By Fiction and Nonfiction Books Writer Denise Turney

Peace is the sweetest experience. It’s freedom from irritation. It is a state lacking fear. When you’re living in peace, if someone asks you what you’re eager to change, your mind might go blank, as if searching for a past instance of discontent.

Sweetness of Peace

Although it seems impossible, you could live in peace forever. Once you enter a state of peace, disappointments and challenges aren’t at the front of your thoughts. Talk about a sweet experience.

But how can you remain in peace once your mind allows you to get there? Work and home are good places to start. However, it takes more than wishing, hoping and ruminating about peace. Instead of engaging in these habits, make living in peace your aim.

Shift morning routines. Instead of rushing into the bathroom when you wake, raise your hands, smile and say “thank you” or another favorite phrase. Less than five seconds is all it takes. Another way to shift in the morning is to stretch. Speaking a positive affirmation while doing two to three minutes of rigorous cardio changes physiology, moving you away from worry.

About Peaceful Relationships

You’ll also benefit from incorporating shifts into work routines, especially if you work outside your home. Goal is to do what steers you away from fear and into peace. For example, instead of lunching with people who gossip, you might decide to eat healthy food at midday and enjoy a walk afterward.

That or you might enjoy lunch with friends who don’t gossip or attack others verbally. This is important because what you see people do to others, you might fear that they can (or do) do to you when you’re not physically with them.

With peace as your goal, you may become more aware of what jabs at your inner peace.

Easy Peaceful Paths

During a relationship break for me, I had to learn to forgive so that I could “let go” of past perceived wrongs and move into peace. This was no quick fix. It took me years to pull this off. Yet, my aim remained unchanged. Had I not chosen forgiveness, my home life would not have been peaceful.

Quicker peaceful paths center around finances. Little causes fear and worry like money problems. Just as I did with the broken relationship, peace must be your overall goal. For example, you could:

• Pay down high interest loans
• Bring credit card debt to zero
• Curb spending
• Build and stick to a budget

Even more, consider reducing the time people attracted to chaos spend in your home. Relatives and friends who love drama, including fights, can drive you into unease. As you get accustomed to living in peace at home, you and your family could start to protect that peace.

Getting to Peace at Work

Engaging in relaxing activities at home is another way to dwell in peace. Soaking in a warm bubble bath, reading a good book, doing yoga, meditating, working in your garden and sleeping deeply at night are more ways to relax at home.

Extending peace at home to work takes commitment. Why? At work, there might be hundreds or thousands of colleagues you cross paths with, each having different energy.

How to work in peace with so many people? Commit to your goal to live in peace. Recall advantages peace has brought you. Among those advantages might be lower blood pressure, better sleep, healthier weight, improved energy and better mental balance.

Also, pay attention to how you feel about work in general as well as the work that you’re currently doing. Notice if colleagues are showing signs of burnout and stress. If so, you could be working in a toxic environment. Steer clear of thinking that this is all in your head if other people are being affected.

Toxic Work Environment Challenges to Peace

In fact, if you’ve worked 10 years, you might have worked in a toxic environment at least once. That toxicity could come through the words or actions of a poor manager, a bullying colleague, lack of clarity from senior management, long work hours and stressful project demands.

Acknowledge what is happening. Don’t sugarcoat it or think that it will magically go away. Recall your goal to live in peace. Consider whether the path to peace at work might come through speaking with a colleague, human resources or a manager about workplace challenges.

Pray for guidance. Be open to stepping into a different role at work or even exiting the organization and working elsewhere. Depending on what is going on in your life, you might leave the organization and take time to be still for several weeks without working anywhere. Of course, ensure that your finances allow for this option.

You could also accept that, regardless of where you work, there may be times when you feel stressed on the job. But this stress shouldn’t go on endlessly. Additionally, there might always be one or more people who you don’t feel completely in sync with at work. Hence, don’t run from challenges.

Open Yourself Up to Better Peace Options

Instead, spot stressful patterns at work (i.e., aggressive emails, put downs cloaked as jokes), seek guidance and keep peace as your aim. Definitely, steer clear of convincing yourself that if you leave a toxic workplace, you can never work again. Because that is not true.

If you convince yourself that you must stay in a toxic work environment, you might feel bound – stuck. That by itself could produce stress. It could find you feeling trapped, which could, in turn, could cause you to become toxic, at work and at home.

