Author Archives: admin

Protect Yourself from Burnout

Posted on by
calm african american woman resting on pillow to deal with burnout
Photo by Muhammadtaha Ibrahim Ma’aji on Pexels.com

By Books Writer Denise Turney

Burnout is on the rise. Even if you’ve heard about it on the news, you might not know you’re nearing exhaustion. Surprisingly, as bad as it feels, burnout can sneak up on you. To begin, there’s the seasonal change adjustments that you may be experiencing, depending on the part of the world you live in. These seasonal changes can zap your energy. With the autumn seasonal change comes less sunlight, cooler temperatures and more time spent indoors.

Reaching Burnout Point

Exposure to less sunlight can cause drops in serotonin, a natural mood booster. Low serotonin could bring on depression, Healthline shares. Also, getting outdoors is a good way to soak up natural vitamin D from the sun. In addition to being good for bones, vitamin D may also help with mental focus and mood. Days with less sunlight might make it easier to reach a burnout point.

Furthermore, if you’re challenged with seasonal affective disorder, you already know how tough it can be to shift gears. You might not know what’s happening to you yet, although you’ve felt sluggish and less energetic at the start of autumn for years. Despite your efforts to push through the sluggishness and lower energy levels, this nagging fatigue remains.

This could happen whether you’re a resilient practitioner, a frontline worker whose empathy and compassion are sought by those battling illness, including COVID-19. It could also happen if you’re a new mom or an experienced mother dealing with motherhood burnout. Fortunately, there is help. It is possible to become someone who has survived burnout.

Surviving Burnout

A first step toward surviving burnout and overcoming the challenge is to recognize signs of burnout. This includes work stress symptoms. To start surviving burnout, check out these symptoms. Although the list is not all inclusive, it could signal to you that it’s time to take action. After you review the burnout symptoms, keep reading to learn about treatment.

  • Lack of or diminished motivation (especially if there’s seemingly no cause for the lower motivation)
  • Regular fatigue (the fatigue may not be constant – but regular enough to get your attention)
  • Exhaustion
  • Experiencing irritability, impatience and cynicism
  • Frequently strained relationships
  • Seeking food or drinks to fill perceived inner voids
  • Turning to food or beverages to lift mood
  • Poor sleeping patterns
  • Difficulty staying mentally focused
  • Forgetfulness
  • Increased body aches (which may be caused by higher levels of cortisol)
  • Sudden, unexplained weight gain or weight loss

Additionally, work stress burnout could find you constantly checking emails. As much as you may want to unplug, you could shift into workaholic mode. This could keep the cycle going.

More Signs You Need to Take Action to Protect Yourself from Burnout

According to the Mayo Clinic, other signs you may be reaching burnout point, especially at work, include:

  • Being overly critical of yourself or others at work
  • Feeling disillusioned about the work you do
  • Headaches
  • Stomachaches
  • Feeling that you have a lack of input or control over your work life

Of course, in addition to these systems, you might experience general burnout systems. Regardless of why you are experiencing burnout, it’s important to acknowledge that something has changed.

As a tip, try to do this without blaming yourself or someone else. Tempting as it may seem, blame doesn’t solve problems. In fact, it could leave you feeling disempowered. Therefore, if you’ve reached your burnout point, acknowledge that you have.

Help For Burnout

And seek help. You could work with a burnout recovery coach. Other actions that may help with surviving and overcoming burnout include:

  • Meditating
  • Walking in nature (in safe environments)
  • Talking face-to-face with a friend
  • Setting a time to unplug from work, social media, etc.
  • Turning off the news
  • Getting adequate sleep
  • Listening to relaxing music that you love
  • Reading books that help you to unplug and relax
  • Writing in a journal
  • Flexing your creative muscles while adding color to the pages of an adult coloring book

Take the supportive action that feels right for you.

Furthermore, you may sleep better if you go to bed at a set time. You may also find it beneficial to wear a fitness watch to bed. This way, you could track how much deep sleep you’re getting at night.

Ways to Protect Yourself from Burnout

And, if you’re having trouble getting or staying asleep, you could stop drinking water an hour or more before you head to bed. You could also try sitting down and relaxing for an hour before you go to bed. Should there be something on your mind, try jotting down a note on what you’re going to do to deal with the issue in the morning. Then, release the issue and relax.

Here are more ways that you could start surviving burnout. To get good results, you may have to incorporate two or more activities into your day. For example, if you deal with seasonal affective disorder, you might use a full spectrum lamp, walk outside for an hour a day and meditate for 5 to 10 minutes before you go to bed.

Practicing awareness could help you to spot your personal burnout, the secret to unlocking the stress cycle. For instance, you may find that you start nearing your burnout point at the beginning of certain seasonal changes. Or you might notice that, for you, the stress cycle that can lead to burnout starts after you take on a major project or commit to leading a big family event.

Moving Beyond Burnout

Caring for a loved one for 30 or more days without a full day’s break, could be another way the stress cycle kicks off for you. Try to catch yourself early. Spot stressors and signs that you’re headed in the wrong direction early. In other words, get to know yourself.

Consider taking vitamin D if you live in an area with low sunlight. Check with your physician to see if that may be a viable solution. Also, pay attention to when you feel more stressed. For instance, do you feel more stressed in the morning or in the evening? Are you feeling more burned out during certain work cycles on your job?

