How I Finally Found My Own Version Of True Happiness

There was a time in my life when happiness was all a show. My goal was to have as many people believe in my act as possible. I lived each day hoping that I would eventually believe in the act myself. I radiated envy as I watched people around me live life free of the fears and anxieties that chained me down. I questioned my own life based on the jealousy and rage I felt towards others.

How was it possible to be happy, carefree and in love with life? Why did my life feel so different on the inside in comparison to what I showed on the outside?

I created and acted out an ideal image for myself that was identical to those I envied around me. The mask I had created to cover my true self worked for a while. While I continued to sculpt the mask and keep up the act, the girl who was underneath it all began to break down and the mask began to crack; piece by piece.

I was losing my own game. The facade I was living became evident to those around me as it became easier to see through my act. I was losing my audience. I was losing the crowed I’d acquired by wearing a mask of joy that I had worn to cover my own pain and insecurities. I had already lost myself and I felt like I had nothing left to lose.

I was wrong. I had everything to lose and that only became clear to me once I took my mask off and allow myself to feel exposed. The rawness of rediscovering who I was and who I wanted to be liberated me. I no longer felt like the scared girl who had to be what the world said she had to be.

I didn’t feel the need to act like everyone else and through the nakedness of my new life I had no one to impress but myself.

As I stripped from my old life, I discovered what it meant to fall in love. The love I found was far more profound than the one I thought I’d found when I was young. I found a love for who I already was and all I could become. I fell in love with myself and for the first time ever, it was real. I no longer projected the idea of “self love” without believing in it my self.

I shed the girl who pretended to be passionate about the things that were popular or the trends that others so easily fit into. I experimented with life and found my passions simply by being my real self. I was losing the weight that was once almost heavy enough to kill me.

Through radical acceptance and self care, I have discovered what it means to be authentically happy. Happiness is no longer a destination that I need to fake my way to reach.

Happiness is now a mindful and ever evolving way of life that rewards me for being my most genuine version of me.

The only audience I care about is myself.