Category Archives: Real Life Musings

Real life musings about life as a whole, including parts of life that impact singles and married couples, experience are here. These writings are also for people who are experiencing relationship changes. You’ll find articles that focus on ways to connect with family better. Other topics you’ll discover encourage children to develop a love for reading books and navigating a career are some of the blog articles written and shared here. Take your time reading through the articles. They are designed to equip you with insights, motivations, tips and inspiration that strengthen your inner being.

Can You Join in Love Again?

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By Books Author Denise Turney

African American couple in love smiling next to bikes wearing helmets
Couple in Love with Bikes – Wikimedia Commons – Picture by Bill Branson

Feel that nudge in your heart? Maybe your core is telling you that it’s time to join in love again. But are you ready?

It’s easy to fall in love when you’re young. It’s easy to fall in love when you haven’t had your heart broken. But go through the heartache of divorce or even a non-marital breakup and you could become reluctant to enter a new romantic relationship.

And who could blame you? After all, you’re merely trying to protect yourself.

Give yourself chance to join in love again

Yet, self-protection has a cost. The highest cost is living with an invisible wall around your heart and your mind, a wall that no one can penetrate. If you’ve experienced this, you might feel alone, isolated or like no one understands you. In addition, you might start to believe that you’re simply not someone who will ever enjoy a loving, romantic relationship.

But what if you’re wrong? What if you can join in love again. What if your next relationship could actually be rewarding, enriching, empowering and inspiring?

Prepping your inner being for love

To enjoy a healthy relationship, make sure your inner being is healthy. Signs that you are inwardly healthy include:

  • Freedom from suspecting other people of doing wrong when there has been absolutely nothing done or said that would indicate that another person has intended to harm you
  • No interest in searching through your partner’s cell phone simply because you want to be certain that you’re not being cheated on (again when there has been no indication of infidelity)
  • Engaging in a variety of interest (e.g., sports, crafts, traveling)
  • Appreciation for the chance to experience new events, conversations, etc. with your partner and others
  • Lack of obsession
  • Strong family and friends support system
  • Connections with people who are positive and improving their lives
  • Taking full responsibility for yourself
  • Daily routines that encourage physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. Examples include exercising, meditating, nature walks, keeping an appreciation journal, worship of the Creator and resting.

Acknowledge your self-worth

You’re right. It takes work to maintain good inner health, especially in this world where there are long work hours, financial challenges, family demands and harsh environmental shifts. Yet, it’s doable and so worth it.

In fact, just as you brush your teeth and shower or bathe every day, it takes daily actions to maintain inner health. You need good inner health to attract other people who are committed to being inwardly healthy. Simply reading self-help books isn’t enough. You and your partner need to take the right actions to enjoy inner health.

If this is new to you, start by acknowledging your self-worth. Below are a few shortcuts that could help you acknowledge your self-worth:

  • Engage in hobbies or work that you love. For me, that’s writing page turning novels! Oh, and I also love to interview artists on Off The Shelf Books Talk Radio
  • Remind yourself that other people’s opinions do not give you real worth
  • Try something new once a month. For example, you could drive a new way to or from work, go swimming if you haven’t been to a pool in years, ride a bike, travel someplace new or try a different food.
  • Be patient with yourself. You’re learning.
  • Recall past successes.
  • Remember that your worth is not tied to what you do, how much money you have, who you know, what you weigh or where you live.
  • Say “I love you” to that gorgeous person in the mirror!

You just might be ready to join in love again

Can you join in love again? Of course, you can. In fact, joining in love with someone who is ready to love you may get easier after you acknowledge your self-worth and get your inner self healthy.

To join in love again, you also need to open up to the idea of being in a romantic relationship. Turning away from loving people, doesn’t signal that you’re welcome to romantic love. After all, just as you don’t want to be rejected, the person who’d like to approach you, doesn’t want to be rejected either.

A final thought, you’re never going to know everything that’s going to happen to you in this world. And why would you want to? In fact, opening up to surprises is part of being in love. As you start to acknowledge your self-worth more, work on your inner health and take full responsibility for yourself, surprises may stop being viewed as risks to you.

