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The Many Faces

What Human are You Being?

You have the opportunity to change the face you may have misrepresented during a bad moment through awareness, understanding, honesty and atonement but are you up to that task?

Do you have the personal honesty to acknowledge and take ownership of an action that that didn’t display the best side of you and the courage to admit a wrong?

They say “you never get a 2^nd chance to make a 1^st impression” but what about impressions that come along well after that? While you may have made a great 1^st impression if you can’t keep the integrity flowing it’s going to be difficult and tiring just trying to keep up appearances.

How others treat you is their karma, how you react is yours – Wayne Dyer

Your reaction to adversity is going to be the best look at who you are as a person for others and the best insight for you on how to change it. By developing your awareness through observation of your own reactions or overreactions you will learn how to control and prevent them from affecting your life negatively.

Allow the human and spirit that reside within you to commune often, it is very necessary and important to promote the growth of this bond. Their common ground will provide and enhance peace, balance and harmony within which is an essential part of your being.

Connection is not unique to one aspect of life it is the foundation of all aspects of life so that they can work together harmoniously. Connecting with others will help to build your relations with them into whatever direction you desire. Connecting with your spirit will enhance and empower your human life toward the destiny it has always been meant for.

Finding your way when you don’t know where to look or begin can be a daunting thought and I’ve found that it begins with connection:

Be Still: Quieting the mind is the best way to find the answers you seek to specific issues or problems that arise in your life. There is a lot to be said for the quiet, it allows you to hear the solution more clearly than you would ever expect. It also allows your spirit and inner voice a platform to be heard, to be acknowledged and to be embraced. Your spirit has only one purpose and that is to guide you into your best life.

Be Alert: Awareness of how you affect others is the spirit assistant in your life poking you in the side and saying “that’s not right!”, and being tuned into that is very important. When you open yourself up to that awareness you allow other emotions to feed and fuel your inner knowledge and outer behaviour so that the two can work together and balance each other so you don’t dip too far on the either side of the scale.

Be Conscious: It’s really important to be present in the moments that matter. There’s no measurement of importance, if you can’t spare a moment of space for someone else then don’t pretend to. When you are consciously aware of your actions, overreactions or inactions I think you will find that you become more aware of how others respond and that awareness will ultimately change your interactions for a more positive trend.

You get in life what you prepare and make room for and there are internal and external aspects that can either enhance or inhibit the abundance you seek. You could end up blocking the space you created for your abundance just by having an attitude that isn’t in alignment with what you are making room for. It’s not just about making the room but also adapting your lifestyle and attitude to be consistent with what you envision.

If you are holding onto anything negative (anger, grudge, resentment, spite, etc.) they will all block that room from ever being filled with your dreams and the more you embrace them the further you get off your path until one day you find you don’t recognize where you are.

Success isn’t just about achieving something but achieving it with integrity and not stepping on anyone along the way. When I envision anything in my future it always contains a level of happiness, peace and balance but if my attitude now doesn’t contain those aspects then I won’t be in alignment for what I seek to come into my life until that changes. Karma has a way of balancing the scales.

Life at times can be difficult and there may be times where you end up blocking yourself simply because a day, week or month has worn itself on you for too long and brought you down but bringing yourself back to connection can lift the heaviness of that adversity and light the sky so you can see again where you need to be.

Got Humor?

08 May

Keeping It Real

Don’t take life too seriously! Humor is an essential part of keeping yourself in check and preventing your ego from getting away from you. Being able to laugh with others and at yourself can spread joy and make even the grumpiest person smile.

Laughter can be contagious even if you didn’t hear the joke. When I was 10 years old my classroom teacher had made the decision to test the laughing theory only we (his students) had no idea of his plan. We walked in after lunch period and he was roaring hysterically, slapping his hand on the desks and acting like he couldn’t possibly contain it. None of us had a clue why but he kept it up and soon all of us (the entire class) were also roaring hysterically and then all of a sudden he stopped on a dime and asked us “why are you laughing?”. It took all of us a moment to settle ourselves down from the laughter but of course we had no idea why. One of the kids in the class said that they were laughing at the sounds of his laughter and his actions and everyone in the class had agreed that was also their experience.