In the remote work from home environment, you may find it helpful to step away from some Zoom meetings. That way, you won’t feel forced to sit in front of a computer screen for hours. For example, you could ask your supervisor if it’s okay if you dial into a meeting instead of using video to connect to the conference call.

And seek help if needed. If you work for an employer, check with human resources to see if there’s free counseling offered by the firm. Other options include joining a support group. Also, be patient with yourself. It may have taken months to become burned out. Give yourself love, care and the time to bounce back and move beyond burnout.

Trust the Process to Live Your Best Life

Posted on by

By African American Author Denise Turney

lighthouse offering light by water as part of trust the process
Photo by Anand Dandekar on Pexels.com

Examine your beliefs to live your best life. Beliefs benefit or hinder. In this world, what beliefs don’t do is go away. In fact, wise thoughts may be the greatest investments you can make. Plainly stated, beliefs are thoughts that have been repeated so often you perceive the thoughts to be true, as if they are fact, as if they cannot be examined or changed.

Notice Beliefs that Hinder Your Ability to Live Your Best Life

Of course, it’s your own beliefs that impact you most. As simple as this sounds, it’s not always easy to accept. It’s so much easier to blame feeling stuck, confused or frustrated on another person’s choices, another person’s beliefs.

Based on personal experience, one way out of this trap is to start paying attention to what’s happening around you. This isn’t a tactic to recall every unwanted experience that you have. Instead, it’s an exercise to see how your thoughts, especially your beliefs, link up to your experiences.

And it may take months before you start to see the links. You may not want to hear this. But it could be even longer before you accept the experiences that your thoughts, your beliefs, are making. Please be patient with yourself. It can take a while to get off track, and sometimes just as long to get back on track.

Patience, Acceptance and Awareness Pay Off

So, be patient with yourself. The process is worth it.

Before you start paying attention to what’s happening and how it links to your beliefs, it’s important to know that you don’t have to believe your thoughts create your reality for your thoughts to work, creating desired and undesired experiences for you. In fact, you may have invested in beliefs that you are incomplete, incompetent or, in some other way lacking, without realizing it.

Those beliefs are working beneath the surface. They are creating experiences for you. That’s why it’s important to pay attention so, you can spot thoughts that need changing.

Searching for someone else to blame won’t change your thoughts. Your parents, grandparents, teachers and neighbors may have called you names and told you what you were and were not capable of. But if someone called you a dog that doesn’t mean that you’d bark.

Live Your Best Life Root Experiences

Why? You know you’re not a dog. And you’ve never believed or thought you were a dog. So, you don’t behave like a dog.

Which again shows that your thoughts and beliefs are churning out experiences for you. Those erroneous beliefs can make blocks of doubt, fear and resistance in your thought system. Before you know it, you’ve convinced yourself that you cannot do or have certain experiences. You’ve created inner resistance.

But, once you commit to change, you’ll start spotting the thought/experience links. And you’ll start accepting thoughts you need to stop and replace. After a while, you may see that the world is like an enormous classroom. Trust the process.

Trust The Process

As it regards trusting the process, Mulukan may know this as well as anyone and perhaps better than most. After all, Mulukan was born into a level of poverty that most will never deal with. By the world’s standards, Mulukan really should give up. But she keeps going.

And so should you. Stay open. Pay attention. Try different approaches. Follow inner promptings. Trust the process. And, trust that you really can and will examine erroneous beliefs until you see that they are illusions, until you decide to let them go into the nothingness that they came from. Illusions gone, all that remains is reality, all that remains is truth. And yours is an amazing truth – you’ll see.

You can read about Mulukan’s story in the book Long Walk Up.

Classic Fictional Breast Cancer Memoir Offers Hope

Posted on by

By African American Author Denise Turney

hands holding breast cancer pink paper ribbon
Photo by Ave Calvar Martinez on Pexels.com

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a time of reflection for so many women. For other women and men, Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a time of sadness, regret and faith. As tough as dealing with breast cancer can be, there is hope. To start, the hope of being a breast cancer survivor is greater today than it was years ago.

Breast Cancer Awareness

Point of fact, five-year breast cancer survivor rates are at 99% if the cancer is localized. Relative survival rates are 90%, according to the American Cancer Society. From 1975 thru 1980, the survival rate hovered below 80%. Clearly, there have been improvements. Even more, as of 2020, regional breast cancer survival rates are at 85%, while the survival rate for women with distant breast cancer is at 27%. In the case of localized breast cancer, the disease is confined to the breasts.

If the cancer is regional, that means that it has spread from the breasts to nearby areas or the lymph nodes. Distant breast cancer occurs when the cancer spreads to other distant parts of the body like the liver or bones. Survival statistics for women with inflammatory or triple negative breast cancer may differ.

Statistics aside, it can be scary to think that you might have breast cancer. Add in cultural factors and it’s understandable why some women might prefer to skip going to the doctor just to avoid being told they have breast cancer. It may feel safer, more comfortable during the early years, to roll the dice (even if that’s really not what a woman wants to do).

