period of time (months to years), but the cause of the inflammation isn’t going away. Too much of a good thing is not so good. Too much inflammation actually hurts you.

inflammation happiness healthiness art therapy Mary Kate Kopec Love and Big Hugs

What kinds of things feed chronic inflammation? Lots of things actually. Poor diet, physical stress, mental stress, emotional stress, stress, stress, stress (stress is definitely a potent problem, cuz we all seem to have lots of it … lots of the time), … additionally, things like food allergies, environmental toxins (i.e., even the chemicals in your shampoo can be inflammatory), lack of exercise, bad/unhealthy habits, … you get the idea.

Are you with me when I say, healthiness impacts happiness, and happiness impacts healthiness? I say this, because, if you’re not healthy, you don’t feel well, and when you don’t feel well, it’s harder to feel happy. Likewise, when you are unhappy, it’s a form of stress, and stress leads to inflammation, and inflammation leads to unhealthiness.

Ideally … (insert as many LOLs as you need to here for this next statement, cuz I know it’s hard to achieve) … ideally, we achieve a balance in our lives, so we can glow radiantly.

In reality, it’s normal to have some low level of chronic inflammation … it kind of goes along with living. Normal-ish/ideal looks a bit like this:

But it’s when we get a multitude of factors that build up and feed our chronic inflammation, that things get mucky. Our level of chronic inflammation goes up and up and up and our beautiful balance of health and happiness gets squashed, and that can look like this:

Given that I’ve been dealing with chronic illness for about 5 years now (to include chronic fatigue), I have been growing and growing and growing my awareness and knowledge about my body and my health, trying hard to heal, and living an anti-inflammatory life to the best of my ability. Mind you, I’m not perfect … but I have learned a lot, and I’ve made a ton of changes that have been helping me tremendously!

But for fun, just between you and me … I still eat dessert, almost daily. Sugar is super inflammatory … like super duper … but a girl should get at least a little bit of chocolate fun most days, right?!!!!

So what do I do to help reduce the inflammation in my life? Well, I actively live a life where I try to reduce all the factors that promote inflammation, or as many as possible. And my anxiety is a bit of challenge. LOL, a bit of challenge? It’s often a BIG challenge.

I did a lot of reading, and I learned that being creative and arting it up … even coloring … any kind of art, whether you are good or bad at it, doesn’t matter. It all helps. So I started drawing and coloring. And lo and behold, I found what I read to be true! When you art it up, it redirects your thinking and your attention away from the anxious thoughts and the stress crawling up your spine. Well, … yes, please. I hate feeling anxious, and when I sit down to color or draw or doodle or whatever, it takes my mind off of the scary thoughts and my anxiety and stress levels come way down, even all the way down.

So … for you. Today, I’m giving you one of my squee-doodles to print off right now and color. Give it a try. Take 5 minutes and see if you relax a little. Or even a lot.

Arting It Up Happier and Healthier Color Page Mary Kate Kopec Love and Big Hugs get button

I’ve talked to my girlfriends who have tried the adult coloring books, and what I hear a lot is that they actually get stressed, because they try to do all the coloring, but the pictures are so large, and the details are so fine, they get stressed trying to make time to finish the picture (which defeats the purpose).

If this is you, then you’ll love my cutie patutie little color blocks. They’re small, adorkable, filled with fun and happiness, POSitude, and they only take a little bit to color. BUT, they give you a few minutes just to yourself (self-care), to color happiness and wellness into your body.

You can take your self-care up a notch by doing calm breathing while you color. And also, if you think about things that make you grateful while you color … or something you’ve done today that you feel good about … you reinforce yourself with positive, stress relieving reaffirmation. And all of this, you dear lovely heart, is SO VERY GOOD for you and your happiness and healthiness!

I hope you enjoy your color page today! It’s totally FREE and on me.

Ready to take my Arting It Up for Happiness and Healthiness: Color Me Happier 7 Day Challenge?

Each day support your healthiness with feeling less stress, less anxiety, more happiness and more positivity!

Easy, fun, happy, silly, adorable, and totally supporting you!

7 days of Love and Big Hugs!

Delightfully cheerful & colorful art will lift & brighten your smile!

