Happiness-

 

Daughters, 

I’m just getting all the easy things to talk about out of the way 😉. Also, will people still use the wink face emoji when you read this?! I over use it if we’re being honest, and this probably won’t be the last time we even talk about happiness if I’m being really honest. But anyways, right now I’m sharing the part of happiness I can get behind. 

I’ll dive right in, 

You both come from a long line of positive thinking and leading ladies. I myself are one of them. But what I want to add is that being positive doesn’t mean you can’t feel emotions or the hard parts of life. In fact, I don’t ever want you to feel like you can’t suffer because there are other people out there who have it worse off. It’s true they do, but please don’t rank your sufferings! 

Brianna Wiest says it best, 

“You are not supposed to feel happy all of the time. Trying to feel happy all of the time is not the solution; it’s the problem. Instead of the ability to sustain positivity at all times, mental strength requires that you develop the ability to process complex emotions such as grief, rage, sadness, anxiety, or fear. -When you do not know how to allow these feelings to pass through you, how to make sense of them, learn from them, or simply just allow them, you get stuck on them. You bury them, and then everything around you becomes a trigger that threatens to unleash the floodgates. 

It’s about crying when life is sad, being angry in the face of injustice, and being determined to create a solution when a problem arises. That responsiveness, instead of reactiveness, defines mental strength.” 

And guess what? You will find that the healthier your mental strength is that the happier you are too. And when things aren’t great or don’t feel good in the moment just try and come back to that inner peace we just talked about. Look for the joy where you can find it, and just do the next right thing. 

I very much want you both to feel validated in your feelings. Being positive helps bring hope when you need it most, but it can’t keep you from experiencing even those hard emotions. Our society paints this picture of having everything figured out or sucking it up when life is tough. But it’s when we don’t feel the bad that we can’t even feel the happiness too. Be different and take care of yourself. Feel. 

-Mom