Breast Cancer Awareness and Culture

As it regards cultural factors, Sisters Network shares that, as of 2019, African American women with breast cancer have a 42% higher chance of transitioning from the disease than their European sisters. Hispanic women have a lower chance of getting breast cancer than African American women or women of European descent. In fact, Hispanic women have about a 9.8% chance of developing breast cancer.

Yet, mortality rates for Hispanic women with breast cancer is high. Also, as of 2015, cancer (all forms included) was the leading cause of death of Hispanics living in America. Asian women’s breast cancer incidence rates are on par with Hispanic women living in the United States.

However, Native American or indigenous American women have lower rates. Risks of getting the disease and having to work to become a breast cancer survivor for Native American women is about 7%. More information on cultural and racial breast cancer awareness statistics can be found at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Support Breast Cancer Awareness Discussion Groups

Whether you’re facing a breast cancer scare or have overcome gut wrenching challenges and become a breast cancer survivor, this is the month to celebrate. Even if you’ve received the unfortunate diagnosis, you now know where you have to focus your efforts to heal. And, if you are grieving the transition of a relative or friend due to breast cancer, you may be seeking understanding and support.

Hospitals and treatment centers host and sponsor breast cancer support groups. One of the greatest benefits that support group attendees receive is emotional support while dealing with a diagnosis, treatment and recovery. As a breast cancer survivor attending a support group, you might even develop a lifelong friendship with another group attendee. Check with local hospitals, treatment centers and libraries if you’re seeking a support group. Breast cancer awareness organizations may offer virtual support discussions as well. Get yourself the support that you need.

In addition to the above places, worship centers and community centers host breast cancer awareness events. These centers also host breast cancer awareness support groups. You may also find it helpful to wear breast cancer awareness bracelets or a breast cancer pink ribbon during October or throughout treatment. Reading a breast cancer memoir, including an uplifting fictional breast cancer memoir that’s rooted in real life events could also provide support.

Uplifting Fictional Breast Cancer Memoir

woman sitting on window reading book
Photo by Thought Catalog on Pexels.com

There are several breast cancer memoir books, nonfictional and fictional, that could offer support, inspiration and comfort during this trying time. Portia is one of those classic fictional breast cancer memoir books that has empowered and encouraged women and their families. Portia has inspired many readers.

A daughter gifted her mother with a copy of Portia. After reading the fictional breast cancer memoir, the woman’s mother decided to fight. She decided to live. That’s the impact that a book can have on a reader, especially if the story creates a deep emotional connection between a reader and a character.

And it’s this that happens with Portia. Named after the story’s main character, Portia tells the story of a successful Chicago defense attorney who, after months of domestic abuse, has accepted that she has enough value to walk free of an abusive relationship. The choice unbinds her, setting her free so she can meet the romantic love of her life while attending an annual newspaper Christmas party.

Getting Help You Need

As if a mean twist of fate, after she meets her true love, she discovers that she has breast cancer. To get through the diagnosis, treatments and possibility that her physical experience may get cut short, Portia leans on the love of her family, her soul mate and her faith. She also has a strong breast cancer awareness support system. For Portia, this all happens at a time when breast cancer survival odds aren’t good.

But Portia survives. And it is my hope and prayer that you or your loved one become a breast cancer survivor, someone who thrives, living her fullest life! Path there may involve more than medicine, rest and cancer treatments.

Love Yourself No Matter What

Here are actions you could take to reduce breast cancer risks or overcome the disease. If the actions appear like too much at first glance, consider adding two to three actions to your lifestyle each month. Do what feels right for you.

  • Get outdoors and exercise daily in a safe environment
  • Maintain a healthy weight
  • Introduce relaxation techniques (e.g. meditation, swimming, soaking in a scented bath) into your day
  • Addresses stressors, working to reduce and remove them
  • Eliminate alcohol from your diet
  • Perform self breasts exams
  • Get annual mammograms
  • Eat a healthy balanced diet of fresh fruit and vegetables

Even more, it’s important that you be patient with yourself. Be patient with yourself if you’re undergoing treatments. Also, accept that you may experience fear around the diagnosis, treatments and lifestyle changes for months, perhaps years. Yet, just like Portia’s story, yours can and deserves a marvelous finish.

Relationship Rescue – Learning To Trust Again

Posted on by

By African American Book Writer, Denise Turney

happy family smiling from relationship rescue
Photo by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels.com

All types of relationships, face-to-face and long-distance, can benefit from relationship rescue. Fear of rejection, fear of not being in control and especially fear of failure can be released after the rescue, a shift that centers the union on love. Barriers are replaced with hope, trust, care, patience, joy and love.

Learning to Trust Again as Part of a Relationship Rescue

For all of its rewards, love has barriers to get through, which is a reason why getting to a good relationship requires patience. Fact is, despite its benefits, love is viewed as weak. This belief presents a relationship barrier, whether you are seeking a friend or looking for a marriage partner.

It starts in childhood. Pre-teens push their mothers away when they go to hug them. “Don’t baby me. Don’t make me soft,” are demands children make of their mothers. At first glance, it appears sensible.

After all, the world isn’t going to baby, pamper or be soft on kids when they grow up. The world doesn’t coddle adults seeking relationship rescue with colleagues or couple’s therapy. In fact, even while undergoing relationship rescue, the world can feel like a gigantic foe that won’t stop swinging.

