2020 was hard! 2021, however, proved itself to be the most trying year of my life. I’ve always imagined that losing either of my parents would be hard to manage…but these imaginations were about them living full, long lives. Losing my mother really sent me in a tailspin; my whole world really. I remember having a conversation with someone about how I had been managing…my response—“I’m lost.” My mother was such a pillar in my life that I couldn’t even process the “where do I go from here”. I had some other things to push through before I could get to that. I had some questions that needed answering that only I could answer.

Who am I? Am I wholly me or am I a complex structure of us? Is my definition of myself based solely on how I feel about me or what I think I understand about what society thinks of me? How does one even answer this question? Is it in the lives that we live? What is life really? Is it a series of events that are happenstance? Maybe instead, a series of consequences that we endure for the choices we’ve made for ourselves as well as those that have been made on our behalf. Perhaps it’s a bit of all of these. Your answers to these questions will not be the same as mine. Your answers to these questions today will very likely not be your answers to these questions on a day other than today.

What is life? Is life how we exist in our own happiness? Am I happy? Can I be happy? What is it to be happy? What is the difference in happiness and gratitude? What effect does being mindful have on these emotional constructs?

Where are you going with all these questions Xandi? Here:

I listened to a podcast a while back and the speaker said that time is an illusion. Girl, WHAT??? She went on to ask these questions, what if there is no past and there is no future? What if there is just the present? As I listened to her, I screwed up my face,and just as I was about to switch to a different podcast, she started to talk about feelings and relativity.

She said, most of the unpleasant emotions that we feel are rooted in some thought of the future or the past. Feelings of fear and/or stress are related to future. Feelings of anger and resentment are related to the past, but happiness, happiness is an emotion of the present moment. Associating happiness with the future brings excitement, the past….nostalgia. She went on to say, that being in the current moment, existing only in what’s happening right now and being completely mindful of it can, and will likely change your own sense of happiness. When you stop thinking about the thing that someone didn’t do for you, or the opportunity you let go by because you forgot to make a phone call or submit your resume you become more available to yourself. You will become more available to find the littlest things that bring you joy.

I have come to realize that you cannot be truly happy until you fully accept yourself for who you are AND who you are not; until you appreciate what you have, rather than complaining about what you do not. Achieving happiness is a process of personal growth.

Personal growth is necessary, and it begins with the taking on of personal responsibility. What does this mean? It means you will not achieve optimal happiness, or your highest representation of yourself as long as you’re equating how you feel about yourself to the opinion of others. You don’t need anyone else to achieve happiness; in fact happiness is an inside job. My mother used to tell me all the time that how other people felt about me was none of my business. What was my business, however, was how I feel about myself, and the steps I was willing to take to change the things that I didn’t like.

Life is full of the unexpected. I have learned, however, through processing the loss of my mother, that there are certainties in this life; you are born, you live, and you will die. It’s up to us to create, and live the life that we want. It’s up to us to cultivate, and nurture our own happiness through dedication to personal growth, self reflection, and action. In an effort to shift my thinking from the things that I have lost, the things that make me sad, and the things that are outside of my control I have decided that I am going to embark on a journey of actively practicing mindfulness and learning how to be in the now. I no longer have my mother, and that is a pain that will never go away. I still have memories, though, and lessons that she taught me. Beginning in February, at the end of each day, the plan is to write down three things that made me feel happy that day, and at least one way I was able to remember my mother. Here’s to working my happiness plan 🥂

Do you need to take control of your happiness? What’s your happiness plan? Leave a comment, and talk to me. I talk back.

✌🏽 and much 💜