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The Optimists Journal

Heartfelt Anecdotes and Practical Resources to Help You Create Wellness for Life.

Hi! I’m Wendy, mother of four, writer, and founder of Be Better Media. I am passionate about deep health, sustainable high performance, and human connection. As a lifelong learner, I believe that our own self-awareness is the greatest gift we can give to the next generation. This is my inspiration not to be perfect but to Be Better for myself and for them, every day. I know that it takes courage to reflect and when we are ready, share our stories so that real human connection is possible. This is what I set out to create with my blog, ‘The Optimists Journal’; my podcast, ‘What I Meant to Say’, and the interviews, videos, and other content created and presented by Be Better Media. In my downtime, you’ll find me hanging out with my kids and cats, going to yoga, and playing volleyball on the beach.

I believe that self awareness is the greatest gift we can give to the next generation.

How It All Started

I remember sitting on a patio in 2016, knowing I was at the edge of an impending divorce and feeling my life fall apart at the seams.

My question at the time was "How did I get here?" and "How can I help my kids get through this?" I had always been a journaler, but I started my blog, The Optimists Journal to give my kids a place to go later in life to understand their Mom's thoughts and heart through the myriad of situations that life brings our way.

In so many ways, my blog grew to be my podcast 'What I Meant to Say' because as I released my words to the world, I stepped into a place where for the first time in my life, I wasn't afraid to be seen. It was liberating.

So, I wanted to create space for others to have that same experience. If there is one thing I hope comes from the stories we share on 'What I Meant To Say', it is that it becomes a place of connection and growth that we can all experience when we simply take the time to listen.

Check out the podcast!
Wendy Jones

Back to Basics

The world is back in full swing.  Morning routines, schedules, pressure to perform according to the clock, the calendar, the grades, and the score, are mounting again. As unsettling as this pandemic down time has been, I always knew there was a part of me that would miss the slower pace, the kids being around […]
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Wendy Jones

To Rebuild With Intention

There is nothing like travel to remind you that there is always more than one way to do things.  I spent the last week enjoying Spain with Luke, his teammate and his mom.  Traveling with people can be an interesting experience, all of our true colors come out when we are jet lagged, lost, or […]
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Wendy Jones

Time Flies but Some Things Never Change

Well, It’s been a few weeks…I’ve had to figure out what to do with this pain.  I found out I have a 5mm herniated disc on my L4/L5 vertabrae, it’s the most physical pain I have ever felt, including four child births and three foot/ankle surgeries, so it’s taken me more than a minute to […]
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Wendy Jones

What Pain Insists...

A picture popped up on my phone from Facebook this morning, one of those “five years ago today” memories.  It was the year I skipped 6 man and drove up the coast with the kids.  I wasn’t in the mood to play that year, staring down a divorce I didn’t want, but, looking back now, […]
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Gruden & the Double Standard

Every day that I dig into the news, my synapses fire like crazy, and I analyze and want to know more about so many stories.  Often I don’t have time to go all the way down the rabbit hole, so I have learned to employ the adage that you don’t have to know everything to […]
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Why Your Backstory Matters

For writers, a backstory is a set of events that is invented to help create the plot to our story. The truth is, it doesn't work much different in real life. Our life is the plot, those who came before us created our backstory. The more we know about it, the better we can understand […]
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What's Your Why?

Riding home from Luke’s game last night with my friend and volleyball partner, we got to talking about volleyball, and aging knees and how long we will get to play this game that we love to play so much. To be out on that beach, with dolphins jumping in the water, with other moms that […]
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Homeward

A mouse ran across the top of the TV set and neither of us even moved.  They were irrigating the field behind our house outside of Firebaugh, a farm town on the westside of the San Joaquin Valley that many have never heard of.  Every time they irrigated, the mice made a bee line straight […]
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Empathy, Strength & Forgiveness

One of the most common and yet most rewarding parts of parenting is to take note and celebrate the amazing traits that God gives our children.  Seeing your child have something amazing in her personality that she can offer to the world…a world that often seems to be in need of strength, compassion, love, forgiveness, […]
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The Sporting Life

As an introvert who craves deep connection, I find myself thinking about the concept of community a lot.  So often, I feel like retreating to my corner to write and think and be by myself, and then I get this crazy pull to get out there and connect and learn from other people. I am […]
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