an App for iPhone and for Android, is a simple game to help you feel happier, calmer and more secure during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
• Create positive thoughts in the present moment
• Play solo to break negative or anxious thought patterns
• Play with others to inspire uplifting conversations
Bring yourself into the present moment, instead of being caught in anxiety about the past or future.
Help your brain to stop scanning the world for things to worry about, and instead search out things that make you feel calmer and safer.
The App will automatically deal your first “card”:
You can play one card a day, or deal yourself a new one whenever you want to divert yourself into calmer, happier thought patterns.
You can also play the game with people you know. It’s interesting to discover how others view the world, and good to connect with them through positive conversations.
The free version is the best place to start, as the words here should easily inspire positive responses. The paid version contains some more challenging words to help you deepen your practice.
Appreciating Windowsills was something that I designed for myself, to help me cope after I was diagnosed with cancer. At the time I felt as though my whole life had been knocked out from under me. I was totally unable to control what was happening to my body, and the pain meant that I often couldn’t think straight. I was frightened about what the future might hold for me, and sometimes haunted by traumatic memories of my past.
So I started to focus on everything that I appreciated in life, in order to find some solid stepping stones of happiness in the midst of all the madness. This began with the obvious connections, like family and friends who reached out in so many vital ways to pull me through.
However it was the small acts of kindness by strangers that initially inspired some of the words that appear in the game. Many of these wonderful people were the health professionals who stepped out of their official roles to connect with me as another human being, who held me whilst I cried, talked to me through the darkest moments, made me laugh, and kept my breakfast warm for me on days when everything else seemed to be falling apart.
Coming home, I was traumatised and disorientated. I found that making a game out of appreciation helped me to reconnect with the details of life that we normally take for granted. It helped me to focus on the positive experiences of cancer instead of dwelling on the distressing aspects of what had happened.
It even helped to reduce my perceptions of pain and build my confidence, as I became anxious about what I might or might not be able to do each day.
I continue to use this strategy to lift my spirits and make me feel lighter yet more secure, and I hope that it can help you too.
Noticing things in the present moment that make us smile is also a wonderful step into mindfulness, and an example of “watering the seeds of happiness” as Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh would encourage us to do.
Appreciation can liberate us from dwelling amidst memories from the past or on worries about the future, and enable us to experience moments of happiness in the midst of what could be the darkest days of our lives.
Gratitude also deepens our enjoyment of the most wonderful days, as we pause to become truly present to the happiness that overflows from our senses on such occasions.
Appreciation even enables us to think and act differently, as it breaks our habitual and sometimes negative thought patterns, thereby creating space in which insight and inspiration can light up new pathways of responses that we can then choose to adopt.
To wish that things were different takes a lot of energy, and so to accept the things that really cannot be changed and to focus on appreciating and connecting with life despite them can be a very empowering and reassuring experience.
I wish you countless moments of happiness.
Founder & Director of Soul Nutrition
To join in the conversation on social media, please use the hashtag #AppreciatingWindowsills
Let me know if you think of new ways to play! hello@soulnutrition.org