How Obstacles Can Make You Smile.

As somebody with feelings, your smile has a few different variations of what it looks like. But the smile that is often the most overlooked is the one reaching out for help.

You can’t see it because your suppressing it with an impostor smile that says “no one cares about me”, “If I make others happy, I’ll be happy too” “If I push it off, this feeling will go away” We hear we’re responsible for our happiness (which is true in a sense), but do you actually believe it?

You have to take your happiness into your own hands and take time to start this life-changing journey by yourself. Scary? Most definitely. Will there by ups and downs? You betcha. But how can you start?

Take a walk, see that movie by yourself, take that class you’ve always talked about. Take time to relax everyday and avoid isolating yourself. Remember that you are in fact, special. That same voice telling you, you suck or you’re not worth it? Drown it out with the positive aspects, and trust me there a plenty of them. How you view yourself in your mind is how others see you on the outside.

So when you start telling yourself “I’m no one. Why would anyone want to hang out with me? Switch that up to “I’m a really great friend. I know I have great qualities and I can’t wait to find friends who appreciate me.” Work on it everyday and slowly but surely that mirror you see yourself in will clear up and you’ll see who you really are? A beautiful person worthy of happiness.

Don’t lose your joy because if you lose your joy, you ultimately lose yourself.

So think about your mental health and think about those reaching out for help.Take the time to understand why you feel what you feel and make an effort to address those feelings. Help is there, so don’t be too proud to ask for it. Trust me, the respect people will have for you will be phenomenal. It’s why I wrote this piece for them:

I smile because I have cried. I smile because I have been hurt too many times to remember. I smile because I have fallen. Even though I am divided, I smile. Persecuted, I smile. Abused, I smile. Through bitter hatred, I smile. Though my heart has been broken, I smile. Through death, I smile. Through every season, every feeling, good or bad, I look and I smile. With humility, I smile. Through love, I smile. Through moments so concrete, so real, I smile. I smile even though I am sad, even though I know I will hurt, even though I know everyday will be a struggle, I feel tears well up inside, but I smile. I will smile without a doubt. I will scream. I will yell. Through every outburst, I will smile. I smile because I have come from the depths of depression. I smile because I have tasted the cruel despair of death and risen above my pain. Though changed forever eternally, I STILL smile. I smile for you, I smile for me. I smile because I live. I smile for those who can not smile. I smile because IT’S ALL I CAN DO. I smile…because someone has to.