Photo Credit: Happy Not Perfect
If being more well-balanced and mindful is on your to-do list for 2019, allow me to introduce you to the woman who is going to change your life. Meet Poppy Jamie, a British bombshell and the founder of Happy Not Perfect. Several years ago, Jamie developed a fast following as the host of Snapchat’s first television show, Pillow Talk With Poppy. She immediately connected with her audience and was surprised to learn that many viewers felt anxious.
Photo Credit: Happy Not Perfect
“What was so interesting is that most of the messages were I’m feeling so stressed about this, I’m feeling so worried about this,” Jamie said to Haute Living via a telephone conversation. “It was vulnerable sharing, and it alerted me to the fact that no matter where anybody was, how old anybody was, everybody was feeling the same thing.” She noticed that many people were feeling pressure related to social media use. “Because we’re so aware of what everyone else is doing, we put enormous pressure on ourselves to be perfect,” she says.
Photo Credit: Happy Not Perfect
She started to explore the issue and turned her findings into a Ted Talk, Addicted to Likes. “The talk looked at how without us even realizing, we have become addicted to the validation of others,” she says. “How healthy is it to have these social networks that we waste up every single day using? If you think about it, psychologically, you are waking up every single day to look at everybody else’s life but your own. You like everyone’s feed or everyone’s life, but your own and that, of course, is going to have an impact on your self-esteem.”
Photo Credit: Happy Not Perfect
Jamie realized that there wasn’t a lot of accessible information out there to help people who were feeling Instagram fatigue. She was concerned that millennials’ desire to be perfect on the apps caused them to sacrifice their own happiness. And that while people are taught math and English, no one is taught to train their minds to think positively. With the help of her mother, a psychotherapist, and scientist at UCLA, Jamie started to study the science of happiness. She developed the app, Happy Not Perfect, to help users feel more positive.
Photo Credit: @poppyjamie
Upon opening the app, users are guided through a series of steps that are meant to relax the mind and calm the soul. First, choose a word that describes how you are feeling; descriptors range from stressed and had enough to magical and ok. Next, you’re prompted to breathe and focus only on breathing for 30 seconds. After this, you type in a few things you are grateful for, play a quick mind game, and type three reasons why you love yourself today. The final step is the chance to pay it forward by sending a message of love or gratitude to a friend. Each login is different. Sometimes you type something that no longer serves you, then smudge your finger across the phone screen until it burns. The entire process takes less than ten minutes, but when practiced daily can completely change the way you see the world.
Photo Credit: Happy Not Perfect
“The word practicing is a significant one because it’s something that doesn’t just come. We can’t just click our fingers and be positive,” she says. “It’s about practicing, wanting to think and feel positive because even in a disaster, you can think positively and that is so powerful for yourself and also those around you. There is power in repetition.”
Photo Credit: Happy Not Perfect
Subscribe to Happy Not Perfect, and you’ll get access to over 300 meditation experiences and discussions on various topics like how to feel relaxed in traffic, steps to bouncing back after being rejected, and tips to sleep better. New content is continuously added, so the chance to grow and change are tenfold. Jamie hopes that app users will find Happy Not Perfect a vital aspect of their daily lives and wants to remind people everywhere that perfection does not exist, but happiness does. “Underneath it all, nothing is perfect. It takes us all to work together to feel happier with each other and ourselves.”
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