Getting off of this mean merry-go-round starts with introspection. It calls for the ongoing practice of self-love. And it requires learning to trust again. Actions that help you learn to trust again include:

  • Releasing the need to control
  • Letting go of the need to know everything

More About Relationship Rescue

Other actions that support learning to trust efforts are practicing forgiveness, accepting reality and grieving the loss of previous relationships. This includes family, friend and romantic relationships. For example, to release a former relationship, you could write your inner self a letter. In this letter, express your love for yourself. Also, share how you will be patient with yourself as you adjust to life without the previous relationship.

You might list specific ways that you will continue to work through grief. For instance, you might do three things a day that cause you to feel joy and peace. Listening to music that causes you to feel happiness and peace is one way. Meditating in a peaceful area and spending time in nature are other options. Additionally, you might stand in front of a mirror and say “I love you” to yourself in the morning and at night. This is important. Because believe it or not, loving yourself is key to any relationship rescue.

Even more, loving yourself is at the core of learning to trust again. And it’s this lesson that can make a relationship good. Yet, there’s still the belief that love is weak. In fact, men still get teased for “being in love”.

Made to be Loved

But if you get to know a man, you know better than to believe that men don’t want deep love, affection and care. In fact, a survey reported in Reader’s Digest reports that men fall in love faster than women. When it comes to falling in love at first sight, men get hooked 48% compared to women, who fall in love at first sight 28% of the time.

Also, men who responded to the survey shared that it bothered them if their partner wasn’t romantic enough. Despite what some men may say and how loudly they voice it, men want and need love. The trouble is that some men are raised to be so outwardly tough, they can come off as emotionally cold.

If men are taught to avoid loving emotions at all costs (least they be perceived as weak), they could go into conflict each time feelings labeled as “bad,” “soft,” or “weak” surface. That alone could produce conflict.

Art of Falling in Love

Yet, if you’re an expansion of love, it’s not possible to be satisfied with anything less than love. That’s why it’s critical that you love yourself. In fact, self-love is a start to the art of joining in love with someone else. So, before you seek a new relationship, work on the relationship you have with yourself.

Practice self-awareness. Become aware of what you really want. Take smart risks. There may be no better way to learn that “nothing outside of you will make you happy”. This includes the image (or illusion) you’ve created of your “perfect match”.

Therefore, in addition to self-love, the art of joining in love calls for failure. Along the way, you may have to invest in relationship counseling. You also might have to invest in psychotherapy to improve the relationship that you have with YOU.

Why not now?

Love and Trust in Rescued Relationships

Succeeding at love is about more than romance. It encompasses all of your relationships. The most influential of these relationships has nothing to do with romance. Yet, this relationship has everything to do with love. It’s the relationship you have with your parents.

Even if this relationship was fractured or bruised, you can still experience love and trust. Start practicing self-awareness, take full responsibility for yourself and make choices that help you to release unhealthy relationships. Focus on doing what causes you to feel joy and peace. Make this a priority and you may develop a sharp emotional compass.

You could spot when someone is devaluing you. And you may lose an attraction for people, including current and former lovers, who mistreat you. In fact, as you practice self-awareness and self-love, you may stir up the confidence to make choices that attract more love to you.

Finding Real Love

If you believe that love is weak or that love is only real in a romantic form, you could spend a lifetime searching for love and thinking you never found it. Fact is love is strong. It may be the only true strength. And love is limitless. It’s not limited to romance.

So, if you really want to experience love, start by getting to know and loving your true Self. And love every aspect of creation. It’s going to require forgiveness, as we all make mistakes. For sure, experiencing true love requires patience. But, if you’ve ever been loved, you know that it’s worth it.

Another thing, each relationship you have impacts every other relationship that you have. Wishing you the strength of love everywhere you are, everywhere you go.

Love Pour Over Me

If you’re struggling to love yourself or if you think love is weak, consider Raymond Clarke’s story. Raymond was told that love is for weak people. He was raised not to need anyone. But he didn’t create himself just as we didn’t create ourselves. Raymond needs love. He just doesn’t know it.

Can you imagine being told not to let something happen, then the experience keeps happening? Don’t want love. Working hard not to let anyone get close to you. You could get hurt. You might feel like a failure every time you start opening up to another person, which could cause more conflict, more problems. This seesaw experience causes Raymond Clarke to create emotional, psychological and, later in his life, physical barriers, shutting out nearly everyone who tries to get close to him.

Fortunately, love doesn’t give up, proving that love truly is patient, forgiving and strong. Each of us has to open up to love, letting it flow through us. Everyone has to give and receive love. It’s our core. It’s what we are.

It takes Raymond years to accept love’s lessons. How long will you let it take you?

Get your copy of “Love Pour Over Me” Now

Barnes & Noble – http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/love-pour-over-me-denise-turney/1109600654

Three Great Ways To Connect With Online Readers

Posted on by

By Freelance Writer and Books Author Denise Turney

a romantic setting in the bathroom with a book and candles
Photo by Taryn Elliott on Pexels.com

It’s no longer simple. Ways to connect with online readers are growing, expanding. Reasons readers turn to books are also changing. In fact, entertainment is only one reason why readers choose engaging novels. Technology finds people reaching for books to be entertained, educated, to watch videos embedded in stories and brain train with audiobooks.

