Do you deserve to be happy? This cat-loving author says ‘yes’ and she can teach you

When times get tough, the tough remember there are reasons to be happy.

Noted Dayton author Katrina Kittle spreads that gossip of gratitude in her happiness classes.

“It is OK to be happy even if there is disaster, sorrow and tragedy in the world,” she said. “If you don’t take the time to take care of yourself and find some light in the darkness, you just get numb to it.”

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Kittle started public speaking about three years after being asked to create morale-boosting programs for Lexis Nexis.

“I always say ‘yes’  and figure it out,” Kittle, the author of five books including the tween novel “Reasons to be Happy,” said of the challenge.

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The Ohio University graduate — a Dayton resident since the first grade —  created  a “leap class” for the company in 2015 designed to help people do that thing they’ve been putting off. She followed that up in 2016 with her happy class.

She’s since presented the courses several times in the Dayton area, as well as Columbus and Michigan.

Kittle’s next Happy Class is set for 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday, April 17, at the Dorothy Lane Market Community Room, 740 N. Main St., Springboro.  

The class is $30 per person. Registration is available at KatrinaKittle.com 

“There are no hand-outs. There is no note-taking,” the former Centerville High School English and theater teacher said. “There is a PowerPoint, but it is all fun.”

People are encouraged to come with friends, siblings, children, spouses and/or parents and grab wine, coffee, snacks, sushi or whatever else they want from DLM.

Kittle said she’ll bring chocolate AND candy because she knows some people don’t like chocolate as much as she does.

Like many people, Kittle says she has been stressed out by politics and often feels flattened by the negativity happening in the world.

Through her class, she hopes to remind people that there are things to be happy about.

“There is plenty that is not (good), but it not wrong to focus on the things that are good,” she said, noting that there are health benefits to happiness.

Everyone’s reasons  to be happy are different, Kittle said.

Reasons for joy can be as as simple as a giraffe’s eyelashes, dogs wearing sweaters, modern medicine, peanut butter cups, chocolate and coffee and the feel of a cat purring against your skin, the cat lover said.

“Every day you pay attention to what is better,” she said.

She turned to the principles taught in her class during her second battle with breast cancer, which came five years after her first.

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Kittle had a double mastectomy four days before the 2016 presidential election.

She said the more you look for reasons for gratitude, the more you find them.

Reconstructive surgery followed.

She recalled being grateful when she could once again open her pill bottles and soap dispenser.

Kittle said recognizing and embracing happiness has and can make a difference.

“You are worth it. You deserve it,” the Fairborn High School graduate said. “You have to be a bringer or light; and everybody wants some of their own. It is a lot easier to get than you think.”

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Want to go?

WHAT: Katrina Kittle's Happy Class

WHEN: 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday, April 17

WHERE: Dorothy Lane Market Community Room, 740 N. Main St., Springboro.

COST: The class is $30 per person. Registration is available at KatrinaKittle.com

Credit: Peter Wine

Credit: Peter Wine

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