What You Have Is Enough...

WELL....
It has been two weeks since my last post, and usually, when this happens, it's because I have been busy traveling for work, or simply busy being busy at home. This time, however, my lack of writing was due to a few of life's circumstances that left me feeling like I had nothing truly inspirational to share right now; then I remembered something... I am enough. 

NOBODY IS PERFECT
So often in this world of fake reality and clouded perception, when we are feeling "less than perfect" we sometimes begin to feel we have nothing to offer... nothing worth saying or giving. When you are used to being a blessing, you never want to feel like a burden or even worse, a curse. Strong people tend to just sit quietly alone until the storm is over. This is almost always what I do when I am dealing with not so awesome circumstances. Sometimes, even the closest people to me won't even know what I am dealing with because I tend to recluse.

NEEDING INSPIRATION
Although I was still sharing daily inspiration and encouragement on Face Book, writing a whole blog post was not something I was feeling "inspired" to do; nor motivated to be quite honest. It happens, even to the best of us. However tonight, as I scrolled through the voice recorder on my phone, I found some inspiration. This voice recorder is where I often record bright ideas that pop into my head as I am driving, or as I lay in bed and wake up in the middle of the night to groggily record my voice. I planned to listen to the recordings one by one hoping to find a blog idea that had been thought of that I had failed to bang out yet.

Suddenly, I heard a message that I had recorded for someone and I realized I never sent it. I took the time to record it the moment it entered my mind, but I never had the courage to send it and had completely forgot I even recorded it. I'll admit, I got a bit emotional as I listened to it, kind of how a song on the radio with thwart you back in time, hearing my own voice and remembering how I felt that night sent me right back into the moment I recorded it.

THAT LITTLE VOICE THAT TOLD ME TO KNEW
When I first sat down to blog tonight... I drew a blank,  I had nothing, however I refused to get up from my keyboard until I wrote. Something told me to pick up my phone and this message was the second message I heard; it was exactly what I needed to be reminded of.

WE MAY NOT GET WHAT WE WANT
Telling someone they are enough, is powerful; especially when they are feeling less than adequate. I know, as there have been times when I felt unworthy... like what or who I was, was not enough. In those times, having someone tell me that I was enough would have been salvation. I longed for someone to let me know in those moments that how I was feeling about myself was a big, fat lie. I did not need to hear that I was strong, that I'd make it... or that I could do it because I was tough...or used to it. What I needed was for someone to hold me tight and simply say, "YOU ARE ENOUGH and I accept you and love you for EXACTLY who you are RIGHT NOW." 

MAYBE I SHOULD SEND IT
Unfortunately, some of us have yet to experience a moment like that. For that reason, I have decided that I will send that message tomorrow the person it was intended for... to let them know that they are enough.

JUST WHAT WE NEED
As I listened to this message... I smiled and thought to myself, WOW I have changed so much. The kind of love and acceptance I offer in this message is not only what I have always wanted, but it reminds me of the kind of love and acceptance we are promised from God. It does not matter where we come from, where we have been, the mistakes we have made or the fact that we have failed at things. What matters is that no matter what, we are loved, accepted and told that WE ARE ENOUGH!

What we do not have clarity on now, we should continuously seek. We will be made whole again; maybe for the first time ever. We are always perfect in someones eyes; it's simply perspective.

YOU ARE ENOUGH
What I hope for you tonight is that you will feel you are ENOUGH. Not everyone will recognize it and some will tell you that you aren't. I am here to remind you that YOU ARE! No man is perfect, however, we ARE perfectly made and we ARE destined to win.

Until next time... be faithful

xoxo

Shells

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The First Step To Being Happy is YOU

For several years, all I wanted was to be happy...I was very broken, felt unloved and extremely unimportant. Part of that feeling came from the lack of ever having a loving relationship and lots of disappointment and the other part came from the fact that like many people, I was fooled into thinking happiness was only defined by having a loving relationship, a fancy house, an expensive car and money to buy all the things I wanted. I would look at people around me who seemed happy and they had loving marriages, were dressed in the best clothes, and had lots of "things". They were taking fabulous family vacations, giving elaborate birthday parties and their Christmas's were like the ones you see on TV commercials with extravagant trees, beautiful decorations and loads of gifts. 