It’s strange to me that even though that experience doesn’t sound so significant, it actually was. I think it was the fact that even though we all had no idea what the joke was we felt compelled to laugh and share in the joy, he was teaching us and we didn’t know it.

I think we all need and want joy and happiness in our lives and it’s important to maintain some form of silliness in at least one area of your life no matter what age you are because that’s what keeps us young in spirit.

Life can be so overwhelming, challenging and demanding at times and those times can take a toll on the health of your spirit but I believe that laughter can alleviate those wounds or scars, even if it’s only momentarily, sometimes that can be enough.

One night I caught a blurb on the local news about a new class that people were taking up, similar to a yoga class, but they would gather to laugh together, joyous, crazy, out there laughing. The people they interviewed said they felt it helped to alleviate their stress and kept them young. I agree and I think that it’s an outlet, similar to exercising, competitive sports or a spa day. All of these things can alleviate the daily stresses that life builds up and I think that laughter is a very valuable tool and asset that we have at our disposal and probably the easiest on our system to access. I’ve played a number of different sports all my life and the injuries that can occur are more likely with sports then just plain laughter. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone actually “pulling their abdominals” because they were laughing too hard.

In addition to the joy of sharing in laughter with others, it is also very beneficial to have a healthy ability to laugh at your own foibles. When you are able to do that it helps to alleviate the pressure and reduce the expectations you may put on yourself. There’s nothing worse than holding yourself to measure up to your own standards, chances are they are higher than any standard you hold for anyone else, at least mine have always been. Being able to laugh at myself has helped me to let go of my mistakes so I can learn that they are just mistakes and not failures. I used to view an expectation that didn’t go the way I had wanted as a result in failure and that’s not necessarily the best way to view it. My humor, which is a form of the word humility has allowed me to put things in the perspective they should be in and to laugh when things are just plain funny.

The first line of one of my favorite quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson is “To laugh often and much” and that’s something we should all do to maintain a healthy balance.

4 Comments

Posted by shelleyhallmark on May 8, 2013 in Blog

Tags: body, happiness, humor, joy, keeping it real, laughing at yourself, laughter, laughter is the best medicine, mind, sense of humor, spirit

What is More Important?

17 Apr

Being Right or Being Happy

In my opinion being right is not worth jeopardizing being happy! It takes negative energy to hold on to the emotion that maintains the ego when it insists on “being right”. Negativity in any form is not time well spent and being right will never be as fulfilling as being happy.

I have been guilty myself of wasting my time feeding that emotion but thankfully I did not waste as much time as I could have because I value my happiness and positive state of being more than my ego.

I believe that the insistence of being right comes from a place of insecurity, feeling inadequate, invisible and invalidated. “Being right” brings a feeling of being in control, respected and admired, something that an insecure person is not likely to feel on any given day so the insistence of being right is very necessary not only to the ego but to the psyche and state of being. When someone feels invisible this may be the only validation they feel they have so it becomes very, very important. My wish for those that feel the negativity of insecurity is that someone in their life is able to open up their world so they can see that it is this emotion of insecurity that is inhibiting their happiness more than anything else.

It takes more energy to feed negative emotions then it does positive. All things negative feel heavy and draining, all things positive feel lighter and flow with ease, it is the resistance to the positive that drains the energy levels in our bodies and wears us out.

Have you ever noticed that when you have been resistant to something, regardless of whether you thought it was negative or positive, that it has been a draining experience just to fight it and when you run out of energy and give up, it’s like a weight has been lifted. The release of that weight is the “letting go” of the resistance and I have found that when I have recognized I’m resisting and allow myself to “let go” I have later asked myself “why didn’t I realize this earlier? I could have saved myself all the heartache that went with resisting.”

I have found it quite educational to observe how different each of us are, how that difference affects how we interact with each other and how that interaction reflects on each of us. My observation of people that have insecurity is that they desire attention but that their behaviour and the way they interact usually offends others which has the opposite effect of what they desire.

