For Nelson Mail/Fairfax Media
A Nelson businesswoman is hashtagging her way to happiness, and wants others to jump on board.
Nelson leadership coach Suzi McAlpine aims to empower people when they feel blue by getting them to think of what makes you happy, draw it, and put it on the internet.
McAlpine is aiming for her #myhappything campaign to become a movement, to get people to realise the power they have in lifting their spirits.
McAlpine said she was recently "dealing with some disappointments with human nature" and realised while she was not the only person who experienced ups and down, she could control how she reacted to them.
"I realised there's always something in our power we can do to lift our spirits."
She was inspired by Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl's famous quote: "everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
Meditating is her "happy thing". She spent her week asking people she met, clients, passengers on a plane or people on the street "what's one thing you do, which makes you feel happy, or lifts your spirits, when you do it?"
In getting people to think about what made them happy, she said it was a good experience in appreciation.
"There is enjoyment found in doing it, it's really fun, they have fun drawing the thing, in the process of doing it, they already feel happy."
So far, people had posted that they liked spending time with their family, hugs from their children, working out, and helping other people .
"I want people to connect with the message...there's always something you can do to feel better."
To take part in the campaign, write down your ‘happy thing' on a piece of paper - it can be a sketch, a few words, or whatever you feel helps to describe it, take a photo of you holding the sign, and Post it on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #myhappything.
