One of the biggest mistakes people make...

[shelley]

is when discerning someone's level of intelligence.

When I was bitter, cynical, and very serious all the time, I was accorded with all kinds of respect for high intelligence by everyone I met. Their first impression of me was that I just had to be a very smart person. And of course I did not disappoint, so they were glad to be right and kept on assuming anyone acting like me was smart.

Isn't that odd? I mean, what do we all want? What are we all looking for? Happiness. Joy. A lightness of being.

Then I dumped tons of emotional baggage, got a larger perspective of things, and became an optimist once again. I became bubbly, laughing quickly and easily. Suddenly, people were telling me that their first impression of me was that I was a total airhead, and they were surprised by the intelligent things that came out of my mouth, glad to know that I was in fact quite intelligent after all. How's that for a left-handed compliment? LOL!

I know lots of people who really don't know all that much, they're just serious and miserable, who are assumed to have high intelligence quotients and listened to with great respect. Their advice is sought out and valued. And these people are not happy. They have not found happiness, they have not decided to be happy, so how smart can they be really?

In fairy tales it is the dimwitted, smiling fool who finds the elixer that will heal the princess, while his smart but rude brothers get stuck in a canyon. Take a lesson from this.

It's smart to be happy.

[seraph69]

Another question out of curiousity, when and how did you dump all emotional baggage? Was it through Map, and was it just by chance* so called chance that is that you met people to help you along the way to grow?

[shelley]

It took lots of work! from bodywork like Rolfing and Chiropractic to release what I had stored; MAP and Flower Essences; facing all my fears; trying something new as often as possible; learning how the nervous system and brain works and how emotions fit into that...

But mostly it was due to reading Kryon. Kryon gives you the "big picture" and lets you see that things are NOT as you think they are. That allows you to reassess everything from a very broad perspective. A broad perspective means less emotional involvement. I gave intent to give up drama, be more neutral, and things just started shedding. The spiritual process is mostly one of subtracting, cutting away the excess and getting down to the core of things. When you do that, life is bliss.

[Amelie]

Shelley, the same thing happened to me regarding the intelligence thing. I am by nature very jovial person, I laugh frequently and on a bunch of different topics. I actually had to learn to be more serious when coming to my professional job because I was getting unappreciative looks from people. Doesn't help that i'm young, female with a nice figure and blonde hair...people assume you're even more of an airhead. So I actually dyed my hair brown and started joking and smiling less and guess what...people here will talk to me more and not ignore me during meetings, etc.

Its sad the way the world works...

[shelley]

Oh my, I can't imagine having to deal with people's blond assumptions! I'm so thankful I'm a brunette! LOL!

One celebrity I've always adored is Dolly Parton. She says outright that she puts herself out there as this stereotype so that she doesn't have to waste any time on shallow people. Real people can see past the big hair and big boobs and see that's she really very cool.

[Guest]

Me too! I think she is too cool for school.