The Museum of Happiness is hosting a series of free events to cheer up sad Londoners
- Posted by
- Kayleigh Dray
- Published
The days are growing shorter, the weather colder, and the world’s political arena ever more insane, so it’s unsurprising that we’re suffering from a severe case of the winter blues at the moment.
However help is at hand, as London’s Museum of Happiness have organised a series of free events – all focused around mindfulness and well-being – in a bid to cheer up sad city dwellers.
Read more: 10 ways to be a more calm and mindful person
And their eclectic series of scheduled weekly events ensures there’s something to tickle everyone’s fancy.
On ‘Wellbeing Wednesdays’, you can join in an array of different activities designed to give your emotional health a much-needed boost. Think mindful colouring in, designing Christmas decorations, writing a letter of compassion or motivation to yourself, making aromatherapy dough or getting creative with some arts and crafts.
If you head to the museum’s Canvas Café on a ‘Feel-Good Thursday’, you’ll be able to partake in anything from gratitude bingo, beach meditation, laughter yoga, or just an amazingly positive movie night.
Other events include ‘Tick the Bucket Tuesdays’, which encourage people to complete all the life goals they had in mind before they got tied down to their jobs, and ‘Free Your Mind Fridays’, which are all about mindfulness and meditation.
And the Museum of Happiness is still hard at work on the weekends, aiming to boost your mood by sharing the work of charities and organisations making a difference. There’s also a special yoga class for beginners on a Sunday morning, so you can start the day with a big smile on your face.
If you get peckish while getting happy, then it’s worth remembering that there is a huge array of delicious cakes and coffees available, too – and all are very reasonably priced indeed, making this an ideal fun and frugal night out with friends.
When asked why they’re so keen to help lift us up when we’re down in the dumps, the staff at the Museum of Happiness had a very simple answer.
“We’re [just] a group of people that want to spread the art and science of happiness.”
Talk about being a little ray of sunshine – and their timing is absolutely impeccable. We imagine that a lot of people will be needing a little help from the Museum of Happiness right about now…
The Museum of Happiness is at The Canvas Café, 42 Hanbury St, London, E1 5JL.
You can find their full schedule of free events here (and, yes, the innovative scheme is already in full swing!).
Audrey Hepburn
Actress
"I heard a definition once: Happiness is health and a short memory! I wish I'd invented it, because it is very true."
Dolly Parton
Singer
"Find out who you are and do it on purpose. If you want the rainbow you've got to put up with the rain."
Beyoncé Knowles
Singer
"I'm always happy when I'm surrounded by water. The ocean makes me feel really small and it makes me put my whole life into perspective… it humbles you."
Victoria Beckham
Fashion designer
"Living in America for six years was the happiest I think I've ever been. I'm a very driven, ambitious, positive person.
"I believe in creative visualization. So for me to go to America - which I find such a positive place - well, I took to it like a duck to water."
Yoko Ono
Multimedia artist, singer-songwriter, peace activist
"I relate to happiness as an ecstatic moment – something you don’t create, you encounter."
Pablo Picasso
Artist
"Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, a dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time.
"Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time."
Drew Barrymore
Actress
"I think happiness is what makes you pretty. Period. Happy people are beautiful."
Daphne du Maurier
English author and playwright
"Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind."
Tom Ford
Fashion designer
"I thought material things would bring me happiness, which they didn't. But through this, I have learned what things are important and what aren't."
Emma Stone
Actress
"I'm blessed with a great family and great people around me that would be able to kick my butt if I ever for one minute got lost up in the clouds. I've been really lucky in that sense."
Candace Bushnell
Sex And The City author
"The women I know who have children and have careers, they seem to be very happy. They love their children and they love their jobs.
"But happiness comes out of being willing to do your work and find out who you are, what you love."
Quentin Crisp
Author
"The consuming desire of most human beings is deliberately to plant their whole life in the hands of some other person. I would describe this method of searching for happiness as immature.
"Development of character consists solely in moving toward self-sufficiency."
Elisabeth Gilbert
Eat, Pray, Love author
"You need to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day. This is a power you can cultivate."
Ellen Degeneres
TV host
"Do things that make you happy, within the confines of the legal system."
Henri Matisse
Artist
"Derive happiness in oneself from a good day's work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us."
Jamie Lee Curtis
Actress
"I think that happiness comes from self acceptance, we all try different things and we find some comfortable sense of who we are. We look at our parents and learn and grow and move on. We change."
Tina Turner
Singer
"My greatest beauty secret is being happy with myself. I don't use special creams or treatments - I'll use a little bit of everything.
"It's a mistake to think you are what you put on yourself. I believe that a lot of how you look is to do with how you feel about yourself and your life. Happiness is the greatest beauty secret."
Alastair Campbell
British journalist and political aide
"Friends have suggested that I am the least qualified person to talk about happiness, because I am often down, and sometimes profoundly depressed. But to know happiness, it helps to know unhappiness."
David Grohl
Founder of the band Foo Fighters
"My mother was a public school teacher in Virginia, and we didn't have any money, we just survived on happiness, on being a happy family."
Ana Ivanovic
Tennis Player
"Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always thought it very important to be happy inside.
"There’s a lot of bad things happening in the world, but it’s important to try to stay happy and appreciate what you’ve got, and don’t look externally for the happiness."
David Letterman
US talk show host
"I have found that the only thing that does make you happy is doing something good for somebody who is incapable of doing it for themselves."
Alice Walker
Author
"In South Korea, they believe that when you turn 60, you become a baby again and the rest of your life should be totally about joy and happiness and people should leave you alone and I just think that that’s the height of intelligence."
David Lynch
Film director
"The mantra that you're given in Transcendental Meditation you keep to yourself. The reason being, true happiness is not out there, true happiness lies within."
Groucho Marx
Comedian
"Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be.
"Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it."