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

                                                   

                               

                                                          

I HOPE THAT YOU WILL:

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I Bought Him a Coke and Got a Smile

Yesterday ranked in my top 10 of all days; it was a day that left me with a cement smile and a wonderfully euphoric high even after only having 3 hours of sleep the night before. It began with 4 wonderfully creative hours with Randy Van Duinen and Lee Burgess, two of my photographer clients and Martin Gudz, President of the Florida Professional Photographers Association. It was an incredible day of photography magic and a ton of fun that ended with Martin being so impressed with my talents that he asked me to speak at next years photography convention. I was blown away and incredibly honored as I accepted the invitation.

When I arrived home, I kissed my kiddos and sat down to check my email. I received a message in my inbox that I had been waiting for. It revealed GREAT news about the new book which I am currently writing for photographers. This email was the game-changer of a lifetime and quite frankly... I can hardly believe it. Needless to say, the smiles and happy emotions were swirling around inside of me so strongly that it was beaming through my chest like a beacon in the night.

I quickly packed for a weekend trip to Orlando and left the house in terrific spirits. Little did I know that my quick stop at the bank would allow me to pass this feeling of joy on to someone in need, but it did. As I was waiting in the line for the drive up ATM to make my weekly after-hours deposit, I heard a man screaming angrily but could not see where it was coming from. As I turned my head around to see if I could figure it out I saw a disheveled young man... probably in his twenties frantically roaming the parking lot of the Walgreen's next door. He was randomly going up to people and as words were exchanged he would walk away shouting as he ran his hands through his sweaty hair. My initial thought was that he must be mentally disturbed and perhaps dangerous as I am sure many would have thought, but as I sat there listening to my favorite Christian radio station.. my thoughts quickly changed. After completing my transaction at the ATM, I drove towards this young man, now sitting with his head in his hands on the curb. I stopped, rolled down my window and asked if he was okay. He said, "Ma'am, I am just so hungry.... I have not had anything to eat in 3 days, and I have nowhere to stay." He was sweating profusely, as the heat outside was tremendous. I said... "I can't give you a place to stay, but what would you like to eat?" He smiled and said, if you could just get me a Coke... that would be great. I told him I would be right back.

I walked into Walgreen's and grabbed a Coke... then loaded up on various hearty snacks packed with protein such as nuts granola bars and checked out getting $10 cash back at the register. With a smile, I walked out of the store and walked right up to the young man as I said... "Nobody should go hungry, here are some snacks for you and also $10 for dinner, DON'T buy alcohol or drugs with this money do you hear me?" A smile came upon his face and a tear came to his eye as he said "Ma'am, thank you SO much, and don't worry, I will buy dinner, I promise." I looked him right in the eyes, smiled and said "you better not" and walked back to my car. A beautiful African American lady that witnessed my kind gesture looked at me as I got into my car and said... "May God bless you lady." I said back to her... "Thank you... He already has." When I looked in my rear view mirror, that young man was devouring what I bought him; and I was left with a whole new meaning to the phrase  Have a Coke and a Smile.

This is what I want you to take away....

 We have become a society that turns our back on our own people, I wonder how many people turned this guy down thinking what I had initially thought. My earlier years of struggle has not only changed who I am, it changed how I look at things and the situations of others. Maybe this guy was crazy... but if I don't eat for 8 hours I turn into a nut myself. 3 days without food? Can you EVEN imagine? I ask that you stop judging situations with a fearful eye; start looking at them with empathy and compassion and perhaps put yourself in that situation. My euphoria continued as I drove to Orlando and I felt something amazing stirring inside of me, I want you to feel that feeling too someday!

Have a GREAT weekend! It's time for me to make a bride and her maids beautiful!!!

XOXO 

Shells!

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Doing What's Right....

First of all I want to say that I am sorry for skipping out on  my weekend blog... I had SO much to do as I got ready for a ten day business trip and by the end of Friday my brain was fried... it was worse on Saturday and Sunday it was burnt toast. I am honestly exhausted now too. I have been in a plane all day minus one stop in Houston where I had an unexpected 2 hour delay (which I took FULL advantage of) However, now that I am in San Jose in my cozy room at my friend Shellie's house, I figured I would write this quick Monday blog to start your week off  regardless of the fact that I am on a 3-hour time difference and should TOTALLY be in bed right now. Something pretty great happened to me today and even though I shared the story on my Facebook page  <

As always, just another day in the life of Shells was not just an ordinary day...

Scene: I was at the Tampa airport this morning in a ridonkulous line at security... an over 60 lady traveling with her grandson looking disheveled is frantic on the verge of tears because she may miss her flight. She expresses her concern to a TSA associate and she gets a rude reply, "get in line." As she stands there with a blank look, physically upset, some people around her are rolling their eyes, some are staying quiet and some you can hear whispering that they feel bad for her. After about 20 minutes later, I get within ear reach of the TSA guy checking boarding passes and id's and ask if I can let her cut in line ahead of me and about 30 other people. He says "if you ask everyone and they say okay" So I yell out  "does anyone care if I let this lady cut in line so she doesn't miss her flight? Does anyone care?" Nobody speaks so I allow her through and people ahead of me follow my lead, she caught her flight. Several people applauded me and the TSA guy said that was the kindest thing he had ever seen. It honestly made my day. ‪

As I sat at my gate with plenty of time to kill, I reflected on what had just happened and wondered why nobody spoke up before me. I know I was not the only one who felt the way I was feeling. She looked at me with the saddest most confused eyes I think I had ever seen after I made eye contact with her and asked, "are you going to miss your flight?" Might I add that she was not close to me in line at all. I just had to do something and quite frankly, I don't know how nobody else didn't. Have we gotten so selfish, so caught up in our own pursuit of happiness and fulfillment that we have truly forgotten what it is like to do something nice, something selfless for someone else? Are we honestly so self righteous and judgemental that we have to turn our heads and cover our ears or simply be rude to people when they are in need? C'mon people, can't you see how messed up that is? What if YOU were the one in need?

As you continue your week I ask one favor of you... do something selfless for a complete stranger and watch how good it makes you feel. Get caught doing something good for someone else and you may just find that happiness inside that you keep trying to find by buying things and having a "someone" in your life. You find peace through others.... not with others. The pursuit of  true happiness ends with making who YOU are inside better.

#BE DIFFERENT #BE UNIQUE #SPEAKOUT #SPEAKUP  #BE HUMAN

xoxo

~Shells~ 

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