They might become opportunities to grow, have fun, avoid boredom and stay engaged in the details of your life. Surprises also might serve as a pathway into deeper, richer, fuller love experiences that you treasure with your partner. So, like Raymond Clarke in Love Pour Over Me, you just might be ready to try romantic love again.

Signs You’re in a Healthy Love Relationship

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By Books Author Denise Turney

Love Pour Over Me book cover of African American couple in healthy love relationship
Love Pour Over Me Book Cover – Denise Turney

Chance to flourish in a healthy love relationship may be the top desire of every adult. Time, disappointment, aging communities and diverse solo social events don’t seem to be putting the brakes on this desire. In fact, the numbers of people searching for a romantic partner to enter a healthy relationship with may be growing, thanks for the Internet. For starters, Pew research reports that 15% of American adults have used a dating app.

Everyone’s Looking for Love – Who’s Finding Love

Percentages are higher for Americans who have never tied the knot. About 30% of American adults who have never been married have used a dating app. Gone are the days when an adult posting a dating ad in a newspaper or magazine is considered a “lonely heart” or as being “socially inept”. But finding someone to get involved with and enjoying a healthy relationship are not always the same.

So, how do you know if you’re in a healthy relationship? A good starting point may be to pay attention to how you feel when you speak to yourself. Pay attention to how you feel based on how you treat yourself. For example, do you feel anxious or peaceful when you highlight mistakes that you made?

Do you feel confident or cowardly when you encourage yourself or speak positive affirmations to yourself? If we’re created to experience joy, love and peace, then, that may well be the hallmark of a healthy relationship. Forget trying to dupe yourself. Go after what you were created to have. Consider flourishing with joy, love and peace to be key signs that you’re in a healthy relationship.

Honesty Is Pathway to Healthy Love Relationship

This means that your partner and you actively help each other to experience joy, love and peace. You make it a goal. It may take honesty to accept this, to allow yourself to receive this trio of blessings. These three cannot be swapped out for excitement, romance or sleeping all day. Your relationship either enriches you with joy, love and peace or it doesn’t. No substituting.

More signs that you’re in a healthy relationship include:

  • Accountability is clear and accepted – Both you and your partner take full responsibility for your thoughts, emotions and behavior. You don’t blame each other for how you feel, think or behave. If you want to end or start a new way of thinking or behaving, you hold yourself responsible for doing what it takes to achieve that. This includes lovingly dealing with sabotaging mental forecasting.
  • Change celebrations – You and your partner don’t run from change. You don’t curse the world when your routines change. Instead, you celebrate change, seeing it as another chance to awaken and grow.
  • Admit when you’re not happy – Even if you grew up in a home where you rarely saw your parents laughing or expressing peace and happiness, you and your partner are not afraid to admit when you’re not happy.

More Signs of a Healthy Love Relationship

  • Clear, honest communication – Communicating is not enough. If you’re in a healthy relationship, you and your partner are honest, open and clear while communicating. You don’t belittle each other. You don’t diminish each other to relatives or friends.
  • Ongoing work – Healthy relationships see couples continuing to learn. Both you and your partner refuse to believe that you “know it all”. You listen to one another. You keep paying attention and learning.
  • Common goals – Rather than strive to convince or sell your partner on a goal, you and your lover pursue common goals. Neither of you feels as if you’re constantly “giving in” or being forced to do what you don’t really want to do just to keep the other partner happy.

All shared, no healthy relationship sign tops love. This is also where things can get tricky, as each person may have a different perception of love. Start discovering what your would-be lover’s perception about love is early in the dating process. Hook up with someone who has a vastly different perception of love than you do and, despite how much energy or time you invest in the relationship, the road could long be rocky.

Healthy relationships, like the one shared in Love Pour Over Me may take time. The best intentions can see relationships experience highs and lows. The good news is that some couples, like the couple in Love Pour Over Me, are truly meant to be. Here’s to wishing that’s what you experience!

Prepare for Victory

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By Books Author Denise Turney

Prepare for victory if you’re ready to stop caring so much about what others think about you. Prepare for victory if you’re ready for a healthy dose of self-honesty. After all, these two are linked to the one thing that you want most but are starting to think you’ll never grasp and keep.

