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08/11/2016 12:01 AMWhen someone tells you they’re going to a Happiness Club meeting, do you cringe, thinking of corny images of iconic yellow smiley faces, or imagine people making a circle and singing “Kumbaya,” circa 1960?
Well, a decade ago, Tina Garrity would have had the same response—until she attended a Happiness Club meeting in Fairfield led by its founder Lionel Ketchian, and ended up starting her own club in her hometown of Madison.
While discussing the club’s 10th anniversary this fall, Garrity shares what she’s learned about the real meaning of happiness, along with her thoughts on why her Happiness Club, which holds free monthly meetings at the Madison public library, has taken off from less than a dozen people attending, to an average of 60 at every meeting, along with an email list of about 1,600, and speakers booked through April 2017.
“I was going through a time when I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life,” Garrity recalls. “My youngest children (twins) were 12 and the older ones were in college, so I saw I needed to get my next phase of life going.
“I would wake up in the morning and not feel so happy, and I felt very guilty about that because I had a beautiful home, five beautiful daughters—a lot of things to be happy about—but I just couldn’t get happy.”
As a Baby Boomer, looking back, Garrity does feel like she was always a hopeful, optimistic person. She just lost her way for a period of time.
“Both my parents died when I was very young,” she says. “I was 13 when my dad died and 18 when my mom died. And yet I always knew I wasn’t going to let that stop me from moving forward in my life. I did put myself through college and I got things done. So, I think I always had that inner desire to keep moving forward and being happy, although I didn’t think of it in terms of being happy. I just knew I didn’t have to wallow in self-pity because to do that doesn’t help you at all.”
One day, while talking with some friends, one of them told her she had gone to a Happiness Club meeting in Fairfield and found it really helpful.
“So I went,” Garrity says. I initially thought it would be a silly kind of thing but it wasn’t at all. It was actually kind of serious. The speaker was Bernie Siegel. I realized right away it was about connecting with an inner feeling of happiness that I was missing. I kept hearing that happiness is ‘an inside job.’ I wanted to find that inner joy and gratitude just to be alive.
“It was like a light bulb went off in my head,” Garrity says. “I took a workshop with one of the speakers, who said to visualize what you want in life, and I decided I wanted to be her, a workshop leader, maybe a motivational speaker. I started reading spiritual books, books on gratitude, on happiness, but the problem was I loved everything I read, so I couldn’t zero in on a topic. Then I realized I loved going to these Happiness Club meetings, so why not start my own club so other people could be exposed to this?”
The rest is history. Garrity got the go-ahead to hold meetings in the library. She started by copying Ketchian’s format and then began looking for speakers who were very informed on a subject related to happiness and who felt passionate about sharing their knowledge.
Over the years, speakers have included life balance coaches, expressive artists, health and wellness experts, psychiatrists and therapists, college professors, spiritual guides, and just regular folks who have overcome enormous obstacles in their lives and still found happiness.
Garrity does a lot of volunteer work and helping other people is important to her. But she says facilitating the Happiness Club is her true passion.
“I learned early on from Happiness Club speakers that we have very little control over just about everything that goes on in life, but we have total control over our attitudes and how we react to things and I don’t think we always think about that...and there are tools to get you through the really difficult moments.”
Happiness clubs are all over the world. There are now 22 in Connecticut, but Madison’s is the only one on the shoreline in this area.
We’re always in need of learning, feeling better, connecting with other like-minded people, so if you haven’t already, check out a Happiness Club meeting—everyone is welcome, admission is free, and you’ll be happy you did.
Meetings are held on the last Wednesday of each month from 7 to 8:45 p.m. at the E.C. Scranton Memorial Library, 801 Boston Post Road, downtown Madison.
The speaker Wednesday, Aug. 31 is Katie Beecher, a medical and emotional intuitive. She will speak about how connecting with your intuition keeps you emotionally, physically and spiritually healthy.
For more information, email Tina Garrity at Ting45@aol.com
Amy J. Barry is a Baby Boomer, who lives in Stony Creek with her husband and assorted pets. She writes features and reviews for Shore Publishing newspapers and is an expressive arts educator.