Connect with Online Readers on the Hunt for Good Novels

Keeping up with these changes is important for authors who want to connect with readers, introducing their stories and selling more books. Also, knowing why someone seeks books to read can reveal the best ways to connect with these readers.

For example, if someone is looking for books to unleash their imagination, joining fantasy discussion forums could be a good move for an author. Good events to attend are offline and virtual fantasy events. Mystery dinner theater plays, especially plays that encourage attendee discussions before or after the play, are also great events to connect with readers who are looking to enter a world of imagination.

Fortunately, bookshelves are lined with great novels, stories ranging from the classics to modern mysteries to family sagas to cultural depictions. Yet, if you’re an avid book reader, you’ve come across good novels that, had you not accidentally found the books while rummaging through a library or local corner bookstore, you may never have had the chance to read the books.

If you’re an avid book reader and an author, yours is a two-prong goal. In addition to finding great novels to read, you want to do what you can to help book lovers find the novels you’ve written. Following are three great ways to connect with readers online. As a tip, I’ve also included several ways to find and connect with book lovers offline.

3 Great Ways to Connect with Online Readers

To begin, social media is a way to connect with online readers. But you need to try different social media platforms to discover which platforms yield the best results for you. Also, stick with a few social media platforms. Why? As an author, you want to be able to invest enough time in each social media platform to build genuine connections with readers. And:

  • Develop and distribute a weekly or a monthly newsletter. Spotlight your new books in the newsletter. Also, you could include questions that readers submit to you in the newsletter along with your responses. It’s another way to connect with online readers.
  • Post details about your books at book club and book directories that accept book listings. And, if these sites have discussion forums, participate in the forums by asking and fielding questions.
  • Attend book festivals. Bring a signup sheet with you to book festivals. Make it easy for readers to share their contact information with you so you can send those readers details about your new books, discounts, coupons and details about upcoming book events you plan to attend.
  • Speak at colleges and universities. Before the close of your speaking, let attendees know that a good way to learn more about topics you just spoke about is to read your book.
  • Treat people who buy your books to holiday postcards, birthday announcements and other communications that say, “Thank you”.

Finding Great Books

Sure. Word of mouth is one proven way to find great novels. But your family, friends and colleagues can’t possibly read every book you’ll love. Therefore, you’re going to have to search for good books on your own.

If you’re fortunate, you’ll find clever ways to connect with authors. Many authors are seeking ways to find you so they can share their stories with you. If those authors write from their soul, their very essence, you’ll be in for a real treat if you find one another.

When I think back to my childhood and challenging times as an adult, there were books that helped me to keep going, to get over the hump. They weren’t motivational books. Instead, they were entertaining stories with characters I cared about, characters facing long odds who left me with no choice except to root for them. It’s those types of stories I hope authors of great novels help you to find.

Great Ways To Say I Love You

Posted on by

By Books Author Denise Turney

Rose against backdrop signaling love
Wikimedia Commons – Picture by Laitche

It takes courage to say, “I love you.” After all, love can feel like the most elusive thing in the world. Doesn’t matter how you define it. Finding this sweet truth, let alone keeping it, seems impossible.

Great Call for Joy

Yet could it be that love, also referred to as truth and joy, feels elusive because you search for it in time spaces that do not exist? Check this out. The great writer, Leo Tolstoy, shared that “Future love does not exist. Love is a present activity only. The man who does not manifest love in the present has not love.”

So, if you’re never present could you be missing joy’s splendor? And, more importantly, could you be missing evidence that demonstrates that you are worthy of love? Because isn’t that the thing? You want to feel and believe that you are loved.

Being present means you don’t give into temptations to try to live in the past or future. Mistakes, embarrassment, economic shifts and community and work demands can tempt you to dismiss the present. So too can investing too much time on social media, texting, watching TV and living in the virtual world.

Give and Receive

In the world, it’s almost as if the goal is to pull you out of the present. There’s this illusion that being present causes you to miss something. However, if you notice how much you miss by focusing on future or past events, you’ll see what a trick the illusion is.

Not being present while you’re with someone sends a message that the person doesn’t matter as much to you as a device you’re using or whatever else you’re investing attention in. Show someone you value them by being present with them.

Give them your attention, and your time. Keep at it and see if they don’t start to return your investment, putting aside their devices and being present while they’re with you. Let this happen and it won’t be with words, but instead with actions, that you tell someone you love them.

Great Ways to Say I Love You

When you give love, you receive it. That’s why valuing people and investing appreciation in them is so important, creating an ongoing cycle. Love may not appear as you imagine, but it’s there. If you’re giving it, there is no way it can be absent.

To start giving and receiving love, consider adding one or more of these great ways to say “I love you” to your daily actions. Many of these actions don’t involve talking:

  • Visit friends and relatives. Don’t stop at telling people how much you care. Show up in people’s lives. Let them know they mean so much to you that you don’t want to go long without seeing them.
  • Call friends regularly. Demonstrate that you value them to the point that you want to communicate with them frequently.
  • Invite friends to lunch. Interrupt your routines so you can include friends in your day.
  • Mail family and friends holiday cards, letters and vacation postcards.

