wear your happiness for all to see

I was told I wear my happiness well, you can see when I am truly happy because my face reveals it to the world. It is true though. My face radiates my emotions and I wear my smile from ear to ear for all to see. The reason is because I am happy!

I feel fully connected with myself.

What I mean by that is for the longest time I wasn’t connected to who I truly was, because I was so occupied with being this person the world wanted me to be.

I was always dimming the light of who I was more and more until I was fully in the darkness and couldn’t make out the person reflected back at me in the mirror.

There was a time in my life where I thought it was normal for friends to be insulting of your weight, for them to be disrespectful of your feelings and your pain, for them to offend your culture, and for them to criticize every part of you that was different.

With time that changes you, it makes you distance yourself from who you truly are deep in your heart.

You go into life pretending to be this person that your surroundings have influenced you to become. I was not living my truth. I was living the life or persona that others wanted me to be and I was f**king miserable.

It took a break up years ago that shattered me and made me realize how far away from myself I was.

I was completely in the dark, and disconnected entirely.

I was guided to a book at the time I needed it the most, that catapulted me into this journey of self. A week after finishing the book, the author was in Florida and I knew I needed to see her speak in person.

Driving home from the talk in the darkness of Alligator Alley, I had all my windows open and blasting MIA thinking, “I can do whatever I want, I can conquer the world”.

From that day on I have had pure dedication to be the best version of myself.

Whenever I doubt myself I remember the power and strength I felt on that drive home.

I don’t allow anyone now to dim my light. I don’t pretend to be another person.

I am myself; loud, rambunctious, inappropriate and pretty weird at times.

But I am me and I am happy as can be because I am being true to myself.

Don’t allow others to tell you to change. Don’t give them the power to dim your light.

Do things that bring you joy and do them often regardless of what other’s think.

Surround yourself with positive people that appreciate your light.

And above all, be authentically you because there is no one greater that you can be other than yourself.

Wear your happiness for all to see.

(It’s pretty contagious)