About

This Feels Like A Calling For me:

I am compelled to create the Choosing Happy Group to support those who are going through their own personal hell amidst the chaos we are living through.

I first thought of Choosing Happy in 2014. It just didn’t sit right at the time.

I had a decade of painful lessons to go through, to continue to choose my own happiness in order to support others in choosing theirs.

I want this to be a very social and supportive group. I have big plans to keep you focused on living and loving life, even when it looks as if everything is collapsing around us.

I aim to go live daily with a different theme and to engage and listen and support where I can.

I want to provide space you feel safe coming to to have some fun and forget the noise - Social Saturdays, Movie Nights, Cookery Lessons, Guest interviews etc. as well as coaching and mindset transformational training

for those who want it.

Here’s a post I wrote for myself back in 2018 to get clear on the purpose. The purpose has changed in the shadow of current narratives and has become more urgent for me to step up and show up for you! So here I am and here’s my original plan…

Choosing Happy

This concept that I choose my own happiness has been with me for a very long time. In the exuberance, energy and positivity of youth it is something I found easy to achieve for myself if not for others.

My daily intention was to coax a smile from at least 3 strangers and to look for the humour in everyday life, to smile at the bizarre and appreciate the small miracles.

When did I get so serious?

London railway stations are where I achieved most of the smiles. I didn’t look for the easy option. I sensed, to the best of my ability, those who could do with some encouragement, a compliment or a kind word

It required me to put myself beyond my comfort zone and do something simple, yet possibly powerful. I didn’t do it for my benefit other than to challenge myself as an ‘extreme introvert’, though I look back now and see how I benefitted: I smiled, I opened up, I trusted life, I touched another life.

Back then I worked out, I meditated, I did what I felt would sustain my energy through days that seem impossible to me now: new mum, consultant working 10 hours days and studying for a Master’s Degree in my ‘spare time’.

If I look at a year ago, I struggled with my energy, found Choosing Happy a constant on going practice, and was only just beginning to open up and settle in to myself after being closed and guarded for over a decade.

I didn’t like the judgemental over protective woman I saw in the mirror. She who resisted engagement and relationship at any true depth, who had hurt hooded eyes and the loss of joy in her being.

I chose to create Choosing Happy because only from a place of pain and darkness could I truly know that it is a choice of how I live. It is a choice to breath and how to breath; a choice of thoughts and focus, a choice of perspective and a choice of how we each individually view who we are/believe ourselves to be. Our beliefs about what we hold to be true are choices, decisions we have made in the past that served us. All of this can be re-chosen, changed, seen through a new lens if you are open enough and ready for the journey.

I have travelled my journey over a decade, with deep personal development and spiritual training as well as many life changing events that constantly took me out at the knees. I have lived through loss after loss, depression, constant failure, indecision, doubt, despair, self-hatred, extreme lack and more.

In autumn of 2018 I decided all of this would change. I would choose differently and so I took myself on challenge after challenge to apply lessons from leading authorities and ‘guru’s’ on what would help me get my energy, purpose, drive and desire to really live again.

I worked with an amazing coach and energy healer to keep me accountable and I began to explore, become curious and let go.

The first step and one of the toughest was to notice my reasons and excuses for being where I was. To release the deep emotion and the beliefs I had concreted in to my unconscious mind along with them. 

To get real results I had to decide to become coachable again. As a coach for over 15 years I knew how important this is to get results, though in my cocoon of negativity it wasn’t easy to practice at first. I had to challenge everything I was holding as true and every story I had created about events in my life.

I have shifted massively over the past year and I discovered three core things for myself:

1)     Happiness comes from the inside out and is unique to you.

2)     The path to happiness is a constant, changing and ongoing journey of exploration, curiosity about what’s possible, choice and practice.

3)     It takes courage and the willingness to identify what’s not working and step beyond your comfort zone to choose something different that works for you

That’s what I’d like Choosing Happy to be about – a place you can come when you are struggling to find any light, where you can explore small changes that can make a big difference, where you can connect with a community who are facing struggle in their lives and are looking for the joy, the resilience, the support, the encouragement, the connection to guide them through.

The Choosing Happy Podcast will include:

a)      interviews with those who have been through a variety of life transforming challenges and we’ll explore the small shifts in habits, the crucial mindset shifts and the choices they made that moved them toward living, feeling better about themselves, finding something to give them meaning and purpose that will encourage you until you discover your own version of light and a life of meaning and joy.

b)     Weekly lesson/challenge/practice

c)      Case studies and free resources.

I am not preaching ‘happiness in an instant’, though I believe it’s possible.

Can you remember that time when you were really angry or sad and a few minutes later your baby was laughing at you or something caused you to laugh out loud?

Consistent happiness takes practice to build the muscle and create this as your most consistent state. Some folks are naturally there, for some of us it takes reminding ourselves many times a day until we are just there most of the time. The first step is desire and willingness to let go of what we’ve been clinging on to as true.

Community Guidelines

Please respect the following community guidelines to maintain an enjoyable environment:

• Keep conversation respectful, without personal attacks
• Don’t blow up other members’ feeds. If someone isn’t responding to you, let it be
• No pornography
• Keep out behavior that could be seen as trolling/spamming
• Relax, be yourself, and enjoy
• No spamming
• No judging - this is a safe space *