I often felt like a failure with all of this around me, and always wondered why it was not my life. I worked very hard, had so much love to give and yet here I was a single mom who had been divorced twice that struggled to give my kids all of the things that I wanted to give them no matter how many hours I worked because I was doing everything alone for quite some time. We rarely had the money to go on big shopping sprees for back to school like I did when I was younger and I always felt bad for that. We never took a family vacation because I was afraid to take the time off of work. When you are self employed and take time off there is no paycheck waiting for you when you get home so I always allowed that fear to stop me from doing it. Seeing happiness around me made me really sad and I had a hard time being happy for other people who had what I wanted.

Then one day after reading a passage in one of my self improvement books I realized a truth... a fact that changed my life. That fact was that the first step to being happy was loving yourself. I had a self realization moment that very second. My whole life flashed before me and in the end I concluded that I was not happy with who I was at all. I had low self esteem and very little self worth because I allowed things from my past to haunt me. There were decisions I had made that left me feeling unworthy of love and success and because of this I was unconsciously manifesting a life of unhappiness and struggle. I was unknowingly punishing myself for all of my mistakes.

The most amazing moment in all of this was realizing that I was in control of my happiness... that all of the "things" that I thought would bring me the happiness I desired had nothing to do with it at all. That began my path to all that I had ever wanted; a path that I am still traveling Slowly, but surely my attitude began to change. I started learning how to love myself despite all of my mistakes, faults and imperfections and decided that spiritually I was perfect.... a perfect disaster maybe, but I learned to be proud of all that I had done wrong, all that had happened and I started to move on from it all. It was then that I was living in the lowest point of my life and it is also when I decided I would share my story with the world... I wrote my first book.

I began to love who I saw in the mirror and thought that perhaps one day, a special someone would come into my life and appreciate me for who I truly was and what I had gone through in my life. I found happiness in finally knowing and accepting who I was. I no longer hid all the ugly things from my past pretending to be perfect, I became proud of them because it had formed who I was and who I would eventually become. 

Even though I still hope for love and acceptance from someone that I can share my life with, I love and accept myself... and that is the most important thing you can do when looking for happiness. God loves us with all of our imperfections and if He does, so should we. Love yourself like He does and life just gets better.

Something else that happens when you learn to love yourself... you begin to love and accept others for who THEY are... your heart truly changes and when you look at someone, you look at their imperfections and mistakes with admiration, understanding and compassion. When you have accepted your own faults and imperfections you simply begin to judge others less. The most freeing thing was when I stopped caring about what other people thought of me and instead began caring what I thought of me. We will never make everyone else happy, someone will always disagree with our actions, choices and lifestyle but we CAN make ourselves happy; trust me, that is a much easier task. When you realize that happiness is a choice, it's an easy choice to make; it takes no arm twisting. 

So....you have two choices in life. You can get swallowed up with all that is now or you can begin to imagine and glorify all that can be. I ask....which will you choose? 


Have a wonderful Monday... and a wonderful week. Pass this one along, I am sure many people out there need to love themselves a little more, and we ALL need to find happiness.

Until next time...

xoxo

Shells

                                                   

                               

                                                          

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Seasons Change ... Stay Strong and Love more

Over the past several months... winds of change have been blowing through my life; and although I know that these changes are ultimately good ones, it is always uncomfortable in the beginning when uncertainty sets in. When something you have cared for and put your time into ends... it's always a sad day. However because I have grown accustomed to change I know the stages that I will go through very well. You always feel like you have lost your ground until you figure out exactly how to transition; there is no way around that part.

I am a very deep and emotional person...deep meaning when I look at a situation I tend to see way more than what's on the surface and will dig deeper to find more; emotional meaning that I am in tune with my own feelings and the feelings of others in a much stronger way than what the average person feels. I suppose I can credit this to a compassionate, caring and loving heart and although it opens me up for more hurt, I would not have it any other way because it makes me me. When I was a little girl, I cared more and gave more to others than anyone I knew ... I am wired that way I suppose. I have even had people from my past reconnect with me reminding me and share with me how I touched their lives by being that way... one girl from my childhood reconnected with me after 30 years to say thank you for being one of the only people that was nice to her for who she was and not because of her popular brother. It was a true example of what one small gesture can do for someone. 

