How to Comfort Your Friend with Anxiety

Hey everyone! I’m Jessa, author of Happily Ever Hillmann. If you don’t know me, you wouldn’t know that I have sometimes debilitating anxiety that cripples me from leaving my house (or leaving wherever I’m at when a panic sets in). If you don’t know me, I seem relatively calm, friendly, and at ease in social …

Living with It: Mental Illness and Ending the Stigma

When you hear the term “mental illness” there’s immediately a negative stigma that comes unfairly attached. Mental illness simply is that, an illness in your brain. Just like arthritis, or kidney disease it needs to be treated. In this day and age it’s still taboo to be open and honest about having a mental illness. Those of us …

4 Ways to Encourage Kindness in Kids

There are so many things we want for our children. Even before having kids I remember dreaming of the day I was a parent. Dreaming of my children growing up to be smart, successful, compassionate and kind. I dreamt of the day my child would be the friend everyone wanted to have and not because …

How Do Impressions Make Us or Break Us: Think for Yourself

I was wasting time on Facebook yesterday and came across this. I both love and hate this. ‘I wonder how many strangers hate me because of how someone else described me to them.’ Why do we let others make our opinions for us? I’ve had this problem before. Some of my problem is because I’m …

Self-Love: Why It’s Important to Love Oneself

As Valentine’s Day approaches I see, like every year, ads, on social media, on commercials, and in stores, pitching gift sales for your loved ones. Yes, it is very important to display your love and gratitude for the people around you but I tend to argue that just once a year, on a holiday, is an excuse. It should be done year-round. What I fail to see around this time of year is the importance of self-love and I think that is a huge failing to society as a whole.

Things to Teach Our Kids So They Become Better Adults

As the new year approaches I’ve been thinking about what I could do to be a better person. How can I expand my growth further this new year? As I was thinking about this I came across this idea of what makes kids good adults. What do we learn as a child that is necessary to survive as an a loving, caring, successful adult? These are a couple things I think are important for kids to learn and things we should do to teach them as well as things our kids can remind us of as we live day to day.