To avoid believing the lie that you’re out of work choices, research work from home jobs, remote jobs and employers in industries you want to work in. Look though online job sites like Indeed, Career Builder and Journalism Jobs and set up job alerts.

Moving Into Peace

Show yourself that you have options. You have options at work, and you have options at home. Consider interviewing one to two times a year. Do this even if you love your current job.

This could keep you from being deceived that you could never gain a better job. Do the same with relationships. Stay in touch with loving family and friends. Stay away from isolating yourself. Create environments that prove, that show you, that you have choices and that you can change and move from chaos into peace.

By Books Writer Denise Turney

Writing journals are the types of recording resources that help you stay on track. Even more, when you write in journals you can shift an idea from your imagination, allowing the idea to showcase itself out in the world. A journal is one of the friendliest truth finders.

Beyond Beautifully Designed Blank Journals

And you get to fill in the blank pages at your own pace. But, to gain continual rewards from writing in a journal, you need to commit to the work. If not, you might end up with a bookcase of beautifully designed blank journals that are free of your personal writings, clear of your inner work.

Do that and the hidden dreams, triggers, roadblocks and long-term goals buried deep inside of you might stay just that way – hidden. For example, if you want to open a vegan bakery, a location filled with plants and contemporary abstract paintings, you’re going to have to do more than concept the bakery.

Shift Beyond Imagination with Journals

As good as it feels, it’s not enough to concept and think about opening a bakery. You have to start shifting internally so that you take smart actions. In this instance, you could write your concept in a journal. Then, add detail and clarity to the concept. Other steps needed to shift the goal of operating a vegan bakery beyond imagination include:

• Detail it out – Sticking with the vegan bakery idea, add detail-detail-detail to the concept in your journal. What color do you want the bakery’s interior to have? Do you want a one-level or a two-level bakery? Would turning a tiny house or a traditional house into a bakery work? Will the bakery have a unique exterior design, the type of design that stands out? What days and hours will the bakery be open to the public? Could your bakery also serve as your living space, reducing your overall real estate cost?
• Local regulations – Discover if there are licenses needed to operate a bakery. Also, learn if there are certain types of ingredients you’re not permitted to use in your baked goods.
• Finances – Identify how much money you can afford to invest in your vegan bakery right now. After all, you can always invest more money in the business, as needed, after you start turning a profit.
• Headcount – At the start, determine if you’re going to be a solopreneur or if you’re going to hire staff. If you can’t afford to take on full-timers, you could hire two to three part-time workers to get the bakery up and running.

Answer Journaling Questions

Write answers to these questions in your journal. Consider using this journal to only write about a single goal. When you visit local small businesses, meeting with entrepreneurs to learn about what you need to meet local laws, write about those experiences in your journal.

Instead of simply writing what you did, expand upon the experience. This would see you writing about how you felt before you met with local regulators or local entrepreneurs and how you felt during and after the meetings.

Should you encounter inner roadblocks that show up as procrastination, anxiety or constant delays, set aside time to write about what you’re experiencing. If a parent, grandparent or another relative owned a business, write about your feelings around their business and your relationship with this relative.

Why is this important?

Making The Connection While You Write

You might expect to experience the same results from your business that this relative experienced with their business. On top of this, the expectation could be hidden in your subconscious. Leave this expectation unhidden and you might struggle to understand why you’re procrastinating or avoiding taking a necessary step in your business, all starting with the third year that you’ve owned the bakery.

Your journal writing could uncover the fact that your relative’s business suffered losses during the third year, forcing your relative to close the business. Let’s say you admired this relative, thinking that they were incredibly smart, courageous, insightful and kind. They weren’t the type of person you thought would ever lose at anything.

Yet, they had to close their business. Deep down, you might be expecting the same to happen with you, because you don’t see yourself as capable of exceeding what this relative you admire accomplished. At a subconscious level, fear could be leading you.

Make Journal Writing a Good Habit

By making journal writing about your goal a daily or weekly habit, you could spot this and other internal shifts early. Once you spot a shift, list smart actions that you’re going to take to pivot around setbacks, negative expectations and fear.

For instance, you might list three to six negative expectations that you have. Just don’t stop there. After you list the negative expectations, list how you are going to deal with those events should they actually occur. This helps to build confidence, showing you that you can effectively respond to a setback.