As I went through changes in life and as things and situations began to happen that hurt me, as people were cruel and relationships ended in betrayal, my heart slowly changed and walls began to form. As many people do, I wanted to protect myself, I wanted to stop the feelings of hurt, pain and sadness. Coldness began to set it and I stopped caring because I never felt cared for... I became resentful and stopped trusting because people had failed me, betrayed me and broken my trust when I thought they truly cared. As the stories unfolded I allowed bitterness, anger and resentment to swallow me up and stayed there for a long time.

Years continued to pass and I slowly began to open up because I wanted to feel again, so I made it a mission to find my old heart. I was not happy with who I had become, I felt very empty inside and not caring about anyone or anything proved to be very destructive and it simply was not who I was, but merely who I had become due to circumstances. Of course, I was hurt again but as history began to repeat itself I held strong and decided that I would not allow these things to make me cold and bitter again. I was open again but not fully, I was softened but not melted and the thought of  being completely vulnerable still scared me to death. However I kept my heart and my mind open and was lucky to have some pretty amazing people enter my life as a result; some who are still there. Then, without any warning at all a person came into my life that made me feel more vulnerable than ever... and although it terrified me it also made me feel free... so I allowed it to develop. For the past 4 years I have had many happy times, some sad times and some utterly confusing times; in the end, it did not last forever...  I had to let it go for my well being.

As I dive into a new chapter in life, I remain strong... I can't say I have not cried but that is never a sign of weakness, it is a sign of feeling, emotion and care for something. So many amazing things are happening in my life that I can be thankful for and this change will be good, it will be fresh and new and because I know me... I know that everything will be okay. I believe that every single person crosses your path to serve a purpose and once that purpose is fulfilled God may simply change your direction so He can deliver what is meant for your life. I will choose to follow Him and know because of that in the end my life will be fulfilled in EVERY single way. 

My message to you today is this... if you are going through changes in life that have you feeling down, if you are uncertain of the "why" of it all... just trust and know that seasons change and with every season new beauty surrounds us, freshness fills the air, flowers bloom, leaves change and blankets of snow fall. Open yourself up to soak in that beauty, don't allow confusion and uncertainty swallow you up... just go with it and trust that everything will be okay. Stay strong, and love more. 

xoxo

Shells

                                           

                                                          

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Why is Love so Hard?

I am a far cry from being a relationship expert... at least in the sense of man and woman relations. In fact,  it seems that no matter how hard I try,  history has proven that in my own life it rarely works long term. I come from two failed marriages and have consistently struggled in the relationship department over the years. However, give me a friendship or business relationship and I could write a book on how to build a long, loyal, strong, meaningful one. So, I asked myself today as I have many times...why is finding love so hard for me????? Is it me or is it the people I am attracted to and end up with? OR is it that because I constantly work on self improving that I am constantly morphing into a different person? Little did I know this would send my brain into a frenzy of my past, present (and likely my future if I did not figure this out.) Here is what I came up with... for now at least.

We all have an idea of who our perfect person is...  for some people love is purely based upon physical attributes and connections; the trophy wives and the hunky husbands who can rock your world in every physical way. Sometimes it is based solely upon having things in common, which aids in having a better understanding and being able to relate to each other and have fun in more ways than most. Then there are some who merely crave intellect, spirituality, compassion and a strong emotional connection. I realized recently that I have been each of these people in different stages of my life...  but only one at a time.

When I ask myself what stage I am in now... I can no longer pick just one; I feel that I want them all, the least important being the first one mentioned; guess that is called maturity. Being at a point in my life where everything seems to be moving forward, unfortunately my relationship rapidly moved backward; leaving me to wonder if it's me since history keeps repeating itself. As much as I love the idea of being with one amazing person for the rest of my life, I have also been quoted saying "I am not the relationship type" simply because I bore easily... ( I could always blame that on the ADHD.) Sometimes I feel that I may expect too much...  because although I KNOW things can never be perfect, I want it to be be perfect in my mind or simply perfect enough. (guess that is the OCPD)

Love in an intimate relationship is hard, much harder to me than building a business relationship or friendship; but I also know that the things that are more difficult to obtain in life are always more of a reward in the end.  I certainly hope that one day I can experience the rewards of true love, but until then I won't give up and do my best to keep my mind open to it despite what has happened in past relationships. True love is not perfect as some may think, true love is not free of brokenness, sadness, hurt or pain. True love is not what many people think it is.... if it was, divorces would be rare.

