My fellow Smiley Faces (what I am calling my followers), welcome to April! 

You know those calendars that tell you when a random national holiday is happening, like National Corn Dog Day? By the way, I hope all of you who celebrated had a wonderful March 20. I am not much of a corn dog eater myself. 

I honestly don’t think I have ever had one before and there is no reason why I should end that streak now. I also don’t really eat meat but that is a story for a different time that involves a fourth-grade Megan watching an episode of Oprah after school (as all fourth graders do) that showcased just how burgers are made. 

Anyways, moving on from corned meats. 

April is a month filled with speciality holidays and awarenesses. Can I be the first to wish you a Happy National Fresh Celery Month! May these next few weeks bring you lots and lots of celery stalks. 

While we can all agree about that green, watery vegetable being of utmost importance, a holiday that I think pertains a little bit more to the blog is Stress Awareness Month. 

That’s right, this month was made for us here at Operation Happiness! I don’t know about you, but I think I was born stressed. It’s a part of me. My driver's license says the following: 

NAME : MEGAN 

SEX : F 

EYES : BLU

FEELING : STRESSED 

My first memory of being stressed and overwhelmed was in the first grade. I was sitting at my table in class trying to do a math problem and I got so worked up that I started to cry. That continued to happen pretty much all throughout my school years. I remember in seventh grade I had a writing assignment. You would think that would be a piece of cake for me. Well, I was overthinking it so much that I stayed up until 10 doing it. I was surrounded by eraser bits, sniffling away the tears, with my dad sitting on my bed wondering why I was getting so worked up about this and when I would finally put it to bed so that he could go to bed. 

Needless to say, I am someone who has always been a stress case, a worry wart, an overthinker. Now that I have gained a little bit more perspective, I definitely still get stressed out. But I have learned different ways to cope and justify certain scenarios. I will be sharing those over the course of a few posts in a STRESS SERIES throughout the month, so be on the lookout for them! 

On my Instagram the other day, I asked my followers a few questions related to stress. Have you always been a stressed person or is it new? What are you like when you are stressed? How do you cope with stress? Things like that. 

Someone said that they get anxious or overwhelmed easily and THAT stresses them out. 

Someone said that when they are stressed they get headaches, their hands start to shake and they become irritable. 

Someone said that they are either stressed with a smile on or are stressed and irritable, but that it depends. 

Let’s chat about that last one for a hot sec. I know that I like to tell you all “Smile. It’s good for you.” but I never EVER want you to feel like you have to hide the way you are feeling. If you are stressed out, let yourself be stressed out. 

Trying to suppress it will probably just make you feel even more stressed! Just letttttt it outtttttt. That’s what I do. I tell everyone and their mother within a 5-mile radius from me that I am stressed and feel a cry coming on.

DON’T SUPPRESS THE STRESS. I like that. It’s catchy. 

We all get stressed. If you don’t, what the frick...How...Share your secrets and help a girl out.  

Moral of the story is it is OKAY! Squeeze an Operation Happiness stress ball. Shed a few tears. Do what you need to do. Try and step away from what is making you stressed to put things into perspective...and stay tuned for a post about what I do to help put things into perspective in a series post later this month!