What’s that one thing? Freedom.

If you’re like many people, you want the freedom to do what you want when you want and not just on weekends. And you want that thing to bring increasing empowerment, peace and joy to you. For me, that’s writing intense novels, the types of books that leave readers thinking, sometimes rattled and definitely, entertained, and dare I say — changed.

Runner opening arms to prepare for victory
Victory Race – Wikimedia Commons – Picture by Darren Wilkinson

Prepare for victory with clarity

However, saying what you want to become victorious at and achieving that goal don’t always link up right away. Sometimes, you gotta fight for what you want.

Which brings up the first step in victory preparation.

To prepare for victory, get clear about what you want. Once you get clear about what you want, you can write the goal down in one to two short sentences. You can stand in front of a mirror and, in less than 15 seconds, tell yourself exactly what you want.

Forbes shares that knowing what you want may be linked to happiness. Forget trying to talk yourself out of what you know you really want. For now, just get clear about what that experience is.

The next step in preparing for victory might scare you, especially if you grew up in a traditional home. And here it is. Be willing to fail. Be willing to fail often. If I told you how many times I’ve tried a book marketing strategy that fell flat, you might think that I’m nuts to still be writing novels.

Victory steps

The ups and downs, failures and successes are not all fun. It doesn’t always feel good. And you’ll certainly need to keep working to keep your confidence and enthusiasm up. But it’s worth it.

Other actions that can help you to prepare for victory are:

  • Use a new scale – Stop giving more weight to what others think or say than to what you think. The old scale that I was using while I wrote my first novel, Portia, almost stopped me from publishing the book that went on to become a classic.
  • Identify blocks – There’s a verse of scripture (Mark 11:23) that says it’s possible for you to move a mountain if you speak that the mountain move (gotta know what you really want to pull this off). You also have to believe that the experience will happen for you. But you need to identify the blocks (mountains) to know what to address. Journal writing, meditating, freestyle writing and jotting down dreams are ways to identify blocks. Another way is to pay attention to times when you feel uncomfortable for seemingly no reason (e.g., someone compliments you in a crowd, you’re given a gift).
  • Ask for what you want – Give up magical thinking. Victory may not fall in your lap just because you want it. Eventually, you may need to ask someone to help you.
  • Become your number one fan – Lack of self-love shows up in so many ways. Times when I struggled with lack of self-love, I felt uncomfortable around nearly everyone. Not loving yourself can create a viscous cycle of projection. So, love yourself. Genuinely love yourself no matter what. It’s a lesson that I share through the character Raymond in Love Pour Over Me.

Paths to victory

Paths to victory vary. But you can shorten the time that it takes to experience victory, by incorporating the following steps into your life.

  • Make room for victory by being open to change – You could do this in small ways like wearing a different pair of shoes (if you generally wear the same pair of shoes), wearing a new hairstyle, driving a different way home, speaking to a stranger in a safe environment and talking with others to avoid becoming self-absorbed.
  • Keep good company – Surround yourself with people who love you, people who are pursuing their own victories. Free yourself of people who belittle, mistreat or abuse you.
  • Celebrate each forward step – It may take months or years to get the victory that you want. Enjoy the journey and celebrate in healthy ways.
  • See things differently – Start seeing yourself achieving what you want. Start seeing yourself enjoying experiences that you want. After all, when it comes to people enjoying a love-filled, joyous life — why not you?

Prepare for victory and you could avoid nesting these top regrets or unwanted motivations once you reach the end of your physical journey. You could feel more love, peace, joy and centeredness even as you move through a chaotic world.

And that is my hope for you. After all, your joy and peace help to light the way. But first you need to prepare yourself for victory. You most certainly can do it. The victory that you’re preparing for and truly want is going to come from right inside of you. Are you ready to go get it?

Motivation Traps – Dream Chasers Be Careful

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By Books Author Denise Turney

Dream chasers are believers. They are steadfast in their hope that they will attain their deepest desires and reach their most sought-after goals. At the worst, they doubt that they will ever do what they keep striving to complete. Is this you? Does this sound like you? Are you a dream chaser?