True love is unconditional; solid without question. It is present at the end of every disagreement, it is something that never fades in time but instead grows with age, and it is something that prevails with every hurdle. Feel fortunate if you have found it... never take advantage of it and always embrace it.

xoxo

Shells

                                           

                                                          

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Holy Moley Shells is 40!!!!!!!!

Yep, today is my 40th birthday. This creative square-pegged girl arrived on December 5th, 1973. It's kinda hard to believe I have been around that long until I start thinking about all of the things I have experienced in my life; when I do that it seems that I should be turning 90... it's pretty crazy actually. Hey... I survived, I made it out of my 20's, through my 30's and the best years of my life are ahead (or so I hear.) I sure hope "they" are right about that whoever "they" are!

God has toughened me up over the tears to survive most anything and I am truly thankful for that. Although I have a peace inside my heart, it does not mean I do not struggle just as everyone does with emotions, circumstances, feelings, ambitions and dreams that I hope to make come true. (Key word in that sentence is "hope".) One thing that I have learned that I could not unlearn even if I wanted to, is that you have to take everything that comes your way for what it is and realize that it is part of the journey you are destined to travel. Yes... I believe we all have a destiny, we all have a purpose and for the first time in my 40 years of life, I feel like I am living mine and must say it feels pretty darn amazing despite the struggles that still come my way in life. I know now beyond the shadow of doubt they are there for a reason, a lesson is to be learned, another brick is given to build my castle. Just as soon as I get confused, hurt, angry or sad, I talk myself out of it as quickly as I can by listening to the peace in my heart which always cleanses my negative thoughts and replaces it with hope and reminds me.... "you have been here before, it's going to be okay." So as I sit here on the eve of my 40th birthday tapping my thoughts out so that I can post this hopeful inspiring message by midnight's strike, I am content with all that is happening even if I don't like some of it. I have SO much to be thankful for, I have lived out SO many things in life that many told me I never would and at moments I almost thought they were right; but that didn't stop me and because of that I know that the best is yet to come. I found my original "LIFE GOALS" list a few weeks ago and I was able to check everything off. WOW... it was a shocking surprise to me but I am not a lucky girl... I am simply a girl who is loved.

I want to say thanks to all of you for the continued support, for sharing these blogs with others which has helped me grow to over 33,000 readers; I could NEVER have done that without you. YOU are the inspiration to the one whose mission is to inspire; for without you my only audience would be an empty computer screen ( In that case I would rather watch paint dry.)

The next decade will be amazing because I will do everything I can to make it that way for my family and hopefully even for you. (I have some things up my sleeve, just WAIT!) It is because of that and the big man upstairs who is holding me tight in his arms that I will start today with a smile and end it with peaceful thoughts. I will continue giving of myself, my time and my resources in order to make other people's lives better because that is what makes me happiest. I will never allow the negative things to overcome the positives and always keep that peace in my heart. I am not perfect in my own eyes, I make mistakes every single day but I know there is one set of eyes that sees no flaws in me but merely the road I travel each day leading me to my destiny and that keeps happy in my heart with all that I do and experience even when my exterior shows frustration and pain.

I will end this post with something funny because I am NOT serious all of the time, ANYONE who knows me in person or online knows that and I am feeling a bit too Hallmark right now. I found this a few months ago and decided to save it for this post. Andy Rooney sure was a funny guy!

ANDY ROONEY ON WOMEN OVER 40

"As I grow in age, I value women over 40 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:

A woman over 40 will never wake you in the middle of the night and ask, 'What are you thinking?' She doesn't care what you think. If a woman over 40 doesn't want to watch the game, she doesn't sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do, and it's usually more interesting. Women over 40 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won't hesitate to shoot you if they think they can get away with it. Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it's like to be unappreciated. Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 40. Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 40 is far sexier than her younger counterpart. Older women are forthright and honest. They'll tell you right off if you are a jerk if you are acting like one. You don't ever have to wonder where you stand with her. Yes, we praise women over 40 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it's not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed, hot woman over 40, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of his self with some 22-year old waitress. Ladies, I apologize.

I love you all, thank you for reading and thank you for all of the birthday love. 

xoxo

~Shells~

THIS IS 40!

For my birthday all I want is for you to smile, share this in order to make someone else smile and go hug a tree or something ;)