JB: Lace Up.

Hey everyone!

This week, I've been wearing a lot of black. Mixing and matching textures and shapes with the same color brings out a different kind of understated creativity. And you know me and my obsession with shoes, of course I have to have standout shoes with an all-black look! I love love love these lace-up gladiators that I found at Zara, I feel like Megara from Disney's Hercules, she's one of my favorite Disney characters ever.

The weather has been so dreary with the low fog and drizzle this week, and so has my mood. Foggy brained and low spirited... It's hard to think, I need some sunshine and clarity in my life! And the easiest thing for my perfectionist-oriented, achiever-self is either to turn inward and pick apart what's wrong with me and everything I "should" be doing differently or distract myself and embrace numbness with meaningless, thoughtless time-wasters. Oh, but I've been down this road before, and neither of those options help anything! The first thing that helps me get out of a funk is to recognize and validate my feelings. "Hey Jenna, it's ok to have bad days. Hey Jenna, it's fine that you're feeling sad or down, you're allowed to feel that way." "Jenna dear, you're still awesome and loved and not alone." And the next thing that helps me gain more clarity and perspective is to spend time helping, giving to, and actively loving someone else. Because there is a spiritual principle here - the more you give, the more you will receive. And I want that cycle to get much more active, especially when I'm having such a bad week! I have the deeply engrained tendency to believe that I must've done something wrong if I'm not feeling good. I must deserve it or have messed up in some way. But that's simply not true 99% of the time! I know that if I was as hard on others as I am myself, nobody would want to be my friend. So why do I think it's okay to hold myself to these impossibly "perfect" standards? And after repeating this vicious cycle many, many times in my life I now recognize it sooner so that I can proactively choose another route. I know that as I spend time encouraging others, giving away kindness and love even when I feel empty, it'll start snapping me out of this funk and giving me a higher perspective.