So Many Usages for Writing Journals

Other ways to use writing journals to shift beyond imagination are to:

• Put on a journalist’s hat and write about previous successes you have had. The more you write about prior successes that are related to what you want to do next, the better. Prove to yourself that you can achieve what you want. After all, look how many times you’ve already gotten the ball over the wall.
• Add pictures of you dreaming about what you want (the incubator stage) to you applying for licenses, paying startup fees and reviewing properties to operate your business from. Include them in your journal.
• Schedule events to celebrate each third step that you take to bring your vision forward, shifting it from imagination to where others can see it benefitting people in the world. Take pictures of these celebrations, however small or large they are. Make sure you add several of these pictures to your journal.

As you can see, there are a myriad of ways to pump up writing journals. Adding pictures, drawings, poems, song lyrics, flowers, etc. to your journal, you enliven these written personal recordings that much more. Who knows? Looking forward to adding to the journal might encourage you to continue doing what it takes to shift great ideas beyond your inner world, bringing them from imagination to real life in the world.

By Books Author Denise Turney

Journal writing aids self-discovery because it’s a safe way to be curious about yourself. Yet, that’s not all. Writing in a journal is a form of personal research. Although you can just start writing freestyle. To dig deeper inside your psyche, there are certain types of journal writing that might prove more helpful.

Topical Journal Writing

Topical journal writing is when you identify a specific topic or experience that you want to write about. For instance, if you realize that you have developed a pattern of being attracted to jobs or people who leave you feeling drained and taken advantage of, you could write about this pattern.

Reaching the point of self-discovery calls for freestyle writing about the pattern. Keep your writing focused on the pattern. Ask probing and clarifying questions. Types of questions you could ask yourself include:

• When did I start feeling attracted to relationships, work and/or personal, that generate feelings of fatigue and abuse?
• Why did it take me so long to realize that I had developed this pattern? Am I trying to hide something from myself? What am I trying to protect myself from?
• Do I remember feeling fatigued or uncomfortable around someone when I was a kid? What was this person like?
• How can I start to interrupt then break this pattern while loving myself and others?

Self-Discovery Support

Should your psyche currently be fragile, consider working with an ethical, licensed and experienced therapist as you do this work. Also, pay attention to your dreams (more about dreams later).

Return to topical journal writing as you continue the art of self-discovery. This is not a one-and-done process. Instead, it’s a lifelong journey.

Age Stage Journal Writing Descriptions

Use your journal to create descriptions of yourself at different ages. As an example, you could write a description of the preschool you. Write about your preschool self until you feel there is nothing left to write. Other ages you could write about in your journal are:

• What you were like when you were in the third grade (Write about key experiences you had, friends and how you perceived yourself.)
• Middle school (What were the middle school years like for you? How smoothly did you transition from elementary school to middle school?)
• High school years (Looking back, were your high school years fun and exciting, a time of adventure? Did you struggle to feel like you belonged? Had you started to take smart risks or were you living on the edge?)
• College life (If you went to college, how did you perceive life while you were in college? Was this a time when you entered a serious romantic relationship? Had you discovered one or more of your passions by this time?)
• Adulthood (Within adulthood, you could write about your late 20s or what it was like to become a parent, if you have children. Other experiences you could write about include jobs you worked and why you choose those particular jobs.)

Link Between Family History and Journaling Self-Discovery

Learning more about your family is part of the path to self-discovery. Similar to the way elders once wrote family genealogy in the family Bible, you could use your journal to write about your genealogy. In addition to writing down your family tree, write about your relationship with family members you had close and distant relationships with.

As you continue to write, don’t be surprised if you find links between what you write about a certain stage in your life and a relationship you have with one or more family members. For instance, you might have spent a lot of time with your maternal grandmother during your elementary and middle school years.

Your grandmother’s courage and her work in the family and community, how she empowered others, might have had a great impact on you. Her smarts and the way she communicated with relatives, neighbors and other community members might have inspired the good works that you do where you live.

Fun with Journaling

The longer you engage in journal writing, the more you will notice how you’re changing. Continue to ask yourself probing questions. To get the most out of journal writing, be courageous enough to be completely honest with yourself.

Make writing in a journal fun too. Regarding self-discovery, there may be fewer ways to peek inside your subconscious than it is to write down your dreams. If you rarely recall your dreams when you wake, keep your journal and a pen at your bedside.

Jot down notes about your dreams as soon as you have them and start to awaken. When it comes to dreams that you recall just before you get out of bed for the day, take time to write down the full details of those dreams.

Lifelong Journal Writing

The more you write about the details of your dreams in your journal, the more you might recall your dreams. And you won’t just recall your dreams, you might recall greater details in your dreams. Once this happens, you might spot symbols, patterns and recurring themes in your dreams.

