My Happiness Project (Slow-Down Edition): My Why

I finally got around to reading (and listening) to The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin and I’ve been officially influenced. I can’t say it’s totally Gretchen’s doing because I’ve been desperately looking for something to motivate me for a while now and as they say: when the student is ready, the teacher appears.

I’ve been in a funk, to say the least. Since last year during the birth and death of my precious daughter Elizabeth, I’ve felt myself sink into depression. I allowed myself to wallow in the grief for a good year but since my son Jackson was born on August 7th, 2020, I’ve been thrown into a whirlwind of new parent-ness. It’s been beautiful AND one of the hardest things I’ve ever faced. My self-care and mental health have really fallen to the wayside and the past few months I’ve really noticed myself sinking again. The grief and pain of what I have been through isn’t something that is going to just disappear because I had another baby. In fact, I’ve felt it intensify after Jackson was born. The sleepless nights and exhaustion are culprits but so is my mindset. The good news is: I’m finally ready to really tackle my mindset habits, the place where I believe it all starts.

I need to make a change. I also know I’m struggling to get even the simplest tasks done with a 4-month old. I’ve been craving a return to a simpler existence, like the ones I pine over in English period films. A back-to-basics sorta journey. I feel so overwhelmed and lost at times. I just need to go back to the beginning and start working on goals/resolutions, the foundations of my truths. Simple, not easy, but MY truths that I’ve let slide while I’ve been dealing with the worst and best year of my life.

My motivation is my new found realization of just how short life is and my son Jackson. I don’t want him to grow up with a mom who is sad all the time, who cries herself to sleep and wishes things could be different. Losing Elizabeth has taught me so much I wish I didn’t know. BUT one of her greatest gifts is showing me you cannot spend your life wishing it was different. I have to live with what has happened and now that i have Jackson, I want to thrive, not just barely survive.

I know I will hold myself even more accountable if I share my journey here as well, so here we go. I hope this inspires you too. Whether it’s just a small shift in mindset or a bigger goal, I know I’m highly motivated by other people's stories.

I want to share with you my truths, or as Gretchen calls them, her twelve commandments. To keep this post shorter, I will discuss the way I’m organizing and tackling my resolutions in the next blog post. These are ideas/beliefs that are true for me. They are unique to me, things I’ve come to know are true for me. We may all share some but no one will have an identical list.

My 11 Truths:

Stay Present
Enjoy/Use what you have
Time is the real luxury
Fewer, better things
Only do what excites you
You are enough
This too shall pass
The days are long but the years are short
Comparison is the thief of joy
Be me, everyone else is taken
“I’m going to make everything around me beautiful, that will be my life.” (Elise de Wolfe)

I feel so connected to every one of these statements but I still struggle with truly living them. I want them to become the foundation to my mindset, the place where my actions are born. These ideas are the “why” behind all of my resolutions. I plan to come back to this list day after day. They help steady me and ground me when I’m lost.

I challenge you to make a list like this. What quotes do you always come back to? What statements do you hear and feel to be true in your bones? Starting here, with my mindset, seems to be the right first step on my journey. Wish me luck!

Happy new year!

jodi xx