Wikimedia Commons, Picture by Benh LIEU SONG

Dream chasers turn away from facts

Do you run away from facts when weeks, months, maybe years have passed, and you still haven’t met one significant goal? And these are goals that you set for yourself. I’m not talking about goals your parents, friends or older siblings set for you, whether they pushed you toward those plans directly or indirectly.

Examples of facts include bathroom scale readings, health screening results, book sales, time spent with friends, depth of family relationships, athletic performance, late bills and money debt. So, let’s say that you want to lose 20 pounds within three months.

If you’re a dream chaser, you might get a fitness watch, track your daily steps and trade soda in for water. That’s the good part. On the flip side, you might start munching on potato chips, eating more bread and snacking on pizza on weekends.

It’s time to face facts dream chasers

Result is that, despite how many times you tell yourself and others that “you’re trying to lose weight”, you either go back and forth between losing and gaining weight or you don’t ever lose even five pounds. If you’re a dream chaser, the fact that you haven’t lost five pounds in 10 years might not be enough to stop you from swearing that you’re really serious about losing weight.

This is called self-deception. Hope to move beyond just being among the dream chasers? Pay attention to the facts. Track your progress. Create a spreadsheet and list specific actions that you take to reach your goals. Each month, list the results that your actions produced.

Open yourself to changing your actions as needed. Big businesses do this. It helps to determine which businesses survive and thrive and which businesses fold. It might sound hard; but facing facts could save you years of striving and exerting energy that will never get you what you want. Ever.

Are you another Raymond Clarke?

This is a critical point where you may have a lot in common with a guy named Raymond Clarke. Raymond spent the majority of his childhood trying to fit in. For Raymond, it started at home with his alcoholic father.

No longer able to stomach anymore of his father’s disapproval, Raymond started telling himself that his father wasn’t really angry. He did this despite the fact that his father treated him with an unrelenting meanness.

There are downsides if you lie to yourself

That’s when Raymond learned to lie to himself.

What happened to cause you to think that self-deception or chasing dreams (and never catching them) was the answer? How did you come to perceive lying to yourself as a better alternative than facts?

If you’re willing, consider examining this habit. The last thing you want is to spend decades chasing dreams that will never come true. You also don’t want dream chasing to consume so much of your attention and energy that you miss awesome opportunities, none of which is related to your dreams.

Please don’t let this happen to you.

If you’re ready to get familiar with Raymond’s story, grab a copy of Love Pour Over Me. Look for similarities in your life and Raymond’s story. Be open to making changes. Give yourself a chance to live your best life starting right now.

How to Finish Strong in 2019

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By Author Denise Turney

Finish strong as a new year gets closer, and you could reap more than fantasy success. You could pull in more than a harvest of hope and great expectations. If you’re serious about advancing in 2020, why not finish 2019 strong? Below are reasons not to take your foot off the accelerator just because 2019 is winding down. After all, the way that you finish 2019 may have more impact on how your 2020 goes than you’d imagine.

Finish Strong in 2019

Sure, it’s tempting to trick yourself into thinking that it’s too late to get real results in 2019. Makes sense. The year really is almost over. But you could use the next several weeks to finalize plans for a new book, business venture, relationship change, home renovation, financial shift, childcare options, healthy lifestyle, marketing strategy and more.

new year 2020 graphic with happy people jumping
Happy New Year – Wikimedia Commons – Picture by
naziruddin (https://www.statuswire.in/2019/11/happy-new-year-images.html)

As it regards marketing, you could try a new audio, visual or print content marketing strategy, the type of content marketing strategy that could grow your sales throughout 2020. Looking for growth ideas? Check out these 2019 year-end marketing actions that you could take to yield good results in new year:

  • Identify three to five experienced freelance writers who you will assign 2020 content marketing responsibilities to
  • Connect with these freelance writers before 2019 closes out
  • Settle on content marketing rates
  • Build on your pool of copywriters
  • Incorporate the strength of these copywriters into your prospecting communications
  • Contact three dozen (or more) prospects before December 31, 2019

That’s just one area where you can finish 2019 strong. And you won’t have to work long hours to complete each of the above options. Simply, create a daily schedule.

