Need Some Change in 2023?
This New App is Slowly Changing My Life Towards More Gratitude and A More Positive Mindset
Dear Friends!
I want to share with you something that came across my path that is not necessarily always my thing: an app. However, I have found that it might be genuinely supportive to stay more focused on what we want, so that's why I'm sharing it. And it might be a nice present for someone, too. I don't however believe it will make anyone 'perfectly happy'. So forgive me if you feel I'm going superficial on you. Generally my motto is: don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
I explain more in the article below.
For now I just wish you a wonderful time full of nourishment with the people you love. May the love in your heart bring light to the darkest time in the year and may you feel safe in knowing that we are truly blessed for being here.
May we truly cherish and nurture our relationships so we can co-create a magical 2023 together!
Even though I don't like to admit it, I have developed this unhealthy habit of turning to my phone first thing in the morning. I don't scroll down social media but I do check my Whatsapp. Are there any messages to attend to? Clients that need answering?
It's like a coffee shot really. Brings my brain — bang! — online straight away. And here I am on a treadmill of my life, like I’m stuck in Groundhog Day.
I am not proud of it. But the first step to change is always admitting where we are at and what doesn't work. That's what I'm doing here. So when this new app was suggested to me, I was sceptical.
“Perfectly Happy”.
Pff. More screen-time and more dependence on the phone. And then the name. Perfectly Happy. As if this was possible! I'm so past that stage of 'we can visualise ourselves into bliss'. Life is complex, man. Human suffering is a reality. Can we stop putting band-aids on it please and just deal with our shit?
Still, I gave it a go.
And surprise, surprise, I actually really really loved it.
It was fun. Playful. Creative. It helped me to stay focused and like they advertise: even uplifted my mood.
I'm thinking that maybe my cynicism needs a little break here. Maybe I'm throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
So what is this Perfectly Happy app about?
Remember vision-boards in the old days? You grabbed a bunch of magazines and spent literally hours on cutting out pictures and words that resonated with you and then glued them on a piece of cardboard, hanged it in your bedroom where you see it everywhere.
It was fun and creative, too, but very time-consuming and in my experience… after a while it just became part of the wallpaper. I would simply stop looking at it or engaging with it to evoke the right emotions. And I definitely know that if I want to stay focused on an outcome I have to engage with it on a daily basis. So vision boards never really worked for me.
Besides… I just haven't had the time to make a vision board, nor do I collect magazines anymore. I wouldn't even know where to start!
… well, that’s why I have Perfectly Happy now.
I figured that since I turn on my phone in the morning anyway, and looking at the screen somehow helps me to wake up, I might as well reclaim some of my power here by at least choosing what I feed my brain this early in the morning!
Why not actually use the power of the mind to really affirm and visualise what I want to experience in my life? I know it's good for me and just like my vitamins and supplements I keep forgetting to do it. And the app simply helps me to stay focused.
It helps that the creators did a really good job of it, too.
The app is very simple to use and offers a lot of inspiration, especially if you are new to this way of working with your mind. First they suggest categories (health, career, relationship, spirituality etc.) then they give you thousands of photos to choose from, or you upload your own.
(Which is my preferred option of course! It adds that extra personal touch that goes that much deeper. And since most of our photos are on our phones anyway, it's very easy to upload them into the app.)
You can also arrange in which order you want them. Play around with it till if feels right. To each photo you can add a positive affirmation. And again, you can choose between their suggestions and creating your own. You can also have them read out loud or just be in written form.
At the end you can add music. You can choose different vibes for each vision board you make ranging from slow and calm to more upbeat and dramatic tracks. Or again, you add your own.
Then you simply press Play and you enjoy your creative self-expression via a mind-movie: a moving vision and audio board that, if you let it, activates all your senses and (perfectly) happy hormones.
Sceptical and cynical as I can be, every time I look at my mind-movie, it does make me happy. After all I choose exactly what I want on it. If I don't like something, it's easy to go back in and edit it to make sure that everything hits the spot. That I get to feel precisely how I want to feel.
The common practice with these things of course is to engage with it first thing in the morning and last thing at night. And you know, I have found, it really does make a freaking difference to my day!
My mind-movie is only 2 minutes long, so I’m never too tired to watch it. But I do notice straight away that it shifts my mental state. Within seconds my attention is back on the goodness inside and outside of myself.
And for someone who has tried to meditate first thing in the morning, who has tried to do morning pages before and who had to come to accept that it didn't really work for her, this is a fantastic new and effortless way to harness the power of positive emotion and mindset, without always having to push through resistance.
(Having said all that, one thing I need to make sure that is mentioned here: the app is only a tool that can help you. It’s how willing you are to allow yourself to feel and take in what you see, that will make a difference. No magic tricks there. We still need to be present to our experience.)
What I also love about the app is that they have the 'Journal'-option, one for gratitude and one for your moods.
I am a 100% believer in gratitude as a conscious practice to become happier and healthier humans (there is a great new documentary that I can only highly recommend. Total positivity booster!).
But being human and life being full, I sometimes simply forget to focus on the things that matter to me the most. I get distracted and with all the stimulation, I also notice a decline in my ability to focus my attention. One day I do it, next day I forget. And then it's a week later again…ah yes, gratitude! Right.
The app has a simple notebook that allows you to write down three (or more) things you are grateful for and why. I love that they went the extra mile to include the 'why'. I notice it makes me slow down to really feel what impact whatever that I am grateful for has on me. And to really feel that and take it in!
They also have a mood journal where you get to note your mood on any given day, adding notes to it if you like.
You can see both these journals in a calendar format, which helps you track how consistent you are with your practice. It also helps you to notice what your mood baseline is. I was surprised to see that I was actually feeling better than what I remembered. Especially on a bad day when all seems grey, it's nice to see that 7 out of 10 times, I'm actually doing alright.
To sum it up
Since, I'm addicted to the dopamine that looking at my phone gives me, I might as well choose what I want to look at, rather than randomly scroll for that elusive hit.
Connecting to what is important to me in that way, practicing my gratitude muscle and visualising myself in a future that I desire, helps me to stay more connected to my heart and not waste time and energy on attention suckers aka social media.
Because Perfectly Happy is so good at helping me to feel how I want to feel, I notice that my need for 'scrolling' is getting less, too. In fact every time I connect to my mind-movie and journals, I feel so good after that I just get up and take action, rather than falling further down the rabbit hole of online content.
So if you are looking for a way to create a more empowered, more grateful you in 2023, this app might be a nice tool.
And if you know someone who is way too much on their phone and getting sucked into all sorts of moods because of that, maybe this app might be a nice gift for them, too.
Regardless of whether you will give this particular app a go, I wish you to harness the amazing power of your mind and heart so that you indeed can be, if not perfectly happy, than at least a bit happier every day!
That way we can create a world in which we focus on what's possible and hence uplift each other! God knows, we definitely need that.
Much love and a Happy New Year!
Kasia
PS: If you feel like having a look you can download the app on your phone here: https://perfectlyhappy.com/af/welcome. The first two weeks are for free after that you can add my code 15KASIA to get a 15% discount.
If you like what you read, you can buy me a coffee! Thank you!
Kasia Patzelt is an Artist, Laughter Yogi, Embodiment and Integration Coach. She helps people to release trauma and learn the art of self-compassion through embodiment practices and creativity.