11 loving, big hugging, and supporting pages include proven happier and healthier promoting strategies:

Smile-making, positivity-promoting, happy coloring blocks
Gratitude Acknowledgements
Self-acknowledgement Reaffirmations
Includes “how to get the most out of this challenge” intro page & a summary reflection page

You can also check out my new ETSY shop!!!

Get Your POSitude On!

Feel happier! Supported! Loved! Hugged!

Bring brightness and goodness into your day, and into your life!

Get inspired every day with a deck of my new POSitude cards! Available in my Etsy shop. Check them out and learn more, now!

I’m so happy you are here! You make my day brighter, and I thank you for your love and totally PINK hearts and smiles!!! Wishing you a delightful day filled with kindness and hope!!!

Love and Big Hugs,

What to do when life falls down hard on you …

15 Habits for Happy Healthiness Mary Kate Kopec Love and Big Hugs

A beautiful blossom emailed me the other day. She told me she is going through some things, and that there isn’t anything she can do about it.

It truly sucks when life falls on you like this. It happens. It’s usually hard, seriously unfun, and oftentimes, it leaves us feeling terribly isolated, anxious, and depressed when it does.

So that’s what I want to talk to you about today. What in the world you can do when life falls on you, and the circumstances aren’t in your control? How can you feel better?

Spoiler alert … what can you do when life falls down hard on you? … you can take care of you … lemme explain …

How does taking care of you help?

When life gets hard, our survival mode usually kicks in, and our stress levels go up. If this life-falling event has a chronic, persistent flair to it – and it seems like it’s never going to end – our increasing stress levels can teach us how to ride a new, elevated baseline, which is great for coping. But for our long term health (mental, physical, emotional, … all of it) … it suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks!!!!!

These stress levels attack our bodies through the increase of a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol is produced by your adrenals, which are little organs sitting on top of your kidneys. It can be fatiguing to your adrenals to be on the constant alert like this. And the long story short = stress leads to inflammation, and inflammation leads to unwellness, even disease.

So. Life happens. And when it happens hard and persistently, we can get hit with a double whammy. Not only do we have to deal with whatever the unpleasantness of the moment/time is, it can lead to physical illness, and that just ain’t good!

Sooooo. When you can’t fix life – when you are trying to cope and waiting for all the pieces to come together and get righted – this is most definitely the time for you to invoke your right to self-care! And then to make time for it! This is a something that you can definitely do!

And only you can do this.

Plus you get to decide how much time you give yourself. Balancing you against all of your commitments (family, work, household stuff … whatever your long list is that I know is calling you) … this balance is definitely a challenge. But you are important! You are worth your time! And the good news is that you can even start small and work your way up.

Let’s hit some highlights:

There’s basic biology.

You can eat nutritious food. Grab a banana, an apple, a can of sustainable, wild-life-safe, wild-caught tuna. Add a bag of frozen blueberries to your next bowl of oatmeal. Nutrient-dense food helps your body heal and decrease inflammation.

Drink your water. That whole 8 glasses of water a day is a real thing. It helps you keep your electrolytes balanced and to flush out toxins. This helps you to heal and to decrease inflammation. Plus, insufficient water can, among many things, give you headaches and make you feel hungry. And you don’t need that on top of everything else!

Get enough sleep. Sleep is rest. Rest heals you. You must sleep, my beautiful love muffin. It’s so important!!!

Get some exercise. Walk. Run. Ride a bike. Punch a punching bag. Do some yoga. Get your blood flowing; help your body breathe and nourish itself. Studies show yoga changes your brain chemistry – it helps to regulate nerve activity and reduces stress levels. It can induce a feeling of calm. This is helpful and so very good! Even 10 minutes a day is better than no minutes a day. Help yourself feel better!

Take an intentional, calming breath every day. Even if you only have a moment. You’re in your car sitting at a stop light. An elevator. Standing in the shower. … Take a moment. Close your eyes. Inhale deeply for a count of 4 to 7, hold it for 4 to 7, and then exhale slowly for 4 to 7. This breath is just for you. It’s your moment. Your time. Your healing. Let calm wash over you and hold you.