There may be fewer effective ways to watch your subconscious thoughts at work. Another benefit associated with this type of journal writing is the ability to become aware of future events. As surprising as it might sound, you could very well be your best friend, looking out for yourself, preparing yourself for the future.

By Fiction and Nonfiction Books Writer Denise Turney

Daily journal writing advantages aren’t just for adolescents and teens. Gone are the days when journaling is merely used as a way for teens to document intense feelings they hold for a classmate, a relative or a hidden crush. In fact, approximately one out of six people writes in a journal today, according to Psychology Today. Reasons for daily journaling vary.

Journaling Hidden Advantages

So too do the benefits. As an example, people journal to document their night dreams, track fitness progress and to capture major life experiences. Opportunity to work through hard emotions and “stuck” thought patterns are other benefits associated with journal writing. These advantages may be gained because writing offers clarity.

You have to focus and be more present while you write in a journal. Furthermore, writing activates the brain’s reticular activating system (RAS). Also, the frontal lobe part of your brain is activated while you write. As you write, you also activate your brain’s parietal lobe. But who thinks about the brain while writing? Those are hidden advantages.

More Daily Journal Writing Benefits

Here are more, less hidden, advantages that you may bring into your life after you start a daily journal writing practice. Some of these advantages could have long term impact on your mental health.

• Improved memory – Because journaling activates brain lobes, the act can find you focusing better, easier. As your focusing improves, so too might your ability to recall.
• Dream clarity – Writing down night dreams can help you to remember your dreams more. Try it. See if you don’t start to not only remember your night dreams but to also recall details in your dreams. On top of this, because dreams can hold keys to the future as well as guidance on what you should do now, recalling dream details can let you know whether you should take that new job. That, or details in your dreams could signal to you if a relationship is rewarding or dangerous. Those are just two examples of how journaling could prove helpful.
• Expanding communication – Keep writing, with or without journal prompts, and don’t be surprised if your vocabulary grows. Another takeaway that might not be surprising affects your overall writing skills. The more you write in a journal, the easier it may be for you to create pictures in readers’ minds, express emotions and convey important messages.

Capture Your History

This next journaling benefit snuck by me until I crossed paths with another journal writer. Our paths crossed during an Off The Shelf interview. During the interview, the guest shared that he not only wrote in a journal, but would occasionally return to former journals, re-reading passages.

He paid attention to what had been happening in his life when he seemingly randomly flipped to a page in an older journal. Another action that he took was to re-read journal writings, passages that he had written three, five or more years earlier, in order to spot patterns in his life.

Using journal writing to spot life patterns, including patterns that could be keeping me from goal achievement, had not before dawned on me. After that realization, I sat down and started looking through older journals, looking for hidden clues, patterns.

Honesty Matters

This is just one reason why daily journaling to capture your history can be beneficial over the long term. Pay attention to how you feel while journal writing, not just while you are actually writing but also how you feel days and weeks after you start writing in a journal.

As with other life practices, it’s important to be honest while daily journaling. The more expressive and honest you are while writing, the deeper the benefits could be. All of this is not to say that life will iron itself out or become easier after you start daily journaling.

However, expressing your thoughts, fears, challenges, successes and courage while writing in your journal could help you to feel heard. It could help you to better process experiences and perceptions. And, it can help you to capture your personal history, potentially spotting patterns, including patterns that have been holding you back.

Resources
https://www.bing.com/search?q=how+many+people+write+in+journals&cvid=b2eec6c462254972b27ac3f89a97c5db&aqs=edge..69i57j0j69i64.8144j0j1&pglt=675&FORM=ANNTA1&DAF1=1&PC=HCTS (Psychology Today)

By Fiction and Nonfiction Author Denise Turney

People living with a belief in innocence may find it easier to trust than people who have experienced trauma, betrayed trust or a string of disappointments. In part, this may be because people who have lived in an environment of collaboration, honest communication and cooperation have had proof that there are people in the world who they can depend on and trust.

These Experiences Build and Deepen Trust

Types of experiences that build and deepen trust always include honesty. You might not be told all the details related to a project, meeting, etc. But what is shared with you will be the truth. Furthermore, details that might be withheld won’t be withheld to use as leverage or to manipulate you.

A good example of this is when you tell a child that you’re driving to the beach on tomorrow to enjoy the day if it doesn’t rain. You might not tell the child how long the trip will take, which road you’ll be driving down or when you plan to stop to fuel up your vehicle.

