This has been a wonderful week for me. Nothing particularly eventful has happened other than catching up with good friends, shopping, working out, and eating some delicious summer fruit; But for some reason, I have felt particularly empowered, enlightened, confident, and so incredibly and genuinely happy- and this is the best feeling in the world. The past months (and months), I haven’t felt this way much- and it feels amazing to be back to my happy-go-lucky self even if only momentarily. I’m not sure exactly why the past months haven’t been the greatest, I just hadn’t felt the vibrancy, excitement, and fulfillment that I typically have (of course, everyone has bad times, but I’ve always been a naturally happy person). Let’s just say I was going through a ‘funk’: some negative people in my life, feeling isolated and lost, fearful for the future, anxious and stressed about EVERYTHING (wasn’t getting any sleep at night from this), caring way too much about what others thought about my opinions, looks, decisions, etc.

I think I have always realized that I have a blessed life and that any struggle I have yet to face is so minuscule to this world. And because of that, I think I always try to push away problems that I do have as “insignificant”. The more I tried to push the stuff out of my head and say “these problems are stupid,” or “they don’t matter, there are real problems in this world and they are not yours,” I think it just got worse because I felt like an idiot for being so pathetic and thinking that I had ‘struggles’ that actually mattered. But I finally realized that I deserve to be happy, and that this thought isn’t selfish. I realized the importance of working to fix my struggles because even if they weren’t much compared to what a lot of people go through, it didn’t mean they were insignificant. Anyways, it has taken me a long while to come around, but I think I have finally come to a point where I feel so genuinely happy with life again, and I look forward to the future with so much optimism.

I honestly think that the biggest reason that I have some to feel so happy is that I have ‘revived’ my faith in God. I’ve never been one to “preach” my faith, and I honestly don’t like talking about it too much because there is a lot of tension and controversy with religion, and I am accepting of all religions- whatever makes someone happy and content is a beautiful thing in my mind, whether it’s God, Buddha, Allah, or whatever supernatural entity someone believes in (or none at all, it’s not my place to judge). But for me, I find contentment and belief in God. I don’t want to get into it too much, but my faith has genuinely changed my life in so many incredible ways, and I look back and realize how God has worked in amazing ways.

I think this was probably the biggest step in the right direction. Again, not preaching anything because my faith is my faith and anything you believe is awesome if you are happy, BUT it is worth looking into if you haven’t before! Other than that, I started really putting in the effort to make myself happier: I started distancing myself from people that didn’t make me feel good about myself, I started investing myself more in passions that I have (like helping people), I have been exercising a lot, checking social media a lot less (an amazingly liberating feeling), being off my phone, taking the time to learn something new everyday (yes, I am kind of a nerd), embracing myself for my uniqueness and remembering that I am special (okay, okay, I know this is so stupid- but I always try to remind others why they are special, and I realize it’s ok to remind myself that I am, too), spending time with amazing family and friends. All of this has made me feel so rich and positively fulfilled and happy with life, it’s amazing.

Anyways, this has been a complete ramble of thoughts, grammatical errors and probably repetition, but I don’t care because it’s raw. I literally just wanted to get all of my thoughts down on paper. I just want anyone reading this to remember that you are special, amazing and unique! This will help you so much on your journey to finding genuine happiness. This isn’t to say that struggles will be absent from your life, they most certainly never will; but an optimistic, positive mindset makes a rebound from those struggles, and hopefully spend most of your time here on Earth joyful and jubilant.

And just because this makes me ecstatic: thank you to everyone who has messaged me saying that I have helped them out THAT IS THE MOST AMAZING FEELING EVER!

Keep smiling,

Jenna