Easy Ways to Finish 2019 Strong

Add three actions to each week, and you’d complete each action listed above by the end of the year. As an entrepreneur looking to grow her business, you’d be setting yourself up for a good start to 2020. This is for content marketing. But what about a lifestyle change?

For example, what if you want to get your wellness numbers within a healthy range? Consider not eating and drinking whatever you want over the next several weeks. Instead, start to change your beliefs around food, comfort, excitement and energy.

Wikimedia Commons – Picture by naziruddin (https://www.statuswire.in/2019/11/happy-new-year-images.html)

In fact, with holiday food temptations, now may be one of the best times to start creating deep healthy lifestyle roots. Doable ways to finish 2019 strong as it regards healthy eating, exercise, rest and healthy relationships (a huge part of any healthy lifestyle) include:

  • Eliminate poor relationship habits like gossiping, back biting and manipulation. If you start or engage in gossip, back biting and manipulation, stop. If you’re a listener, let folks know that you’re no longer participating in these unhealthy habits.
  • Drink plenty of fresh water every day. This one should be easy.
  • Avoid talking yourself out of doing what’s good or better for you.

Chart Your Own Course

Chart your own path as the year progresses. Keep at it in the new year. Check out these simple ways to create finish the year strong, creating a path for a rewarding new year:

  • Exercise daily
  • Get your BMI, blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol levels tested
  • Take one unhealthy food or beverage out of your diet
  • Replace an unhealthy food or beverage with a healthy food or beverage item (e.g., fresh, leafy spinach, broccoli)
  • Step away from your desk at least three times a day. For example, you could step away from your desk after breakfast, for lunch and an hour before you head home.
  • Park several yards from stores and offices when you know you’ll exit the buildings while it’s still daylight.
  • Walk stairs that are in safe locations at least once a day instead of taking an elevator
  • Lift weights three days a week. You could start by lifting dumb bells for the remainder of 2019.
  • Stretch at morning and at night before retiring to bed. Strengthen your balance and flexibility.

Also, finish 2019 strong by getting sufficient sleep. You could do this by turning off your TV before you go to bed. If you’re in the habit of sleeping with the TV on, consider turning your TV off the first time you wake in the middle of the night.

Prepare for a Happy New Year

Even more, you could use a lava lamp or other meditation tool to relax an hour before you head for bed. Other ways to unwind before bed include writing in a journal, counting blessings or reading a book while you relax on the sofa.

Key is to break actions into doable steps. Another key, is to get started now. Don’t let the word “now” scare you. After all, you could always just let 2019 wind down, shift into the gear of pulling back and cross your fingers and hope for magic to occur in 2020.

Then again, if improvements don’t just happen out-of-the-blue, it may be best to finish 2019 strong. Start the actions that will help to set you up for a winning 2020.

Help For The Inner Journey

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By Denise Turney

There may be no journey as hard or as rewarding as the inner journey. Unexpected experiences, outright shocks, long awaited successes, heartbreaks and joyous, peaceful events that can stretch into weeks, sometimes years, are part of the inner journey. If you’re up for it, you could be in for the ride of your life.

What If Hope Doesn’t Know The Way

Play it safe (stay where you) and you may find yourself in need of help, particularly as it regards mental health than if you had stirred your courage, gotten started and stepped right into change. Whatever your prior decisions, if you want your life to improve, don’t keep doing what you know isn’t best for you.

natural inner journey with trees in woods
Path thru nature – Wikimedia Commons – Picture by ForestWander

Don’t just hope that an old situation will get better with time. After all, instead of enduring defeat, you could seek help. This article shares three ways to receive help for the inner journey.

To begin, practice mental health awareness to avoid getting stuck, burned out or anxious. Mental awareness could help you to get and stay mentally sharp. No need adding more struggle to your journey.

