I’m going to get really honest with you.  I spent a great deal of my life just being unhappy with everything.  Even in the moments I was happy, I never truly felt a sense of peaceful joy.  I always felt like I wanted more and needed to do better.  Felt that I would eventually reach a point in my life where everything was “perfect” and I could just be happy.

After everything I have been through and seen thus far, I have finally realized this is a ridiculous notion.  No one person can ever be constantly happy.  We are allowed to be sad, angry, hurt, joyful, surprised, and happy.  WE ARE NOT REQUIRED TO BE HAPPY EVERY MOMENT OF EVER DAY!

With this newfound knowledge, I have begun finding those moments of joyful happiness.  I was lying in bed with my sleeping dogs and husband the other night and just took a moment to pause.  To be aware of exactly what I was feeling in that moment.  You know what it was…happiness.  I felt content that I had everything I needed right there with me.  There wasn’t anything I was working for or grasping at to make me happy.  I was just happy.

Considering the amount of time, I have spent chasing happiness but never really achieving it, this feeling was surreal.  In this moment, I also realized how much I have grown and changed in the past two years.  For me to be able to recognize a that I was actually happy was awesome!! 

Learning to love myself has improved my life in so many positive ways.  Finally having the ability to acknowledge my feelings, understand why I am feeling that way, working through them and understanding that they are not me, they are simply my reaction to my life at that moment is beautiful.  It is freeing to reach this point in my life where I can feel whatever I need to feel and not constantly be chasing happiness. 

Be happy when you are happy, but please don’t ever feel like this is your only goal in life.  Recognize that all the other feelings you have are also important and necessary.  They are there to show you what you need to know about yourself and that time in your life.  Yes, they are painful and sucky, but they often lead us through to those moments in the middle of the night when we finally understand happiness and joy. 
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Make peace with yourself.  It is the first step to understanding everything else in your life.    

Lately, I have become hyper-aware to women minimizing themselves to make other people feel comfortable.  I am guilty of doing this also, but just recently I have started working to change.  Always, working to change. Truthfully, I wasn’t even aware I was doing it until I started noticing other women around me doing it.  I began to wonder why we feel like we should reign ourselves in so that we don’t make someone else feel uncomfortable. 

Why do we feed into the belief that we are too much? Why do we continue to believe that we have to “be less” for someone else’s comfort?  If someone does not like you the way you are then they are probably not your people.  Just keep being you and you will find your people.

We women need to continue being ourselves and love ourselves just as we are.  We do not need to be quieter, less “extra”, wear make-up, or be anything we do not feel like being to make other people feel comfortable around us.  The only people that benefits is the people we are compromising ourselves to satisfy.  Minimizing who we are to make other people happy is ridiculous. 

I still notice myself doing it on occasion.  Saying sorry all the time for being too loud or not moving out of my own space for someone.  Apologizing for being a human being in this world and being happy with myself is going to take some time to change, but I will be changing it. 

We need to continue providing support and lifting each other up. Keep providing that reminder that it is alright to be you.  You do not have to change who you are because someone else doesn’t like it.  If they are meant to be in your life they will either learn to appreciate you as you are or they will already love you as you are. 
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Minimizing who you are to make other people comfortable is a waste of time!  Be who you are, keep shining and your will watch your circle grow. 

On occasion, I find myself reviewing my life and the missed opportunities.  I do not know why I do this, but I think it is something most people do at some point.  It is easy to get so wrapped up in the what-ifs of our lives that we forget to appreciate the “right-now’s”.  I have been working diligently to be present in my life.  To remember that the moment I am living right now is my life and I don’t get it back once it is gone. 

We often examine this notion when we lose people or something devastating happens because we are faced with the fact that we will not live forever and we do not control the outside world.  Sadly, we forget to examine this notion regularly.  To remember that we only get right now and we should hold on to it, squeeze it with a smile, and be present.  That we must just live. 

What-if’s do nothing for me but make me question all the decisions I made in life.  Why should I question those decisions though, because without them I probably wouldn’t have decided to start this blog?  I would not be sitting here at 11:45pm on a Monday night writing in the hopes of making this planet a little bit better.  We should appreciate that we all make decisions that we look back at and go “eh, that might not have been the best.”  Accept that you are human and you make mistakes.  Embrace what you learned from them and how they helped you grow as a human being. 

It is alright to look back at your life.  I think we must pause and review occasionally, if for no other reason than to remind ourselves of how much we have grown.  Just do not get stuck in the cycle of what-if.  A person could drive themselves mad doing that. 

When I catch myself thinking how my life would be different if I made another choice I gently (or roughly) snap myself out of it.  I bring my focus back to all the amazing things I have now.  That my life is filled with beauty, love, and light.  I start to make a mental list of the positive things that have come from the choices I have made and they have made me a better person.  I remind myself that perfection is an impossibility and no choice in my life would have allowed me to achieve that. 
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If you are what-iffing (yeah, I said it) and you can’t get out…. just simply say “Self, you are allowed to make mistakes so long as you learn from them.  Perfection is not possible.  I am enough. I have enough. I will do better.”