I decided I wanted to elevate from my sad girl era into the version of me who’s magnetic, confident, and overflowing with self-love. So I figured I’d lean into the art of reinvention to make that happen.

Jenny Humphrey from Gossip Girl is a prime example of a girlie who went through a massive transformation and completely reinvented herself to elevate to the next level in life.

She was visibly insecure and unsure of herself in season one, but by season 3, she was giving main character vibes completely.

For Jenny, reinvention meant overhauling her entire wardrobe, changing her hair, changing her makeup style, and operating in the world differently to claim her place on the Upper East Side. But reinvention isn’t always just about aesthetics and the way you look. For me, reinvention goes a bit deeper.

And I know Jenny still had her issues. Her battle with self-doubt still had her in a chokehold, but her transformation still stood out to me when I watched Gossip Girl during my formative years because she aimed a light on the art of reinvention, and the fact that each and every person can start over as many times as we need to until we become the person we are genuinely proud to be.

People love to hate on Little J, but she had a lot of the same driving factors that motivated her decision to reinvent herself that a lot of people naturally have.

Jenny wanted to gain approval from her peers. She wanted to find love with a guy who valued her. She wanted to succeed in her career path. She wanted freedom and autonomy over her lifestyle. She wanted financial wealth and abundance. She wanted to pursue her creative talent and passions. She wanted to express herself in the way she presented herself to the world regarding her outward appearance and style.

When I think about the art of reinvention in real life, it makes me feel hopeful about the prospect of actually pulling it off myself. Because navigating the transition from sad bitch to bad bitch, requires an investment of patience, energy, mental reframing, and mindset work. But I do think it’s worth it, and these are my thoughts.

Be willing to disappoint people

For me, I think a great starting point on my journey of reinvention is my willingness to disappoint people. How willing am I to disappoint the people around me in order to protect my peace, maintain my boundaries, and stand up for the things I believe in? We watched Jenny disappoint her father countless times on her pursuit of greatness because she was a force to be reckoned with as a young fashion designer. She knew her dad would be disappointed in her for going after her dreams the way she did, and he absolutely was. But Jenny prioritized her goals over her fear of disappointing him. And that’s an aspect about Jenny Humphrey that I am willing to take notes from. I am a massive disappointment to my mother ever since I’ve gone no contact because I lost respect for her when she proved she didn’t have a backbone with my stepdad. He’s a Trump supporter, and with everything we now know about the sinister nature of this administration, people can no longer hide behind the guise of “good old-fashioned Christian values” to keep supporting it. My stepdad is white, mind you, and he married into a Black family, and for some reason, my mother didn’t give him any pushback on that. My stepdad’s voting patterns might be disturbingly ignorant, but I hold my mother accountable as well for her inability to educate my stepdad on the toxicity of what he’s actively supporting.

I think finding peace in knowing that I’m a disappointment to them is a crucial step in reinventing myself on a path towards happiness and fulfillment. I can’t be weighed down by their guilt trips because staying true to my boundaries and standards regarding who I choose to surround myself with is the best way I can put self-love into practice without abandoning my own ethics and morals. I have to be willing to disappoint other people around me for the sake of my emotional stability and peace of mind.

The concept of being willing to disappoint other people goes hand-in-hand with the willingness to release people-pleasing tendencies. Which is something I used to struggle with a lot. I grew up feeling like I had to be a people pleaser if I ever wanted to be loved or accepted. I realized at an early age that the quickest way to gain approval from others was by being agreeable, going with the flow, saying yes to things even if I didn’t want to, and generally just becoming somewhat of a doormat to everyone around me.

But the ironic thing about being a people pleaser is that it doesn’t yield the results you hope for, because people are never really pleased. It’s a never-ending toxic cycle, and you end up drained and depleted trying to participate in that game. For the most part, I’d like to say I’ve broken free of my people-pleasing tendencies because I got sick of all those regretful moments I had to live with after I agreed to do things I didn’t want to do. I got tired of the inner disappointment I had towards myself every time I put my own needs on the back burner to keep the peace or make someone else feel happy. It’s not worth it if it comes at the cost of abandoning yourself. Disappointing others is okay.

Embracing existentialism instead of denying it

Something else I’ve been working on is embracing existentialism instead of denying it. I struggle with a lot of existential dread, and based on what I’ve been seeing on social media, I’ve learned that I’m really not alone in my thoughts. A lot of people can resonate when it comes to the frustration of knowing we didn’t consent to being born, yet we’re now forced to navigate this human existence that includes paying bills, maintaining our human bodies, scary diseases and diagnoses, the emotional dysregulation of losing and gaining friends and lovers throughout different seasons, global threats of war and violence, uncertainty about the future, and fear of the unknown regarding what actually happens to us after we die.