If it doesn’t rain and you do, in fact, drive to the beach with the child and have loads of fun enjoying the ocean, warm sunshine and sand, you could build trust between the child and you. Do the opposite and the results could be devastating, especially if you make breaking promises a habit.

Why Courage Counts More Than You Might Realize

Now, imagine that you’ve put your trust in someone only to be disappointed. Even if you don’t want to doubt people, you could start to find it hard to trust. Not only could you find it hard to trust the person who broke her promise to you, over time, you could find it challenging to trust anyone.

As hard as this outcome is, it could be even more painful to use courage and invest trust in someone who betrayed your trust only to have this person fail to deliver on a promise again. However, it doesn’t have to end there. In fact, what if you could help restore betrayed trust?

For instance, what would you do if for vacation you drove to an area with miles of open land, a wide countryside, and, while on vacation, you happened upon a young man who clearly was distressed? Once you confirmed that the guy was clear of bad intentions, would you help him?

Or would you turn away from courage and leave the distressed man on his own? What would you do if you took this latter option and a day later read in the newspaper that the guy perished?

Are You a Bridge?

Whether you realize it or not, you might have countless opportunities to build and deepen trust. One way that you could do this is to gain firsthand experiences that require you to exercise courage by giving yourself the chance to trust another person.

Another way that you could do this is to help another person restore their betrayed trust. Back to the parenting example, if someone has repeatedly betrayed your child’s trust, you could be a bridge between your child and that person. That way your child wouldn’t have to deal with the person directly, potentially reducing or eliminating future harm.

Secondly, you could create more opportunities to build your child’s trust. Revisiting the beach example, you could spend an uninterrupted hour three days a week with your child engaging in loving, safe activities. Do this and you’d be keeping promises and demonstrating that exhibiting the courage to trust another person is not bad or unintelligent.

Help restore betrayed trust and you could be doing a great work. Don’t think so?

Will You Restore Betrayed Trust?

Consider the times when you lost trust in someone. Simply recalling how it felt to be disappointed and discouraged may be enough to see how powerful restoring someone’s trust is. To help restore trust, you might have to practice awareness.

In other words, you might have to look beyond the surface. Instead of seeing someone as being needy, afraid or aloof, you might be advantaged if you start to consider why and how the person became the way that he is. If you consider that the person might have had his trust betrayed numerous times, you could see a seemingly “inconvenience” (a person asking for help, a runaway hiding in your garage, etc.) as a great opportunity to restore betrayed trust.

It takes Clarissa (Escaping Toward Freedom) time to get here, to realize what’s in front of her. Yet, she does learn. Healing one another requires awareness and the willingness to restore betrayed trust with love, courage and patience. Look around. There are so many safe opportunities to restore betrayed trust.

By Books Writer Denise Turney

You need a target to hit. Without a clear goal, you could spend way too much time circling the mountain. It’s not enough to just want something to happen. To gain success, you need to know exactly what you want and why. Get specific.

What Do You Want

For example, do you want to feel the emotion “happiness”, lose weight or be wealthy? At first glance, those goals may sound clear. However, they are broad. As it regards feeling “happiness”, you could want to feel happy all the time. Aim for this and you might not come to know what shortcuts your path to happiness. You also might ignore signs that you’re headed off path as it regards key life areas.

That’s right. Although frustration, anger and sorrow are emotions that don’t feel good, they can serve as great guideposts. Think of it this way. If you were driving your car and hit a guard rail, you’d know that you were in a danger zone. Keep going, and you could suffer damages.

The same applies with emotions. Sadness, frustration or anger could alert you to the fact that you’re not working the job that you really want to work. Or those emotions (especially if they linger) could alert you to the fact that you’re in a relationship, etc. that you don’t want to be in.

Get Clear About Your Intentions

Additionally, as it regards getting specific about what you want, if you want to lose weight, narrow it down. As an example, instead of going broad with “I want to lose weight”, get more specific and develop a goal to “lose 15 pounds within three months.” Regarding the goal to be wealthy, consider narrowing that goal down into something like “I want to pay off both of my credit cards by end of the year, then grow my savings up to $10,000 or more by the end of next year.”

Those are specific “intended” goals. To stay encouraged as you pursue those goals, align rewards to the intentions. Make sure that you set rewards at markers along the way toward the goal fulfillment. For instance, you could reward yourself with a day off (actually take a vacation day) after you pay down a quarter of your credit card debt.

