Welcome back!
On a beautiful interview with Kathy Ireland on The Mommy-Muse Is In: Empowering Your Journey into Motherhood this week, I inquired about the chapter “Every Home Needs Happiness” in her upcoming book Real Solutions for Busy Moms: Your Guide to Success and Sanity. Kathy strongly recommends that each of us take the time to write down and define happiness for ourselves. Why is this important? This is what she had to say:
”What happiness looks like for one person is not going to be the same for someone else. For example, for one person it might be a completely quiet home and the tranquility, where that might drive someone else nuts and they like the noise and the chaos. It’s alive and it’s energized.
We all have a different definition of what happiness is. There are different things that may be from our childhood that will trigger things for us. When we’re talking about aesthetics, what can we do to our homes to bring happiness, the clutter busting, getting rid of the junk and clutter. Like I said, I don’t have this all figured out. There are still areas in my home that I need to clutter bust, but it’s a work in progress and it makes you feel good when you’re moving in the right direction.
Colors, smells, things that will trigger a happy memory from our childhood; let’s incorporate that into our home décor. We don’t have to spend a lot of money doing that. It’s something we can definitely be creative and do on a budget and we talk about that in the book.
We also talk about, as moms, and frequently mom is CEO of the family, we have so much power to set the tone in our home. How are we greeting our husbands when they walk in the door? Is it like, “Hey, did you do this yet?” Can we start by, “Hey, I’m glad you’re here. Welcome home. Tell me about your day.” Focus on the positives.
With our kids, is it, “What’s up with this grade; you’re late.” Think about how we choose our words. Are we going to put people on the defense, or are we going to encourage open communication? There is so much wisdom behind choosing our words carefully. Be quick to think, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. There is a lot of wisdom there.
As moms, we really have that power. The music that we choose in our homes; music soothes the savage beast. It’s true. It’s hard to fight and bicker when there is this beautiful, relaxing music going on, or candles. If you have little ones, you have to be smart about it and keep them out of harm’s way. But these things can really set the tone to our home and really bring peace and joy.”
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This is excellent. I just love how Kathy puts the important things into perspective, to always look at the positive, and just how powerful we are as women. Thank you for posting.
There is so much truth in this post! I absolutely agree with saying “be quick to think, slow to speak and slow to be angry”™. I think this is the most important thing seeking for happiness and harmony in life.
Moms ARE CEO – and often COO, CFO, HR and production all rolled into one.
How neat that you interviewed her – I remember her as a teenager and her beauty and that she’s willing to speak candidly about her life changes is extremely refreshing. Too many celebs want to cloak themselves in a aura of mystery….