Keep Expressing Appreciation

  • Create and share hand crafted gifts. Add a note that expresses how much someone means to you.
  • Enjoy walks and bike rides with people you appreciate.
  • Write and share poems.
  • Share holidays with people who you’re close to.
  • Invite those you adore to your home. Focus on those people while they are in your space. This means you’re not surfing the Internet, texting or watching TV.
  • Say “I love you”.
  • Do at least three things a day that confirm value yourself
  • Get outside and play with people you care about
  • Laugh and have fun without worrying about what someone is thinking about you

Cause and Effect

Each time you love, you help someone to heal. Therefore, don’t just search for truth or joy. Give love. Also, accept that you are worth joy. You should be happy. In fact, you deserve it.

After all, if you’re giving love, you obviously have love inside of you. The aim is to share that goodness, expressing appreciation. Here’s to hoping this list of ways to say, “I love you!” make their way into your frequent communications.

And it’s probably not a stretch to believe that the people you appreciate and let know will demonstrate their appreciation for you as well. Keep the cycle going.

About the Brilliant Love of a Good Family

Posted on by

By Books Writer Denise Turney

picture of family of birds love in tree
Wikimedia Commons – Picture by Touhid biplob

The ongoing rewards and peace that come from growing up in a good family are immeasurable. There’s this sense of safety that, though possible to be found in other places, rarely is. Also, because loved ones supported you as you were maturing, catching you before you fell, you may have the ability to trust. You may even be open to taking smart risks that lead you into relationship, social, business and community successes.

Growing Up in a Good Family

Of course, there are instances when good family relationships start late. For example, years may pass before you meet a biological sibling, a brother or sister who becomes your best friend. But if the connection is strong, within months or just a few years, the bond that your sibling and you share may be unbreakable.

It’s these strong family bonds that can help you get through life’s toughest challenges, hard times you may not see coming. Grow up in a good family that practices honesty and you can also be entrusted with your parents’, grandparents’ and aunts’ and uncles’ real-life stories of failure, resolve, trust and success.

You’ll carry your ancestors’ stories with you everywhere you go, for the remainder of your physical expression. At times, their stories will surface in your memory like long lost gifts.

Family Past That Gets You Thru Tough Challenges

My great-grandmother’s story of failure, tenacity, persistence and eventual lifelong success inspired me to keep going during one of the toughest times of my life. In fact, just knowing that a woman in my family had overcome a trying early adulthood convinced me that I could get through whatever came my way.

It’s due to family goodness that Portia doesn’t quit after her family doctor, a physician Portia has known since she was a kid, long before she became a successful Chicago defense attorney, tells her that she has breast cancer. And, before she turns forty, Portia ends up needing her family more than she realizes.

Fortunately, Portia shares rich, rewarding experiences with her relatives. Her mother is a respected secondary school teacher who works at a school on Chicago’s South Side. Even more, her father has a history of putting courage into action.

Family Love That Last

Throughout the 1960s, Portia’s father was active in the Civil Rights Movement. He stood on local and national front lines when doing so put a leader’s life in danger. He didn’t even back down after other Civil Rights leaders were threatened and attacked.

By the time the 1980s rolled around, the work that her father did was paving a way for Portia. In fact, it’s the Civil Rights organizing that her father engaged in that inspired her to become a defense attorney. But it’s the love she received from her family that sustains her during the lowest points of her life.

No way could Portia’s ancestors have known that their love, care and kindness for Portia would suffice, would actually be enough, as Portia faced mortality, as she faced the potential end of her physical experience. How good for Portia that they loved her at a time in her young life when it appeared as if hers would be a traditional life, free of intense struggle.

Read Portia – A Book About the Power of Good Family Love

And who could blame them. By the time Portia was a teenager, the 1960s were beyond her. In fact, her family appeared to have turned a corner, a long arduous corner. But life in this world is filled with ups and downs, highs and lows.

How fortunate Portia is to have received love from a good family. There would come a time when the love of a good family would seem like all she had. Who knows? Maybe that time comes for more than we imagine.

Read Portia to explore the power of good family love. Let yourself be inspired to be there for your family. One day you may need the family stories that you create with your relatives. They just might help get you through your life’s greatest challenges, hard times that you don’t even see coming.

11 Good Ways to Learn to Love Yourself

Posted on by

By Books Writer Denise Turney

selflove pour over me book
Learn to love yourself

Discover effective ways to learn to love yourself and you could open up to the good you’ve been seeking. However, it’s important that you find the right path. After all, what works for your friend, neighbor or colleague, might not work for you. Yet, there are smart self-love actions that will work for you.

Catch Yourself to Know When You Need to Activate Ways to Learn to Love Yourself

Practicing self-love seems as natural as breathing, as normal as hearing water running through a kitchen spigot. But, loving yourself isn’t always easy. First, there are those nagging judgments to get beyond, thoughts like “you’re always making mistakes,” “everybody thinks you’re boring,” “your mother never was happy with you” or “nothing ever turns out right for you”.

It’s almost as if those nagging thoughts are coming from outside of you, from somewhere else. After all, who would talk to herself in such mean, painful ways?