I’ve observed people that are confident and have great social interaction with others and it seems obvious that the reason for these qualities they possess is because they are more concerned with being happy than being noticed. When they communicate with others it is because they enjoy the social interaction and are interested in what others have to say.

I’ve observed people that are in between these two ends of the spectrum and I’ve found that I’ve learned something from everyone that has crossed my path.

The one thing we all have in common is that we are all trying our best with what we know to navigate our way through the tests, the lessons, the joys and the blessings, and if we are lucky we come out of each with more knowledge and appreciation then we went in with.

2 Comments

Posted by shelleyhallmark on April 17, 2013 in Blog

Tags: appreciation, being happy, being right, communication, ego, emotions, happiness, insecurity, resistance

The Road Less Travelled

13 Mar

Is Usually the Easiest Path

The only thing is, it’s so easy that it can feel too good to be true and too easy to be right! Are you searching to find your happiness or naturally allowing it to happen?

Allowing it to happen naturally is usually the road less travelled because it’s well-known that hard work presents the greatest rewards and while that is true, you also need to be open to allow the fruits of your labour to flourish.

The natural embrace of allowing things to occur creates a variety of opportunities that you might not have otherwise seen because you were too focused on controlling the outcome. Being in control of your life is good but like everything variety is a necessity and too much control can diminish the element of surprise and opportunity.

When searching to find your happiness it can seem at times like things just aren’t going the way you want them and that’s because rather than trying to forcefully steer your ship against the current, you sometimes need to go with it and find the openings and opportunities along the way. Like a give and go, you advance when the opening comes and hang back when it’s time to strategize for the next leg of the journey.

I have had difficulty at times because I am a “get it done now” type of person, when I know what I want I go in that direction and patience can be my opposition. It’s difficult for me to rein it in and allow things to occur as they should because I know that ultimately the universe knows best and knows when the right time is for change to occur. I do trust that but find that I have to remind myself constantly to have faith, pay attention to the signs and watch for the opportunities because they will come, hope guides me.

“When you follow your bliss doors will open where there were no doors before and where there are no doors for anyone else” – Joseph Campbell

My perspective on this quote is that no opportunity presented behind the door will be the same for any other individual. We are all unique, no two people experience any one thing the same emotionally and our emotion is what connects us to others and helps us to determine what we like and don’t like, which in turn determines which direction we choose to go. If you are following your bliss (allowing things to occur naturally) then you are more likely to be opening those doors. If you are too focused on controlling where you want to go (searching for your happiness) then you may not even see the door of opportunity when it presents itself because you are closed off and going in one focused direction.

When you follow your bliss rather than search for it you aren’t forcing it and that is what opens up all the doors that you seek. It is that relaxed state of being that creates the moments, the opportunities, the gifts and the happiness, like the phrase “good things come to those who wait”. It doesn’t mean do nothing and wait for it, it means plant your seeds and wait for them blossom.

If you want something positive to happen in your life you first must be open to letting it in.

2 Comments

Posted by shelleyhallmark on March 13, 2013 in Blog

Tags: change, follow your bliss, good things come to those who wait, happiness, hope guides me, opening doors, opportunity, plant your seeds of hope, positive, the road less travelled

Merry Christmas!

25 Dec

Best Wishes to All for a Very Happy Holiday Season!

Peace, Health & Happiness

Happiness – Does it Define Your Real Age?

20 Nov

Good Relationships, Good Health

I love this concept! I believe, if you have happy and healthy relationships you are likely to feel much more energized and inspired which will be reflected in your overall health and appearance. What you exude (negative or positive) will be clearly displayed in your interactions with others and I believe that affects how we age. I’ve known people that have physically looked younger or older than they actually are and I’ve noticed that the common thread amongst those that looked younger is they all have some form (if not many) of positive output, a happiness within one or many areas of their life. It is the same for those that look older except that the output is negative and also in one or many areas of their life. Both states of being have a distinctive effect on your overall appearance and that can change the perception of your biological age to either end of the scale. In a world where we are encouraged to strive to maintain a healthy and youthful appearance, this to me would be the least invasive on our wallets and our health. I don’t believe in any way that it’s necessary to alter our real selves to meet any standard other than what you yourself desire and makes you feel good. I do believe that if you’re not happy within it won’t matter how much you alter on the outside because the two won’t match and any inner conflict will still be there.