Stay Mentally Sharp on the Inner Journey

Fortunately, achieving mental sharpness may not be hard, especially if you are committed to your journey for the long term. If you’re looking for ways to get or stay mentally sharp, here are a few suggestions:

  • Add at least three activities that you enjoy into your day (e.g., a hot, scented bubble bath, listening to your favorite music, reading a good book)
  • Get enough deep sleep
  • Meditate or still your mind
  • Pray and trust the Creator
  • Pay attention to your dreams and other forms of inner communication
  • Treat your body to a healthy diet (e.g., fresh vegetables, delicious fruit bursting with flavor)
  • Daily exercise (get your body moving)
  • Write down your dreams (Don’t get too surprised if you start spotting dream themes or recurring symbols that your subconscious pushes up to your conscious in your dreams.)

Different Kind of Travel Map

Next, take inspired action. This means that you’re not just throwing paint against the wall, hoping that it lands in the right spots. Also, don’t worry too much about getting it right. You’re going to make mistakes.

Yet, don’t accept mistakes as habits. Steer clear of convincing yourself that taking the wrong action is “okay” just because everyone makes mistakes. Examples of inspired action include:

  • Signing up for a free training
  • Joining and actively participating in a support group (e.g., mental health support group, startup founders support and networking group)
  • Attending a specific event
  • Contacting a certain person who can aid your progress
  • Waking in the morning when your brain is most alert, allowing ideas and answers to bubble up

You’ll know in your gut when the inner voice of wisdom is prompting you to take action. That inner voice of wisdom is your real voice. Even in this world, you can listen to it.

Seek Help from Someone Else

Should you feel stuck or confused (circling the mountain because you don’t know what to do), seek help. Avoid limiting “help” to mental health therapy with a licensed psychologist.

After all, bonding with friends, truly listening to the people who you partner with, and working with someone who has been stuck before (and who found her way forward) are other ways to seek help. Key is to seek input from someone who can offer you a new perspective, someone who can speak with conviction.

As an example, you could seek the support of a life coach who has deep experience in your field. A coach could help you to see your blind spots. Just be open to listening.

Above all, keep going. Your beautiful life won’t unfold with the snap of a finger. But it will unfold if you listen to your inner wisdom, practice mental awareness, stay mentally sharp and, if when you get stuck or confused, you seek help for the inner journey.

Making the Inner Journey Easier

As a final thought, when it comes to covering inner ground, consider external travel. Think about it.

New York to Kenya may be a long way to travel, especially if you go by boat. Oahu to Tuscany isn’t better. Yet, technology has helped to make it easy to see the path that you must take to get from one of those travel destinations to another. Do your homework, and you can even know what to expect when you arrive.  

There are plenty of travel websites and travel packages you could use. Talk about taking the fear out of making a decision about a new journey. Technology has taken a lot of unknown out of world travel. Mental awareness and the right support can do the same for the inner journey.

Although your life’s detailed plans aren’t uploaded on a travel website, you aren’t absent help. In fact, the more you listen to the inner voice of wisdom, the better. Listen to the inner voice of wisdom and you could avoid mental health roadblocks.

That alone could keep you fueled with enough motivation to keep going, and you need to keep going. After all, how else will you know what this phase of your never-ending journey will look like? Even more, how else will you come to know what you really are?

Here Are 3 Reasons Why You Should Always Choose Love

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By Author Denise Turney

brown sand always choose love text on beach shore
Love written on beach – Photo by Porapak Apichodilok on Pexels.com

Always choose love because, in reality, what else is there? Love is the gateway to peace. It is powerful, all-encompassing and eternal. Destinies, miracles and life itself owe all they are to love. So why the pull toward fear, worry, violence and trauma?

Are we that out of touch with our core? Has love, to us, become the greatest mystery?

Oh, the wonder of love and yet it’s never what you expect. You definitely don’t expect love to be elusive, and yet that is often how love seems. In fact, the harder you pursue love, the further away it seems to move.

What if Love is a Choice

And it’s this elusiveness that brings up a not-to-be-ignored point. Love is a choice, not an emotion or object that you can hold or take ownership of. Therefore, to find love, always choose love. Sound simple?

On a clear day, times absent struggle, disappointment or pain, it is simple. Let someone lie on you, betray you, bully you or abandon you and the simplicity of choosing love flees. During these complicated emotionally charged experiences, there’s so much to gain . . . and lose.

It all comes down to the choices you make. Choices because it might take a series of choices to get from hurt, anger or fear to love. But how do you know you don’t always choose love? How do you know you’re asking for an unloving experience?

