As I woke up this morning, my mind begun to busy itself as usual, while I delayed getting out of bed for a few more precious minutes. My thoughts jumped from the strange dream that lingered, to my to-do list, to my frustrations over the stay-at-home order, to… Wait.

“Good morning, Paula. I love you,” I whispered to myself. That simple greeting is a new practice I discovered during this week’s date night.

My husband, Chris, and I celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary earlier this month. Usually, we go out for a nice dinner, but with the shut down, we decided to get out for an invigorating hike instead. We discovered we weren’t the only ones with this idea when we pulled into the crowded parking area in Vedauwoo, Wyoming. It was a gorgeous day, and as we got off trail, we could feel the petty irritations of being cooped up together for the last several weeks during quarantine begin to drop away.

“How can we keep our marriage fresh after 36 years?” I huffed as we dodged snow banks to get to the top of a ridge.

“What do you mean? We’re doing pretty well, don’t you think?”

“We sometimes feel more like roommates than romantic partners, especially with your mom living with us. She’s here every night for dinner, and lately, joins us for breakfast and lunch, too.” Chris’ mom is 96 years old and lives with us in a downstairs apartment.

“We need a date night once a week,” proposed Chris, ever the engineer problem-solver. We have done this in the past, but let it slide with recent events.

“Since we can’t go out to a restaurant, we’ll have to make it a special evening at home. That means your mom is not invited for dinner. And we need some new things to talk about.” I stipulated.

With a bit more discussion, we came up with a plan for our date night during quarantine. We decided to take turns with planning. The planner would choose an interesting podcast for us to listen to ahead of time, that we could discuss over dinner. The planner would also take care of the meal - and light the candles.

Last week, Chris was the planner. He picked up Thai food and had chosen a podcast called How to Like Your Husband by Rachel Ballard. We laughed and picked up a few tips. Mainly, we felt like we weren’t the only ones challenged with keeping our romance alive.

This week, it was my turn. Tired of talking about politics or our work, or venting our concerns and frustrations with the pandemic, I looked for a podcast on creativity. I settled on one called “Creative Superheroes” by Andrea Sher. Her podcast is a “place to gather inspiration and learn from a wide range of brilliant authors, artists, coaches and teachers who can help us cultivate more courage, more aliveness and more joy.”  I chose the interview Good Morning I Love You with Dr. Shauna Shapiro. It sparked a lively conversation and gave us some new things to try.

One thing we learned and decided to try was a simple practice to overcome shame and the loss of our true sense of self. Dr. Shapiro recommends that you… Start each morning by greeting yourself: Good morning <your name>. I love you. Repeat throughout the day as needed.

I like to add my own twist to new techniques, so I decided I’d like to learn to appreciate myself in multiple languages:

Good morning, Paula. I love you.

Buenos días, Paula. te quiero

Guten Morgen, Paula. Ich liebe dich.

Another interesting takeaway from our date night podcast was how our brains are wired to pay attention to problems. It’s a survival mechanism. It means, though, that we tend to focus more on what’s potentially wrong and dangerous in our lives, rather than on what is going right. That helps to explain why so many people are glued to the news - and why the media is prone to exaggerating conflict or drama.

We also learned that people tend to have a happiness set point in their disposition that doesn’t really change in response to external events. For example, people who win the lottery experience a spike in happiness, but in a year’s time, they are back to their usual state. On the other hand, people who experience a difficult illness will understandably find themselves unhappier for a while. In time, however, they come back to their original attitudes. Fascinating! There is apparently is a lot of research to back this up. The research also shows that we can permanently bump our happiness setting by changing our own thoughts and reactions to the external world. Dr. Shapiro shared a practice that can help us do just that.

Notice when you are feeling happy, grateful or joyful. Pause for at least two deep breaths and anchor this experience into your body and into your memory. The more we teach ourselves to focus on the positive moments, the more we counter our inherent tendency to focus on the negative. And the further we can move our baseline mood setting closer to the happiness side of the scale.

I put this suggestion into practice on Thursday when I woke up to a snow-covered wonderland. We in northern Colorado were treated to a wet, boisterous spring snow storm that left the tree branches bowed under. I love shoveling snow (yes, that makes me a bit crazy) and headed outside as soon as I could. I was under the trees, gently shaking the snow off the limbs. It was impossible not to end up being covered from head to toe. I soaked through two coats, two sets of pants, two pairs of gloves, giggling like a toddler. When I caught myself feeling happier than I had in a long while, I paused. I put my hands over my heart, breathed in the refreshing air, and invited this experience and my joy to nestle into my being.