Listening to “Happiness Princess” Laura Lavigne feels like participating in an Easter egg hunt.
You never know where you might discover the next treasure. You cannot imagine what you might find. She “eggs” you on toward your own riches in a most inspiring dance called “Sprinkling Happiness” to all you meet.
Lavigne may be called a 21st century “happiness progenitor” because she decided to stop being a “toxic” mother and friend after a painful divorce. What inspired her?
“After my divorce,” she said, “I felt like a gray cloud around my household. I felt sorry for myself…and one day my son said, ‘You make everyone sad.’”
She continued, “Whether I liked my own situation or not, I needed to change my attitude for my son. I needed to bring the joy of living into his daily heart or risk causing him irreparable damage in his adult life.”
At some point, as a French baker, mother, dreamer and artist of living—she switched.
Not for her, but for that young child looking up to her for guidance. As she switched her mind’s thoughts, her own emotional health morphed into renewal. Vibrant ideas popped into her mind.
The iconic naturalist John Muir said, “The power of our imagination makes us infinite.”
Lavigne decided to let her imagination run wild. She started her own “Center for Happiness” in Anacortes, Washington. The name alone created interest in the town folks because countless Americans battle daily to maintain their wits about them. They suffer boring jobs, painful relationships and toxic people who may be enduring endless challenges in our high speed, technically overwhelming and confusing society.
At any point in your life, when bad things happen, you can ask yourself, “What will I call this moment?”
Through her own depression, she conjured an idea to “Sprinkle Happiness” onto everyone.
She gathered a group of kids and adults to make up signs:
- It gets down to you!
- You are the good news!
- It’s going to be all right!
- Simplicity equals joy!
- Choose happiness and laugh!
- Let’s get it done!
- Free hugs!
- (and dozens more)
They paraded down the streets of Anacortes to thundering ovations, smiles, cheers, fist pumps and questions on where to buy the signs and begin more “Sprinkle Happiness” parades in other cities.
Whenever in your life you face a “moment”, you make the call. “It gets down to your thoughts,” she said. “Your thoughts become the sentinels of your daily living. Choose happy thoughts until they become your normal thoughts. Those in turn will create your actions and lead to renewed happiness.”
At a recent TED TALK, Lavigne said you might follow five points toward your own happiness:
- Choose joy in your work or find work that gives you joy.
- Avoid worrying about details in any project; simply move ahead and make corrections along the way.
- Trust everyone’s choice of joy; his or her passions and give them space to express.
- Say “Yes!” first; then, figure it out.
- No one owns “joy” so promote each new idea and give it to the world.
Laura Lavigne faced and faces life just like the rest of us. She faces pitfalls, frustrations and raising her kids. She decided to make life work for her by the “tone” of her thoughts. Once she “rode herd” on those thoughts, she became the master of he own “Easter egg hunt.” She possesses new energy in life and shares it with everyone. They, in turn, share that energy, which she says, “Ripples to the far ends of the world. Jump on it and enjoy the ride of your life.”
Read more posts by Frosty Wooldridge here. Frosty is a blogger for JenningsWire.
The online feature magazine, JenningsWire.com, is created by National PR Firm, Annie Jennings PR that specializes in providing book promotion services to self-published and traditionally published authors. Annie Jennings PR books authors, speakers and experts on major high impact radio talk interview shows, on local, regionally syndicated and national TV shows and on influential online media outlets and in prestigious print magazines and newspapers across the country.