There’s positive energy reinforcements.

Practice POSitude. Think, focus, and act on positive thoughts.

Reaffirmations. Talk to yourself with positivity. You can do this! You will heal! You are worth your time! You are worth your love! You are wonderful and have so much to share and love!

Practice gratitude. Tell yourself every day at least one thing you are grateful for. The more heartfelt and genuine your gratitude, the more healing and calm it will bring you.

Smiling. Seriously … it helps! Smiling makes you feel better. Add in some positive self-talk, gratitude, calming breathing … it’s a formula for feel better.

Color or create something. Creative energies exercised change your thinking, reduce your stress and anxiety, and increase your calm. I recommend coloring with your favorite colors!!! This helps me tremendously!

Journal. Write it out. Get those thoughts racing around in your head out of your head. Write them down on paper. Acknowledge them. Acknowledge any limitation or frustration you feel. If any actionable thoughts come to mind, write them down and figure out a way to do them if it will help you cope or solve your problems. Write out your feelings about what’s happening. And remind yourself your feelings are 100% valid. You can’t control everything, but you can focus on what you can do. And you can love yourself for coping through this challenge.

Laugh! Laugh out loud. Watch something funny. Read a joke. But laugh heartily. Every day!

Connect with a loved one! Get a hug! Share a moment. Have a cup of herbal tea with a friend. Go for a walk together and be there for each other. Connect, love, and hug!!!!

Love yourself! Think of something you do well. Be genuine and heartfelt. Focus on this something and love yourself for it!

All of these are shown to change your brain chemistry and to help you to feel better. Happier. Even if only for the moment. You are still helping you to cope, heal, and reduce your stress. And this is helping you to keep healthy.

And one last, super helpful thing.

Surround yourself with love and support, with people who will bring you up, and help you walk forward through this difficult time! Good people – special family and friends – in your life can most definitely make all the difference in the world!

And in the times when you feel yourself not coping as well as you need, reach out for help. Get the help you need! Talk to your doctor, therapist, counselor, spiritual advisor, life coach … someone who can dig the extra deep with you to get you past this hump. Get the care and love and help and big hugs you need!

When life falls down hard on you and you feel like there’s nothing you can do, know that you CAN do something.

You can take care of you!

Self-care and self-love are vital – and these give you something helpful to focus on. It gives you actionables, and getting things done helps us to feel productive and useful. And the actionables I’ve shared above will also help you be happier and healthier, so you are getting so much bang for your taking-care-of-you bucks!

Every day, I remind myself: Focus on what you can do!

What can you do when life tackles you? You can self-care and self-love!!! Certainly, these may not make the life beat down you are getting go away any faster, but they will help you to cope better and stay healthier while you are dealing with it … and that’s just gotta be a good thing!

Want to dig even deeper into your Self-Care? Snag your copy of my “Mary Kate’s Be-Kind-to-You Interactive Self-Care Love Letter to You!”

Mary Kate'es Be-Kind-to-You Interactive Self-Care Love Letter to You!

When you find yourself feeling low, negative, unhappy – doubting yourself – maybe your confidence has taken a bit of a tumble & your self-worth is low …

Grab my Be-Kind-to-You Interactive Self-Care Love Letter to You!

You can start feeling better and start smiling again!

Filled with empathetic & supportive Love and Big Hugs!

Delightfully cheerful & colorful art will lift & brighten your smile!

14 loving, big hugging, and supporting pages include proven feel better strategies:

Reaffirmations & Positive Self-Talk
Gratitude Acknowledgements
Smiling POSitudes
Additional supporting ideas to help you find your calm and happiness again through self-care and self-love
Bonus Love-You Supports and Resources section

MKs Be Kind to You Interactive Self Care Love Letter to You Get Now button

You can also check out my new ETSY shop!!!

Get Your POSitude On!

Feel happier! Supported! Loved! Hugged!

Bring brightness and goodness into your day, and into your life!

Get inspired every day with a deck of my new POSitude cards! Available in my Etsy shop. Check them out and learn more, now!

Thank you for being here with me! May your day bring you heartwarming goodness and be filled with positive energy!!!

Love and Big Hugs,