Of course, it would be smart to avoid using credit cards as a way to reward yourself as you work to eliminate debt. Yet, that shouldn’t be a problem, as there are so many things that you could do that don’t call for spending money. There’s fishing, hiking, bike riding, visiting local arts centers, stopping by a museum, checking out a local bookstore, hanging out with family and friends and so much more.

You Should Be Rewarded

Reward yourself by engaging in activities that you truly love and enjoy. Not only could this encourage you to continue moving forward, it could reinforce the message that you love yourself. And that’s a powerful message to get across to yourself.

After you set clear intentions, think about the reason/s that you want to fulfill the specific goal. Believe it or not, this might be where the rubber meets the road. The why of your aim and your actions might turn out to be your biggest payout.

Check out these whys as it relates to weight loss, wealth and artistic success. See if any of these whys resonate with you.

• To live with high physical energy and to feel vibrant, hopeful and joyful
• To enjoy physical strength and top health, opening myself up to more and more fun activities
• To live debt free for the rest of my physical experience
• To live debt free and build financial wealth so that I can explore experiences that bring me joy
• To gain success creating artwork that I love to create, enough success to earn an entire income creating and selling my artwork
• To make doing what I love, as it regards art and creativity, my life’s work

Create Powerful Whys

Keep going. Create a list of powerful whys. Connect those whys to your goals/intentions. As a note, the more powerful your whys, the easier it may be to map out a clear path or a strategy to achieve your goals and start receiving the rewards that are directly linked to your whys.

This brings up another important point. After you identify specific goals, set reward markers and establish clear whys, you need to outline actions that you are going to take to fulfill your goals. Again, you’ll need to get specific.

Here’s an example of specific steps that you could take to gain wealth. Remember to align this and other goals with one or more powerful whys to stay encouraged and motivated. If you want to gain wealth, consider taking the following actions:

• Create a line-item budget (add mortgage, rent, utilities, credit card payments, entertainment, etc. to the budget)
• Identify expenses that you could forego temporarily or permanently. Eliminate these purchases at least temporarily.
• See which expenses you could substitute for lower costing items. For instance, instead of eating out for lunch, cook enough fresh food over the weekend to easily bring lunch into work.
• Pay $100 or more extra a month on the credit card with the highest fees and interest rates
• Complete online consulting or freelance work. Put 60% money earned from this extra work in an interest-bearing savings account. Consider investing the other 40% of this money into regulated low-risk mutual funds.

Go Get What You Really Want

Start taking the actions and see if you don’t begin to feel empowered. Choose goals and whys that are rooted in love. Also, when you break goals down, set powerful whys and intentions as well as reward yourself along the way, you could feel energized enough to tackle two to three goals simultaneously.

That’s not all. You pursuing and fulfilling your goals could inspire other people to go after what they really want. In fact, don’t be surprised if colleagues, relatives and friends start noticing a positive change in you. They also might start to ask you how you changed.

This is a great time to share the power of setting an intention for success, including how setting clear goals, identifying clear whys and outlining action steps offers amazing energy to your pursuit. A strong why, rewards and clear intentions and action steps can fuel you throughout this world’s ups and downs.

By Mystery Suspense Books Writer Denise Turney

If you’re feeling stuck, it might be time to improve your life script. First, just what is a life script and why does it have so much impact? Here’s a general way to look at a life script.

Building Your Life Script

Have you ever felt like you were living between hard boundaries, making it feel impossible to experience great positive shifts, limiting yourself to the same routines? If so, you might be adhering to a script. Beautiful Truth shares that a life script or storytelling is part of how we navigate the world. “Storytelling occurs at our most basic experience of navigating the world. But most of the time, we aren’t even aware of ourselves doing it.”¹

Furthermore, “And here is the most exciting part. In realising how prone we are to tell stories, and more importantly – to believe them – we are able to create new ones. And when we change the stories we tell ourselves, we can change the way we see the world and ourselves within it. ^“1

Generally, by the time you’re seven-years-old, your life script is set. In addition to being made at the unconscious level, this script can play out seemingly to your conscious unawareness. Should this happen, you could be attracted to people who struggle with anger, lack of confidence, workaholism or gambling. But not only would you be attracted to a specific “type” of person, you might not know why you’re attracted to those types of people.

