Drew Barrymore and Gretchen Rubin on authentic happiness as a choice

Gretchen Rubin (author of the book The Happiness Project) describes in her post How To Be Happier – in Four Easy Lessons the series of truths she came up with from a study of Buddhism.

Her First Splendid Truth: “To be happier, you have to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.”

And her Fourth Splendid Truth is “You’re not happy unless you think you’re happy. corollary: You’re happy if you think you’re happy.”

Part of Drew Barrymore‘s charm is her willingness to be playful, even goofy – and conscious about her mood.

In his interview article The Truth Behind The Smile, Kevin Sessums asked her: “There seems to be a willfulness to your happiness.”

Drew Barrymore “I so appreciate your saying that,” Barrymore responded, “because that is exactly what it feels like to me. It feels as if I’m willing myself to be happy.

“I do feel as if I am thrusting myself forward all the time. Nancy, who runs my company and is my favorite person I’ve met in my life so far, had on her refrigerator the sign HAPPINESS IS A CHOICE.

“When I first saw it, I thought, ‘That is so simple and yet complex and wise.’ As you can see, I get verklempt just talking about it,” she says, using the Yiddish word for “emotional.” Her eyes well up.

Barrymore mentions other signs of being intense and highly sensitive.

“I don’t know if I’m completely comfortable ever,” she says. “Sometimes I can totally let go with complete abandon—sing and dance and run around and not care what people think about me. Still, there seems to be this ball of stress inside me that I can’t get rid of.”

Drew Barrymore, Ellen Page, Kristen Wiig in Whip It She refers to her directorial debut movie, Whip It – an exciting and moving drama about women’s roller derby, with dynamic actors including Barrymore, Ellen Page, Marcia Gay Harden, Kristen Wiig and Juliette Lewis.

“I’ve stopped believing in happy endings,” Barrymore says.

“I’ve started believing in good days. At the end of my movie, there’s honesty. There’s truth. There’s peace.

“What tomorrow will bring is still in question. There is a joy that’s earned by failure or triumph. All those things add up to teach us, if we are open to it.”

Another quote of hers (undated) is: “As much light as I have inside me, there’s just as much darkness, I’m afraid. There’s a polarity, and I still have demons to work out.”

A transition from self-ruination

Valery Satterwhite – “Inner Wealth Coach and Personal Growth Expert” – writes: “How did Drew make the transition from a has-been washed out child-star following a path of self ruination to an award winning highly recognized power in Hollywood?

“Drew discovered that life experiences are not events that happen ‘to you’, they are the direct result of choices made. Drew moved from being a victim of circumstance, a child born into a dysfunctional yet famous Hollywood Family recreating the same destructive life for herself that her Mother experienced to taking deliberate charge of her personal and professional choices.”

From her post (on the excellent Creativity Portal site) Drew Barrymore’s Secret to Success: Parent Your Self.

Her book: You Suck!: How To Turn Your Fraidy-Cat Inner Critic Into A Confident, Courageous Fan.

~ ~ ~

So what do you think? How much of our happiness is up to our choices of thinking and behavior?

Positive Psychology quotes, books
Buddhist psychology
Highly Sensitive site
~ ~