Day 30 Blog

This one is long, so bare with me. It’s good though.

Your girl has been struggling. Struggling mentally. It is hard because when you are a very positive person, when you live your life in gratitude, when you fully understand how blessed you are and nothing in your life should be making you sad or feel dull, you start to feel guilt and shame when those feelings still show up. You ask yourself why in the world you feel the way you do when you are healthy, have amazing employees, great close friends, an incredible family, and business is good.

Because of that, I carry it quietly. I often do not share how bad I am struggling because I do not want to bother anyone with my thoughts. It is not on anyone else to make me happy or to figure out why I feel the way I do. It has nothing to do with them or this amazing, wonderful, beautiful life that I live.

And the truth is that it comes and goes. Some days I am one hundred ten percent the happy, go lucky girl that I am at my core. Other days I wake up and struggle to get out of bed. I struggle to put a smile on my face. I cry for no reason. I struggle with feeling self worth or loved. I do not know if it is a little bit of depression, my CPTSD, or my anxiety. I do not know. But what I do know is my parents did not raise me to dwell. I always figure out how to get up and do what is needed.

So I am just taking it one day at a time because it is okay to not feel okay. It does not have to be perfect every single day. It is just frustrating when you are such a positive person, when you live such a blessed life with so much gratitude, but still feel the way you feel.

Friendships have changed too. A lot of my friends are in different stages of life with families, and since I am not in that stage, I can feel lonely sometimes. Even though I know a ton of people, it is that tight bond friendship that I miss a little.

I also feel this deep sense of wanting to release everything. Emotional baggage I know I need to let go of. I just do not know how yet. It ties into self worth issues, people pleasing, and everything I have been through. I spent four years being held against my will and tortured. I almost lost my life. My attacker got out of prison and recently attempted to kill me again. I lost a really close friend over greed and nonsense that never needed to go that way. Some people really will choose money and success over actual human life, and they will say and do anything to get what they want.

All of this, plus other personal things I have pushed down, feels like it is all coming to the surface now. I am self aware, and when you mix that with anxiety and everything happening lately, it is a lot.

Sorry for the little therapy session, but this is what I want to unpack before the end of the year. I want to go into 2026 with no grudges, no leftover feelings of being less than, no old wounds holding power over me. I want to stop giving the past any more energy. I do not want to think back, stress, or have anxiety over things I cannot change. And I am not a person who worries about the future. I know God has me. My whole life is a God story.

So my goal is to focus on now. To be super present. That is all we truly have. I am grateful for my friends and my family. I do not blame anyone for anything in the past. All I can do is the best I can as a human being living life for the first time, just like everyone else. There is no handbook. We are all trying to figure it out.

I just have a lot to let go and release. I want to enter 2026 fresh. The next four weeks I am focusing on that. God has always turned my pain into purpose, every single time. So that is the season I am in.

If there is anything Paulina does, it is push through. I find strength in the struggle. You either learn or you grow. You never lose. There is always a silver lining in whatever you go through that prepares you for the next season.

No more stressing over the past. No more questioning my worth or wondering why certain people act how they do or treat me how they treat me. That is on them. It has nothing to do with me.

I just want to love my people and live fully in the present. And honestly, I am excited for a new year.

Signed, Paulina.