Who’s Part of Your Life Script

Also, as with many unconscious scripts, your life story consists of habits, statements, beliefs, etc. that you saw those around you engaging in, particularly people who you were close to as a child. Without meaning to, you could create a life story that causes you to mirror a parent, uncle, coach, etc. All by itself, this proves that you do have impact.

Not only have other people helped to make your life script, but right now you’re saying, believing and doing things that are helping to make someone else’s “story”. For example, if you curse and bang furniture whenever your laptop is slow and you have to wait for a webpage to load while your manager is waiting for you to send her a file, your niece could learn to react that way when she’s feeling stress and waiting for something, after she becomes a woman.

Fortunately, you can rewrite your life script. Psychology Today shares a story about a young girl who had been bullied while teachers seemed either not to notice or chose not to respond.² The girl’s mother helped her to step into her power, even calling teachers and those involved herself, refusing to ignore what her daughter had shared with her. Those choices helped to change the girl’s script, also referred to as “story”.

Improve Your Life Story

In the Psychology Today article, it’s shared that, “We are the stories we tell—and we are compelled to create stories to understand ourselves.” Inner Self³ and Bestselfology⁴ offer suggestions on actions you could take to change your “story” or your life script. (See below link in our “Resources” section.)

Here are a few actions that you could take to improve your story:

• Accept that your experiences are part of a “story”
• Accept that you are more powerful than your “story”
• Watch videos of people struggling, dealing with stress and low confidence who prove that you can improve your life script as you watch the people in the videos listen to a training, read specific books or watch shows that actually open them up to the point where they change their “story”
• Listen to your inner dialogue. It’s there. Become aware of it and simply listen to what you say throughout the day and night.
• Acknowledge that you can change your life script.
• Meditate regularly to quiet your mind. Get in the habit of uncluttering your mind.
• Pay attention to how you feel and see if your feelings are connected to a script.
• Try something new every day. This is also a good way to get your brain off autopilot.
• Give yourself options.

Support to Improve Your Life Script

To improve your life script, you might find it beneficial to work with a licensed, experienced therapist. An experienced, licensed therapist could access your subconscious mind and help you to rewrite your life story.

That’s good work. But what if you peered into your future and saw specifics around one or more events that were headed your way? In other words, what if you visualized an actual event before it occurred? Do you think you would be scared if you knew what was coming in your life?

Furthermore, do you think it’s possible to see the specifics as it regards sights, sounds and maybe even lighting and smells, about events that don’t actually show up in your life for 10 or more years?

Several times I have received details on an upcoming event that was 10 or more away. Based on research on life scripts, not certain if these experiences are related to a script or if a Higher Power preplanned the visionary experiences. Tammy Tilson’s daughter addresses these and other questions in a life changing way in the mystery book, Spiral.

Life Scripts in Spiral

She can’t ignore what she knows. What she knows is connected to other people’s life scripts that do not allow for good endings. Yet, if she doesn’t act, try to change the endings, she won’t be free and she knows it.

Her conscience will play and re-play a tape that could rob her of peace. She’s not willing to let that happen, and so she acts.

This all is worth asking, have the experiences you see already happened? Are you remembering a distant past, simply perceiving it as the present?

And, if so, do you have access to information that will allow you to make better decisions? That would be one way to effectively change your life, to really improve your life script.

Are You Willing to Improve Your Life Script

To know what is coming next and then to make decisions that cause the effect you truly want is a fortune. Should you choose this route, foreknowledge could prove beneficial. Yet, if your life is running, in part, off an internal script that you perceived and put into place when you were as young as seven-years-old, you might have forgotten what you put into place or why.

Is a first step toward improving your life script and opening up to more loving experiences a willingness to become aware of what you are thinking, becoming aware of what you have spent years focusing on? And is an early step toward changing your life a willingness to open up to change?

Resources:

1. The Stories We Tell Ourselves — The Beautiful Truth
2. Rewrite Your Script | Psychology Today
3. How You Can Rewrite the Script of Your Life – InnerSelf.com
4. What is your life script and are you happy with it? – BestselfologyBestselfology

By Freelance Writer and Books Author Denise Turney

Living thanksgiving calls for appreciation. It’s an ongoing process that requires present awareness. When you were a kid, you may have practiced present awareness effortlessly. In fact, a sure blessing linked to a happy, loving childhood is the ability to live in the present.

When you feel safe, loved and wanted, you can become fully involved in what you’re experiencing right now. Gone is the temptation to daydream or to pretend that you are someplace else.

