It’s crazy how I am now into the fifth year of my Happiness Journey, a journey I have realized will never end and the pursuit of happiness is as eternal as the cosmos.

For those of you who have not been on this journey with me since the beginning, I will share some of the words of wisdom I picked up over the last five years and also wisdom from others as well as go into why I started this journey.

In 2018, I started my Happiness Journey, I challenged myself to create a daily Facebook post for a full year that helped me to focus on the positive things in my life instead of dwelling on the negative. I found that while on this journey I learned a lot about the things and people that make me happy and bring joy to my life.

That doesn’t mean the negative things don’t still happen but I discovered that with positive reinforcement they bothered me less or left less of an impact on my overall life. So at the end of 2018, I patted myself on the back for meeting the challenge I set for myself and then went on with my life.

What I found is that I should never have stopped with my posts, even if things got repetitive I should have continued with my Happy posts and continued to build that positive reinforcement and never stopped. Stopping meant that I allowed my mind to dwell again on the negative things.

While in 2019 I did not focus as much on my happiness journey I was still riding the positive mindset wave from 2018.

2020 was quite the rabbit hole for many, and though there was some light this year it was a year filled with uncertainty, loss, and fear. This year I experienced an unprecedented amount of anxiety that I had not felt for many years and it was thanks to my husband, my family, and my friends that I made it through the worst of it.

2021 still held quite a bit of uncertainty but now I was back on track with my Happiness Journey by not only blogging but also journaling daily to ensure that my focus remained on the things that made me happy and brought me joy.

Now as we are well into 2022 my Journey continues to have its ups and downs but for the most, it is up. I still have days I may be sad and days I am dealing with unexplained anxiety but for the most part days like that are few and far between.

I realized working on a positive mindset is like losing weight, you will always have to maintain or else you spiral right back down that rabbit hole.

And let me elaborate on what I mean by negative, this will mean different things to different people, for some it may mean a negative home life or living situation, a loss of loved ones, or a job. For some like myself, it’s dwelling on things that are not really issues. In other words, making mountains out of molehills. I also deal with emotional connections to others that can get out of hand. Again these are things that I alone need to take care of because it is no one else’s responsibility that my anxiety or sadness can become overwhelming. I alone control how these things affect me.

With that said not all people can just focus on positive thoughts and be okay, many people do suffer from mental illnesses that cannot be cured by just having happy thoughts. I cannot even imagine knowing how folks with depression feel, but I do know that just telling them to get over it or just smile will not fix the issue.

Be Patient. Be a good Listener. Be a Shoulder to cry on.

Through this ongoing blog, I will continue the Happiness Journey that I started in 2018. I will post about the things that make me happy and bring me joy as well as share the things that are happening in my life. Life is not always about the positive things and sharing the negative helps to pave the way to more happiness. It’s not allowing it to dominate your life that is the key to happiness. As I start my new and hopefully never-ending journey I want to invite you as well to join me, I want to hear about what makes you happy and what your struggles are.

By no means am I a professional in psychiatry. I am just a regular person who wants to share her experiences and what has worked for me. Self-care should be very important to all of us, because how can we be expected to care for others if we can’t care for ourselves.

With all that said who else needs to go on a Happiness Journey? I would love to include others in this as we all find our way through the darkness to complete our Quest.