Yet, think back. Doesn’t that nagging voice in your head sound just like your voice? Could it be that another part of your mind is hammering you with unkind thoughts and beliefs?

Don’t sit idle. Don’t allow the harsh, unloving talk to continue. You don’t want to start projecting those unloving thoughts, creating unkind experiences for yourself. Instead, learn to love yourself.

There are rewards. In fact, happiness and peace are only two major rewards that you gain when you learn self love. Confidence, improved self-esteem, opening to adventure, newness and playfulness are other rewards associated with self-love.

Reverse the Damage – Learn to Love Yourself

Check out these 11 ways to learn to love yourself. But don’t just look over the list of actions that you can take to express love to yourself. Put a few of these ways to learn to love yourself into action.

  1. Speak one loving thought out loud to yourself in the morning while standing in front of a mirror. Also, speak this same loving thought to yourself at night before you go to bed. Again, stand in front of a mirror when you speak this loving thought to yourself.
  2. Live in the present.
  3. Do something fun outside. It could be as simple as sitting on the porch, riding a bike, walking or reading a book outside.
  4. Write about a situation that you feel fear about (e.g. telling a friend that you’re not going to her party) in a journal. See if the fear doesn’t lower.
  5. Sing and dance absent a care, just sing and dance

More Ways to Learn Self Love

  1. Sit down and do nothing for 15 minutes before you go to bed. Treat yourself to a good night of sleep and rest.
  2. Appreciate the light and beauty in others without comparing yourself to anyone.
  3. Write down thoughts and behavior patterns you’d like to change. List actions you will take to change the thoughts and the behaviors. Be honest with yourself. Exercise your power.
  4. Accept full responsibility for your thoughts and behaviors.
  5. Say “No” when you don’t want to do something.
  6. Forgive yourself when you make mistakes. If you do this effectively, you’ll also forgive others when they make mistakes.

Projecting What You Believe About Yourself

Sigmund Freud wrote about the concept of projection. It’s possible to project and not know it, but you will feel its effects. As shared in Psychology Today, projection is the act of “displacing one’s feelings onto a different person, animal or objects.” And yes. Projection can be positive. Also, projection can occur when you transfer or project lofty thoughts and feelings that you have for yourself onto another person, animal or object.

In fact, this happens when you project inner good thoughts and emotions onto an athlete, actress, business leader or community leader. Before you know it, you may elevate the person into celebrity. Imagine how you would treat yourself if you stopped projecting these positive thoughts and feelings onto another person and focused them on yourself.

Lifetime of Self Love

And if you keep positive thoughts healthy (instead of letting them drift into loftiness), you could start to love yourself in healthy ways. Try it. Incorporate a few of the ways to learn to love yourself shared in this article into your daily practices.

Make three or more of the 11 ways to learn to love yourself part of your inner patterns. Then, pay attention. See if you feel less guilt. Also, notice if you feel more empowered, safe and cared for. And, because self-love is an ongoing choice, be open to adding, removing and changing actions that you engage in to express love to yourself.

One more thing about projection. As you love yourself more deeply, you’ll extend that love to others. And it will be as natural as breathing, as normal as hearing water running out of a kitchen spigot. Learn more about love and its power in Love Pour Over Me.

Long Lasting Harm of Abusive Childhood

Posted on by

By Books Author Denise Turney

child abuse awareness ribbon
Wikimedia Commons – Image by TraumaAndDissociation

Left untreated, effects from an abusive childhood endure. Child abuse appears in different forms. However, physical abuse may be the more widely considered form. Yet, as horrible as physical abuse is, emotional and psychological abuse, including neglect, leave deep, long lasting scars. The trauma is so pervasive that it’s been reported that child abuse actually alters a person’s DNA.

Facing an Abusive Childhood

In fact, Reuters reports that, “Trauma has lasting effects on mental and physical health that may stem from changes to DNA which undermine a person’s ability to rebound from stress, according to new research.” Recent studies on child abuse, like the study conducted by Seth Pollak that’s referenced by Reuters, shed more light on child abuse’s far reaching effects.

Unfortunately, child abuse still doesn’t get the attention that it needs to encourage the right consistent action that’s required to ensure no child is ever abused again. Will people care more about child abuse, report it each time they witness it or have suspicion that it’s occurring, after they become aware of the long-lasting harm of an abusive childhood?

Whether increased awareness will yield permanently good results, saving the lives of countless children, or not is yet to be seen. Right now, these stats are severely troubling. Each day about five children dies from child abuse, according to DoSomething. As many as 68% of children who are sexually abused are abused by a relative. Nearly three million child abuse cases are reported in the United States alone each year.

More Disturbing Child Abuse Stats

Even more, about 70% of children who die daily from child abuse in the United States is younger than three years old. One can only presume how many actual child abuse cases there are, considering cases that are never reported.

Among the deep, jarring hidden wounds of child abuse are genetic brain changes, stress, insomnia, constant feelings of being inadequate, low self-esteem, lack of confidence and ongoing fear. Painful shame, guilt and difficulties forming and maintaining healthy relationships are other hidden wounds of child abuse that time does not heal.

Fact is, it can take years of deep, focused inner work to begin to heal from child abuse. As an adult, people who were abused as a child may smile, laugh and communicate as if there had been absolutely no abuse during their early childhood.