When we are either happy or sad it affects our health, sometimes mildly, sometimes in a more significant way. I’m rarely negative, it just doesn’t fit and I can’t adapt to it, but on the days when I’m feeling low I find that the mirror isn’t as friendly and the reflection seems a little older than the days when I’m feeling happier, positive and upbeat.

It’s been said that our kids keep us young and I think that’s because even though they drain us (physically or emotionally) from time to time they are still little gifts of inspiration that we have been blessed with. So along that same line, our friends and relationships can also help to keep us younger but I do believe that those relationships need to be healthy and equal. Not everyone around me is a perfect fit for me but the ones that matter the most are and they are the ones that fuel my inspiration, hope and faith.

In turn when you are the one fueling others inspiration, hope and faith you will also benefit because the feelings that you are creating in others are also created within you which then stimulates your inner happiness, it’s like a massage from the inside out and it gets all the juices flowing. That increase elevates your energy and mood and when you’re feeling good, you look good.

Check out this definition I googled for Happiness (Number 3), unbeknownst to me at that time, when my daughter was born I named her Felicity. She’s definitely plays the most prominent role in my happiness!

Definition of HAPPINESS:

Good fortune – obsolete, prosperity.
Joy, a state of well-being or contentment, a pleasurable or happy experience.
Felicity, Aptness

So if you are a good friend to others and generate an overall positive attitude you are likely to have an overall younger appearance, in my opinion that’s a great anti-aging solution.

Think Positive, Be Happy

18 Sep

Blue Sky’s Ahead!

Find the silver lining, it’s always there, sometimes you just have to change your view. Just like looking through a kaleidoscope, it’s constantly changing and although every turn is a new design and different colors, the beauty is in how you view it.

Not everything is as bleak as it seems, it’s all a matter of perception. I’ve had my moments of not being able to see out of the dark hole I’ve dug myself into because I thought that I had no way out but that was just the illusion I created because I allowed negativity in. When I take a step back and insist to myself that, “I am going to find the silver lining”, it starts to appear. A good tool I’ve used is the pros and cons list, once you place in your mind that you are committed to looking for a positive outcome you will find it and chances are you will find more than one good idea on your pros list. Even though you may have more cons than pros at first, at least you’ve discovered that the options equal a way out.

I know that at times it can be easier said than done, negativity is definitely a tough rut when you are in it but it is essential to your well-being that you find a way to pull yourself out, in my mind negativity is the equivalent to catching a cold or the flu. Sometimes the negativity cold is mild and goes away in a few days, sometimes the negativity flu lasts a couple of weeks and then you are able to shake it, but sometimes it becomes more substantial and attaches itself like a cyst to your insides. This is when you have to fight it with everything you’ve got to kick it out of your system, the reason you feel so terrible when negativity has got a hold on you is because it is a sickness and you can’t allow it to stay in your system.

Like I said my first line of defense is the pros and cons list, once I’ve done that I start to progress each of the pros options and gravitate in that direction. The negativity cannot survive in my positive mindset, it will continue to try to invade my positive mind but as long as I remain strong and keep exploring the pros options it will have no chance except to leave. It may come back every once in a while but since I’ve developed a process that works for me, it won’t be able to sustain itself.

