Recently, following an unexpected visit by a woman from the past – who’d dropped in out of the blue – I made the connection, as to why I have written the book, “Links to Your Happiness”, in the particular way I did. There’s always a reason for the things you do: occasionally, it reveals itself. That night as I lay in bed, following my friend’s visit, I had a revelation that blew me away.
As I’d worked and reworked the manuscript – in particular – the section dealing with quotes from pages taken from our Happy Books, I felt very driven. Something told me that it was extremely important to try to paint really vivid pictures of my happiness, with words; so that even unsighted people could visualize each happy item listed there.
My visitor explained that her 45 year-old, daughter is in a hospice, in the final stages of MS. She is now legally blind and cannot feed herself.
Following each long, hard day at work, my friend goes to the hospice to feed her daughter through a tube, to read to her and settle her down for the night. On weekends, she takes her daughter out. So, as well as working a fulltime job, she’s caring for her only daughter, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Some time ago – despite being advised to do so by doctors – she refused to pull the plug on her daughter and snuff out her life; a heart-wrenching decision for her. All this has affected my friend’s health and recently, she was sent off for a week’s respite, to help relieve the load of stress she was carrying.
I was so pleased, she set aside that precious few hours and made the effort to travel up and visit me here, on the shores of Lake Macquarie. It’s a lovely place to be and the tranquil surroundings of the lake were calming and good for her.
My friend was very thrilled, when I gave her an autographed copy of Riotous Riddles – my riddle collection, plus Links to Your Happiness – to take back with her. She loved those sample pages from our Happy books that are placed between every two chapters. She’s going to read them to her daughter, who’s unable to read now, as her sight is seriously affected, by MS.
Those clear word pictures of my happiness are going to help this young woman – and as well – help my friend, to get through this especially, challenging period. Many other people, who have had chapters from the book sent to them, while it was being written, found that it eased their way through the difficulties they faced.
Used in a positive way, words can help create a powerful energy; to heal and soothe the many hurts we suffer, from the challenges life throws at us. That’s synchronicity at work in the best kind of way!
An email I received this week, regarding the Happy book: the daily strategy I promote in my book, gave me great delight and I’ll share some of it with you.
“Helen, you will be pleased to know that the 14 year-old boy, I mentor, is using your Happy Book. He’s really enjoying writing down what makes him happy each day. I can see definite improvements in his general attitude. Congratulations, once again, on “Links to your Happiness”. – Sue. NSW
I also used it, when I visited a young boy, who has ADHD and Asperger’s Syndrome, which, at times, creates difficult to manage, behavioural problems. He loves to write in his Happy book. His behaviour, has settled now, to just an occasional outburst and has been remarked on by his school. His Mum thinks they may be interested in adopting the idea for a school-wide program, as the head master wanted to know more about my book.
Helen F. McKay © 2007
Author of Links to Your Happiness
www.happinesslinks.com