About the Love Guarantee

Although you don’t have to be convinced that love is worth always choosing, you may be eager for confirmation that your pursuit of love will not fail. Childhood abandonment, relationship conflicts, not to mention communication struggles at work, can shy you away from love. Should this happen, you may demand a guarantee that love will work.

Love Always Pays Off
Love double heart graphic – Wikimedia Commons, Picture by Nevit Dilmen

After all, who wants to look or feel foolish? But it’s impossible to get a guarantee that the best thing is to always choose love. If you still need a guarantee, you could peek in on other people’s relationships, witnessing how it plays out when they choose love or fear.

Signs You Don’t Always Choose Love

However, that probably wouldn’t convince you that it’s best to always choose love. On the contrary, that’s their relationships, not yours. Or you could suffer through life, afraid of what might happen if you choose love. And suffer you might eventually do, in a habit kind-of-way. Best to catch yourself, spot what you’re doing, early. Do any of these signs that you’re not choosing love resonate?

  • Making excuses not to connect with other people
  • Replaying former relationship conflicts until the memory thread starts wearing thin
  • Working harder to protect yourself from sad romantic endings than you do at opening up to healthy relationships
  • Boxing love in small or narrow perceptional passageways
  • Feeling anger or fear when you let someone get emotionally close to you

That or you could spend years, which is a long time, trying to define love, not actually experience love but define it. Truth is, because love encompasses all that is real, it may be impossible to define love.

3 Reasons To Always Choose Love

Fact is love doesn’t always come with flowers, compliments, warm emotions, excitement or romance. Yet, rewards you gain when you always choose love are immeasurable, as these three reasons show:

  • Joy, peace and love cannot be separated. Choose love and you gain joy. Even more, you gain peace. Additional benefits include trust, strong faith that love works, sharper inner vision, a clear conscience and confidence.
  • Ease at forgiving is another reason to always choose love. After you experience the results of love, you may never want to be blocked again. Lack of forgiveness blocks the experience of love.
  • Third, choosing love allows you to let life unfold unhindered, naturally. Additionally, you may feel more energized, balanced and supported. Also, you might expect good things to happen to you simply because you believe that, as someone who always chooses love, you deserve good.

The good news is that love encompasses all. Plainly, inside love is love for the Creator, love for Self and love for all of creation. Practice love and you sleep good at night. You gain experiences (also known as “proof”) that love works, even in this world – love works.

Choosing Love Changes Everything

By always choosing love, you can see how time or space cannot stop love. This doesn’t mean that everyone believes in love, let alone chooses love. Past experiences cause many people to fear love, to believe that love caused the pain in their relationships.

In fact, some people make themselves hard to love. It can take years to see that this is a call for help. In fact, Raymond Clarke starts learning to cry out for love early. He learns this lesson through his father, the one parent who stayed back to care for him when he was only two years old.

Raymond’s father is bitter, hard, abusive. His words cut. They’re sharp, spoken to do damage and they don’t fail. But Raymond has a gift. He has a gift that opens doors for him. He also has a decision to make. He too, like you – like all of us – has to decide whether he will always choose love.

You can read more about Raymond in Love Pour Over Me.

3 Things About You People Always Remember

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People always remember three things about you. Your smile can’t hide whether you’re offering these gifts or not. Warm embraces, laughter and compliments won’t work either. Despite effort to hide, people know if these blessings are being offered.

Happy African American people with child
3 People walking thru park – Wikimedia Commons – Picture by Wazzle

Emotions play a big role in all three.

Yet, fact is, as powerful as emotions are, they cannot always be trusted. That doesn’t mean they don’t carry substantial weight. In this aspect, emotions are like memories. They come. They go, and change, as if mere illusions. Yet, people never forget what they feel strongly.

Things About You People Always Remember

Maya Angelou expressed it well when she said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.” How true.

A kind word falls flat for the listener who does not feel appreciated. However, a vigorous smile embodying the belief “You can do it”, a genuine gesture that cuts across generations, culture and language, can stay with a person forever, empowering her to seek another solution when she feels depleted.