In progression from the pros and cons list is my use of a vision board to provide me with the daily visualization of my road of positivity. The vision board coupled with the written options helps my mind to easily see the future unfold as I desire. I don’t necessarily need to carry around an actual vision board, placing it somewhere that I can see it on a daily basis is enough, although you could also use a notepad and have the visualizations in there and carry that around with you, it may provide you with a stronger sense of positive direction. At first when I started trying this I did the list and the vision board and I knew that I had the right intentions but I realized that my actions didn’t match them. I couldn’t just sit around waiting for my life to pick up, I actually needed to make a plan and follow the steps that take me in that direction toward my desired outcome. It was like I was waiting for Ed McMahon to just come to my door and tell me I’ve won the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes when I didn’t even enter. It doesn’t work that way!

Simply stated: If you’re going to talk the talk, you need to walk the walk!

Negativity gets in much like that of a cold, when your immune system is low due to little sleep and/or being run down you can easily catch a cold. The same goes for negativity, it gets in when you’ve had a bad day or bad encounter with someone, either scenario provides the opening that negativity needs to flourish, the question is are you going to fan the flames or smother it.

The biggest and most important factor within all of this is the conscious choice to choose happy, choose the positive and stay strong in that choice. Don’t allow anyone to have any power over your positivity, happiness or your direction in life.

3 Comments

Posted by shelleyhallmark on September 18, 2012 in Blog

Tags: choose happy, happiness, intention, positive thinking, pros and cons, silver lining, stay strong, think positive, vision board, visualization

Enhancing the Faith

08 May

Another Level of Contentment

I thought that I had found my fullest form of Contentment when I finished writing my 1^st book “Finding the Balance” but as it turns out I had only just stepped onto that path. When I finished it I felt a certain level of contentment, the key word here is level, something I have come to understand and recognize after some time has passed. When it comes to personal growth the period of time it takes is different for everyone because of our individuality and because we all learn in our own time. What I should have considered is that with all areas of learning there are many levels and varying degrees and I had only thought I reached full contentment because I felt more empowered, engaged and aware. Little did I know that there was much more, much better to come.

I now know that what I had experienced then was a level of contentment because I now feel that I have moved to another level. The only way I can describe this level is – it feels to be an unshakable faith in myself, where I am, where I’m going and that all things will occur as they are destined to along the way. This level of contentment reinforces my belief that everything (positive and negative) happens for a reason. Both are meant to teach and bring us to a higher level of ourselves and without them we may remain stuck in a never ending cycle of frustration and confusion.

If I allow the little things to bother me along the way I am allowing my ego to inhibit my own growth cycle and that is not something I want to do in any way. Of course there are still times when something I did not expect occurs but my reactive behavior to these unexpected occurrences is starting to adopt a more negotiable mind and I am approaching things from a far more relaxed state of being. I’m not entirely sure if this is something that comes with age, experience, time or all of these but I welcome it because it’s providing me with such a unique, profound and irreplaceable form of happiness. Within this level I have also discovered a greater passion, a greater reason and a greater experience within my purpose.

Part of the change is my focus and where I am directing my attention to and where I’m taking it away from. I’m directing more towards where I want to go, what I want to achieve, how I want to get there and what I want to project along the way.

I’m retracting it from the trivial areas, areas that my ego contributes to. We all have an ego, the hardest thing to do, at times, is to keep that ego in check. It can divert our minds into focusing on things that shouldn’t really bother us. I think we’ve all had one of those days when we got dragged down to a level of communication and behavior that we later regret, that’s our ego winning the battle. It can wreak havoc within our lives when we allow it to carry our thoughts away from the bigger picture.

This really is something that comes from within and I’ve found that in everything I do and commit to if my subconscious isn’t in it 100% then I won’t succeed. I wish I could offer a “one size fits all” process that would help everyone to get to their own “greater meaning of their life”. My own journey to has had its share of ups and downs along the way but knowing how far I’ve come and having faith that there is so much more on the way makes it entirely worth it.

There is a quiet strength and resilience hidden with the state of Contentment. My personal peace and happiness have become the most important state of being that I covet.

1 Comment

Posted by shelleyhallmark on May 8, 2012 in Blog

Tags: aware, contentment, ego, empowered, everything happens for a reason, faith, focus, great meaning of life, happiness, higer self, passion, peace, personal growth, purpose, state of being, subconscious

Shelley Hallmark