Some people admittedly feel guilty about their existential dread because a lot of existential thoughts give off the vibe that you’re borderline suicidal or willing to self-delete. But that actually couldn’t be further from the truth for many of us. Having existential dread doesn’t mean you’re willing to off yourself. It just means you find it wildly unfair that you were born into this existence without your permission, and every single day, you must figure out how to survive and how to sustain yourself. When you didn’t even ask to be here in the first place. I have no interest in hurting myself or ever causing myself any harm, but the resentment I have against my parents for bringing me here and then pushing me out into the world to fend for myself is definitely something that floats around in my mind.

They intentionally chose to conceive me and bring me into this world because they saw it as a natural next step in their marriage and in their adulthood. It was all about them and what they wanted for themselves, which was to take on the titles of mother and father. Their decision had nothing to do with me or the fact that they were birthing a human being with a conscience and a soul to eventually become a labor slave in this hamster wheel of our human experience. The thoughts I have are valid. Recognizing and discussing thoughts of existentialism doesn’t mean you have a victim mentality either. Because many of us who struggle with existentialism still take agency over our circumstances. We still hold ourselves accountable for our choices. We still take on responsibilities. We still manage daily actions to survive this life and sustain ourselves.

Being told not to have these thoughts at all isn’t fair or reasonable. Being told to “just think happy thoughts” instead is extremely dismissive and condescending. And it’s also completely illogical. Because these aren’t the types of thoughts you can stuff away, ignore, and pretend you don’t think about. Feeling your way through every emotion is a healthier approach than trying to suppress them. And embracing my existentialism rather than trying to deny it allows me to live a life with more depth and authenticity.

Embracing existentialism causes you to deeply question things instead of operating on autopilot. WHY am I working at this job? WHY am I dating this person? WHY am I chasing this goal? Etc. It allows you to start asking heavy-hitting questions that other people on autopilot never even consider. Embracing existentialism helps you stop obsessing over unrealistic perfectionism, pride, ego, and opinions from others. It allows you to stop feeling fearful when contemplating death and mortality. The concept of death doesn’t necessarily scare me because I acknowledge that this life I’m currently living, that I didn’t even consent to, is extremely painful and abusive. Therefore, death becomes less scary because it serves as the natural exit and escape from this life when the time comes.

Embracing existentialism makes it harder to justify people-pleasing tendencies or the habit of performing for approval from other people. More than anything else, it encourages creativity and creation. Because instead of waiting to uncover what your purpose on this planet is, it forces you to build a purpose. And I’m realizing that, for a creative person, this is incredibly empowering. Embracing existentialism means you let go of the fantasy of certainty and you release the desire for guarantees. People suffer because they seek guaranteed love, guaranteed success, guaranteed happiness, guaranteed answers. But if you truly embrace existentialism, you understand that you may never get certainty, and you may never get guarantees about anything. And you realize you can still take action where you want to, minus the certainty of any guarantees.

I also think embracing existential dread allows you to function as a more compassionate person who approaches others with greater empathy. Folks operating on the surface level will tell you to think happy thoughts and deny your existentialism. But if you embrace it, you turn into a far more compassionate and empathetic person when interacting with people who are scared, lonely, grieving, disappointed, disillusioned, hopeless, and beyond. I choose to view my existential dread as part of my reinvention story. Because when you finally accept that most aspects of life are arbitrary and completely out of our individual control, you stop waiting for permission to become the person you really want to be. I’m never going to cure my existential dread, but instead of fighting it, I’ve decided to start channeling it.

Find a passion that makes life worth living…

I believe the art of invention requires finding a passion that makes life feel worth living. It’s all about building a life that doesn’t make you want to blow your brains out every day. In the same way Little J focused on her passion for fashion design, we can all find what lights us up the most. When I found my pole dancing studio three years ago, I had no idea a fun little workout class would become such a pivotal part of my life. But pole dancing became one of my greatest passions, and although my pole journey has had its highs and lows, specifically regarding the many staff changes at my studio and the social aspect of it all, I still consider pole to be something that makes life feel a little more worth living.

I feel the same sense of passion for my pursuit of becoming a successful graphic novelist. I self-published my first graphic novel this year and signed a consignment deal with a local Indie bookstore in Las Vegas to sell copies of it. My intention is to write a sequel, which means I have the opportunity to shift my focus and attention to another project that fills me with passion and excitement. I have so many thoughts I’d like to express and so many illustrations I’d like to draw, and the idea of becoming a successful graphic novelist makes life feel a little more worth living.

I’m gonna sound like a hopeless romantic when I say this, but my pursuit of true love led me down the path of meeting and marrying my husband. And the reality is that he absolutely makes life feel more worth living. He’s a beautiful man, with a beautiful heart, and reinventing myself from a sad bitch into a bad bitch feels more realistically possible because he’s part of my life. I think everyone is capable of finding something you’re passionate about that you can pour all of your focus and attention into to make life feel a little more worth living when reinventing yourself from your sad girl era into a more fulfilled version of yourself.

I think the concept of reinvention I love the most is that we have the freedom and capacity to start over as many times as we want until we become the person we wanna be. As long as we’re alive, we have the capacity to make changes, whether those changes are physical, emotional, financial, or spiritual.