Living Thanksgiving in The Present

Even more, a blessed childhood can keep you from looking to the future. Experience a loving childhood and you might not fall into the habit of convincing yourself that good things are always in the future always “out there” somewhere. That by itself can bring more goodness into your life.

After all, as you enjoy living in the present, you can actually experience the happiness that is associated with appreciation. The more physically present the thing you appreciate is, the stronger the happiness you may feel.

Try it. See how you feel when you fantasize or imagine having an experience that you like, but the experience is always in the future. Then, give yourself an experience that you enjoy right now. Look around your environment and count 5 things that you appreciate about the experience that you’re having right now. Which way feels better?

How Daydreaming and Fantasizing Influence Thankfulness

Daydreaming about a future experience that’s always too far ahead of you to enjoy or entering a loving experience and appreciating it right now? Which feels better right now? Fortunately, you could learn to appreciate what’s happening right now even if yours was a troubled childhood.

Furthermore, as it regards a blessed childhood, this doesn’t mean that you never felt sad or angry as a kid. It means that you didn’t experience trauma, especially ongoing trauma when you were a child. Trauma that’s experienced during childhood could make you want to be someplace else. To read more about childhood trauma, check out this article.

Continuously daydreaming, fantasizing and telling yourself that situations are better than they actually are could be signs that you have unresolved trauma. The good news is that you can deal with trauma and get through it, even it doing so requires the help of a licensed and highly experienced professional who you trust.

Associated Benefits of Living Thanksgiving

Whether yours was a trauma-free or stressful childhood, it can take work to start living in the present. When you consider the blessings associated with living in the present, you might be encouraged to try.

Living thanksgiving offers rewards. To start, when you are fully present, you notice more. You actually see colors, people, events that you might otherwise miss. Other benefits include:

• Strengthening your intuition – the more you become aware of what’s happening right now, the more clues you can pick up about what’s coming. You also might start to notice slight shifts in your inner guidance which could allow you to pick up when something feels right or wrong.
• Enjoy conversations more deeply – being present can help you to hear what people are saying more fully and more clearly. This, in turn, could lead to a deep appreciation for what’s being shared.
• Dining may become less of an addictive action – live in the present and you might stop and only eat while you’re dining. This could allow you to taste your food and beverages more thoroughly. Keep it up and you might stop eating and/or drinking to feed an emotion or to avoid an emotion or memory. (According to Psychology Today, trauma can cause your brain to replay the traumatic event.)
• Improved relationships – Hearing and listening to people better can strengthen interpersonal relationships. You also might pick up when someone is disrespecting you and choose to love yourself and ask the person to hold you in respect as you do them.

Exploring More Thankfulness Advantages

There are more advantages connected to living thanksgiving. It could take a while, but you’d eventually see that everything in this world is temporary. That includes traumas that you’ve experienced, if you experienced trauma. The key is to let the trauma go. Again, you might need help from a licensed and experienced professional you trust.

The more you realize how temporary everything is in this world, the more you might pause and enter living thanksgiving as you observe what’s happening in your life and around you. If you’ve ever seen a loved one transition, you know the power of being thankful for what’s happening now.

Delay living thanksgiving and you could encounter regret. For instance, you might not appreciate a person, a pet or an experience until after the person or pet transitions or the experience has ended. Just think about it. How much joy and peace would you allow into your life if you appreciated what was right in front of you?

If you’re in a challenging situation, look for something to appreciate. But don’t stop there. Also, seek a way out of the situation. Definitely gain lessons from the experience. Don’t leave an experience with empty pockets. Always walk away with a lesson, at the minimum.

Surprising Answers

Throughout your journey, focus on appreciating what’s happening now. This means appreciating the people around you now, appreciating a job that you’re in right now and appreciating your dwelling now. To repeat, this doesn’t mean that you don’t seek a better job or dwelling. It means that you find something to be thankful about where you are right now.

Living thanksgiving or appreciating what’s right in front of you can keep you free of a nagging sense that something is always wrong. It can keep you energized and hopeful. Just remember to be honest about what you’re thankful about. For instance, if you don’t like loud music, don’t say that you do. However, if you’re in an area where music is being played loudly, you might be able to appreciate the lyrics.

You might even discover an answer to a question you’ve been mulling in the lyrics. When you practice living thanksgiving, another takeaway is that you could become more aware. It’s no secret that appreciation and awareness are linked. After all, you actually have to practice awareness to spot things to appreciate.

Resources:

1. 21 Common Reactions to Trauma | Psychology Today