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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

Spontaneous Grace

It took a little work and a few conversations, but I had my mind settled comfortably around spending Thanksgiving on my own. Thankfully, being thankful is not something I save for one day of the year, and although I wrote from Hawaii last week and am thankful for the experiences in life that blow my […]
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Wendy Jones

Shattering the Myth of 'Downtime'

The first time I visited a spa I was 24. It was for my sister’s 21st birthday and I marveled at the calm that I felt after three days there. Looking back, that was my first glimpse at what it felt like to balance an overstimulated sympathetic nervous system. I had been a fearful kid, […]
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Wendy Jones

American Together

As we inched our way into the gym last weekend, past vaccination checks and metal detectors, to watch Stanford Men’s Volleyball in their second preseason tournament since the program was reinstated last May, it was glaringly apparent to me how much our world has changed.  If you would have told any of us two years […]
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Wendy Jones

Cocooning

Whether it’s an ending or a beginning is all a matter of perspective.  Ironically, the first time I had this realization wasn’t after my divorce, it was as Lauren was graduating from high school.  There were a lot of tears, it was the first of my four high school graduation milestones, now I’m two down […]
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Honor Their Dreams

While I’ve always felt that it is important to ask the question, because it happens a lot in American culture these days, I don’t live vicariously through my children, but I am always willing to take a stand next to them if I have seen them show up in full force for themselves.  Maybe it’s […]
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Create Space

It’s less about what our story is, and more about what we do to honor it. This is the line I have come up with to silence the voice in my mind when I start to think about how many other life stories are more challenging than my own.  Without that reframe, that comparative line […]
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To Raise a Champion

In April of 2016, as my almost 20 year marriage was falling apart, I turned around to grab a ball to serve as I was playing beach volleyball at 2nd St. in Hermosa Beach. Immediately,  I recognized one of the players on the court behind me and said hello, thinking at the time that she […]
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Just Be | In Honor of Katie Meyer

Writers seek throughlines. Coaches seek potential. Athletes (& humans really) often seek perfection.  I am all of these things.  But since July 28, 2000, my deepest sense of connection is being a parent.  I’ve never been more connected to a calling or felt a greater sense of purpose in my life, I guess that’s how […]
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Foundations for Peace

Over the past five years, I have learned so much from my body.  I didn’t realize I had left it, in many ways I had disconnected from it long ago to protect myself from all of the things highly sensitive people feel.  But as I’ve come back into it, through breath, movement and human connection, […]
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Learning to 'Be Better'

I’ve come a long way in the last five years.  In March of 2016 I wrote my first Optimists Journal blog at a time when I was only putting my thoughts down in hopes that my kids would understand who I was and what I was thinking when they were old enough and ready to […]
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