Choosing Joy

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the kind of energy I want to put into the world. Not because I want to create some perfectly polished version of myself, but because I’ve lived enough life to know that what we choose to focus on matters. I struggle with my mental health. There are days when my mind is much louder than I’d like it to be. There are days when anxiety makes something small feel enormous, when I overthink things that probably don’t deserve another second of my energy, and when being inside my own head is exhausting. But there’s another side of me too, and I never want that part to get lost.

I’m happy. I’m hopeful. I’m silly. I laugh at inappropriate times and probably use humor as a coping mechanism more than I should. 😂 I get ridiculously excited when I have a new idea. I love creating things. I love taking pictures. I love watching something that existed only in my head slowly become real. I love my family fiercely. I love being outside, noticing beautiful light, finding flowers growing where they shouldn’t, and realizing that there is still so much good around me when I actually slow down long enough to notice it.

For a long time, I think I believed authenticity meant sharing every hard thing. And maybe sometimes it does. I will never be ashamed of talking about mental health because those conversations matter deeply to me. But authenticity also means allowing myself to share the joy. It means I don’t have to wait until every part of my life is perfect before I’m allowed to be excited about where I’m going.

I’m in a season of building right now. Building Wildflower. Building my photography. Building confidence. Building a life that feels more like me. I don’t have unlimited money or some giant network of people opening doors for me. A lot of the time, I’m figuring things out as I go. I send the message. I ask the question. I put myself out there. Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes it’s no. Sometimes there isn’t an answer at all. And I’m learning not to let every rejection become a story about my worth.

That might be one of the biggest changes happening in me.

I don’t want to spend my life worrying about whether everybody understands me. I don’t want to constantly wonder who likes me, who doesn’t, who supports me, or what someone might be saying when I’m not around. That is an exhausting way to live, especially for a mind that already knows how to overthink without any additional assistance 😂

I want to put that energy somewhere better.

I want to pour it into my children. My marriage. My camera. My writing. My little business. My ideas. My healing. I want to cheer for people doing beautiful things without wondering whether their success takes something away from mine. I want to be someone who makes another person feel comfortable taking up space because I know how scary it can be to finally take up your own.

And yes, I’m probably going to mess that up sometimes. I’m human. I’ll get my feelings hurt. I’ll react before I think. I’ll take something personally that wasn’t personal. I’ll have days when the positive version of me is buried under anxiety and needs a little digging to find her again.

But she’s still there.

Mental health struggles are part of my story, but they aren’t the entirety of who I am. There is so much more here. There is laughter and ambition and motherhood and creativity and sarcasm and love. There are dreams I’m finally brave enough to say out loud.

Maybe happiness isn’t having a life where nothing heavy ever happens. Maybe it’s learning that heavy things and beautiful things can exist in the same life…and deciding that the beautiful things deserve our attention too.

So that’s where I’m headed.

Less proving. Less comparing. Less worrying about whether I belong.

More creating. More laughing. More trying. More loving people. More noticing what’s good.

And, as always, a whole lot more blooming 🌸