Signs of Child Abuse

But, blending in doesn’t mean that the wounds aren’t there. To recover and learn to love yourself, psychotherapy, meditation, journaling and ongoing efforts at self-care and self-love may be required. Healing also comes through safe relationships like genuine friendships.

The sooner child abuse is spotted, reported, stopped and a child entered into safe places to begin to heal, the better. But, even then, there will be work for the child to do in order to heal.

Child abuse signs include:

  • Child being overly withdrawn
  • Terrified or extremely afraid of making a mistake
  • Unexplained injuries and bruises
  • Repeatedly flinching when someone simply raises her hand
  • Wears long sleeved shirts and long pants during summer to hide injuries
  • Difficulty sitting
  • Age-inappropriate sexual knowledge
  • Efforts to avoid a specific person
  • Misses school frequently
  • Self-harm

Few, if any, long to look upon the ugly part of humanity. But look we must. To stop child abuse, we also must act, reporting instances of this vicious crime. We must be there for children and adults healing from abuse, even if, at the very least, we meet children and suffering adults with sincere kindness and ample patience to give the abused time and room to adjust to a new, better life.

Offering encouragement – Love Pour Over Me – the story of a man raised by a father with untreated alcoholism. An inspirational love story written to help readers heal.

7 Elements to Love About Mystery Books for Adults

Posted on by

By African American Writer Denise Turney

mystery of owl peeking in tree picture
Wikimedia Commons – Picture by Pixel la Free Stock Photos

Mystery books for adults range from romance suspense to mysteries of the unknown to real life detective stories. Despite the differences, it’s the pace and plot that drive these books. Let these two elements be off and you might put classic and modern suspense novels down. Yet, pace and plot aren’t the only must haves that readers look for in a good suspense novel.

7 Elements in Mystery Books

If you’re a writer who’s looking to engage readers more deeply, consider these 7 elements readers love about mystery books. And yes – at the front of the pack are pace and plot. More about those elements that can turn a manuscript from a hidden gem into one of the top selling mystery books.

  • Characters – Believable characters resemble real people. They may remind your books’ readers of themselves. That means that characters in mystery books have strengths and weaknesses. These characters also have one or more childhood or adult experiences that shape them, that may make it hard for the character to change, overcoming a weakness that threatens to cost her everything.
  • Dialogue – The dialogue in a mystery has to fit the character. It’s not believable if a quiet, reserved woman with strong religious beliefs curses her boss out-of-the-blue for undermining her promotional opportunity.
  • History – Street and business names may change in historic mystery books. But dates and core history events can’t change too much, if at all when making these events part of mystery books for adults. Opt for pivotal history events, the very events that elicit strong emotion. It’s this strong emotion that can create a deep connection between readers and your books’ characters.

7 Elements in Mystery Best Sellers Continued

  • Setting – Akin to events, setting can surface strong emotions and memories in readers. Effective setting examples include New York City, Paris, the rugged West, especially during the early 20th century, an isolated island and a barren mountain or forest area.
  • Pace – Here’s an area that writers of award-winning mystery books get right. These authors know when to reveal secrets. They also know when to reveal key character motivations, fears and regrets. As tempting as it may be, revealing secrets and motivations too soon can make your story feel forced. Also, make revelations too late and modern mystery novels may feel like they’re unfolding at a snail’s pace.
  • Plot – Of course, captivating modern mystery novels have the type of winning plot that makes for a hit movie. To develop a winning plot, try creating a three-page outline for your mystery books. See if the outline moves you. If it doesn’t, keep tweaking it. After all, you’ve got to have a great, engaging plot.
  • Secrets – Fortunately, secrets are easy to create. In fact, you could use a secret from your personal life (a secret you’ve already shared) to drive modern mystery novels. Just make sure the secrets in mystery books fit the books’ characters.

Award winning mystery books are so compelling, well-paced and engaging that they can keep readers up until the wee hours of the morning, turning page after page. Right from the start, authors reveal one or more key points about the book’s major characters, the type of details that either find you rooting for or against the characters. What you won’t do is not care about what happens to the characters.

Loving Mystery Books For Adults

And it’s that simple. After readers are put in a position of wanting to know what happens to a character, they may find it hard to put mystery books down. Dialogue, setting and connections to real life events are other elements that readers love about mystery best sellers.

Also, think about it. Don’t your favorite suspense books unfold so vividly that you can actually see scenes in the books happening? So, writing that flows, a superb pace and visual strength are musts. However, if you’re an author looking to pull readers deeper into suspense books that you write, don’t forget the power of history.

Modern Mystery Novels

Ramp mystery books for adults up with key historic events and you could surface strong emotions in readers, powerful emotions that are connected to the historic events. And isn’t emotion the primary reward offered by good books? An example of a book that offers this emotional rush is Spiral.

Set during the 1940s, Spiral is a mystery book that digs into tensions that surface in America even as the country is deep into World War II. Dark secrets threaten to expose the city’s underbelly. And prominent people will do anything to keep the truth hidden. As with other page turning mystery books, it’s the combination of history, characterization, pace and setting that arrest readers’ attention. Read the book’s description and see if the feature elements, many covered in this article, don’t pique your interest.