Frankly, this is when emotions are truly powerful. They add a layer of ingenuity to words, actions. They create reliable memories, recollections that stir us even in old age. Consider it. Rare is the depth and longevity of the impact of how one person makes another feel. It is why the way people make you feel is one of the three things that people always remember.

Emotions Unbreakable Cord

In fact, children and elders approach or step back, creating a distance that mirrors the emotional tie someone has had on them, each time they happen upon that person — all potentially rooted in a single emotional experience. Humans witness this dynamic unfolding while eating, playing, laboring or resting. It is like a wheel that never stops spinning, never stops turning.

All interactions considered, the relationships that parents have with their children may be the deepest, most pivotal and empowering. Ask the mother of a 60-year-old to describe her child. Let that mother and child share a warm, loving relationship and the mother’s eyes might brighten as she starts to talk about her child, an act that may go on for more than an hour.

On the other hand, regardless of the goodness in a parent and child’s relationship, a child will remember his parent. These memories may cut, digging up deep wounds, or the memories may soothe and protect, springing forth with reassurance and trust. What these memories won’t do is go away.

Where Roots Are Placed

Distance and absence cannot severe the cord between a parent and a child. In fact, years may have passed since the two saw each other or spoke. But that bond is yet there, making a child or a parent the second of the three things that people always remember.

Home is the place where deep feelings and lasting memories take root. A home may be mobile or stationary. Design, structure and furnishings may run the gamut. And that’s okay. Because it’s not design or style that give a home impact. Yet, those too will be remembered.

It’s what regularly happens in a space that lends that place a sense of home. Fill a home with trust, assurance, laughter and care and life changing experiences could blossom, none to be forgotten.

In fact, home (the third thing that people always remember) is a blend of rich emotions between parent and child. In addition, home is bedrock as it relates to how people make us feel. Mulukan discovers this early. She is a mere six years old when she is uprooted from the only people, the only place, she has ever known. Her journey is hard, unforgiving.

And yet, she survives. After all, Mulukan (like you, like me) is blessed with the three things that people always remember. It’s what she does with those three things that makes the difference in her life. Treat yourself to Mulukan’s story. Then, consider what use you are making of the three things that people always remember. Are you using those three things to harm yourself, to set yourself back, to keep yourself stuck or to strengthen yourself and, like Mulukan, blossom, thrive and advance.

Why It’s Good That Everything Here Changes

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Everything here changes. With those shifts come blessings. Change is a part of creativity. Without change, there is no manifestation or creative reward. Consider the challenging experiences that you have been in. Just recalling how those unfortunate instances changed and either got better or went away could birth tremendous appreciation in you.

Country road picture of changes ahead
Changes in Nature on Country Road – Wikimedia Commons – Picture by Keith Evans

Change is not a sign that we are not in control of our lives, that we have no input or influence over what we experience. Even with change, we get to pick how we perceive a person, an experience, an emotion — a thought. The key is to remember that all living beings are sending out requests. Every living being is part of the creative process.

Free Flowing

Creativity is at its best when it flows naturally, absent fear. Simply put, fear is a blocker. It’s like a linebacker who won’t let a running back get by. Even more, fear causes us to feel like we need to hold on to an emotion, an experience, a person, an event.

It’s why we grab the rails of a car, the door rest, etc. when we aren’t sure what’s coming next. Experience something over and over, regardless of how startling, and you may not brace yourself for the event anymore. You may simply expect it and respond to the event unconsciously. That can happen with love-based and fear-based events.

Developed Patterns

Furthermore, this is where growing accustomed to fear and disallowing good change can impede the creative process. The Tilson family is a great example of this. Their story is told in the book, Spiral. Fear for this family starts as it does with many families. It’s rooted in fearing that others don’t value you. The road to fear can be quick and easy.

The path out is not always as quick or as easy, which is why it’s best not to start down that road at all. If you want to see what happens to the Tilson family and how they get out of the dark, letting love-based change influence their lives, consider reading Spiral.

4 Easy Ways to Give Yourself the Chance to Win

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African American woman smiling looking up with flowers on her head as she is giving herself a chance to win
African American Woman Smiling with Flowers – Wikimedia Commons, Picture by Autumn Goodman

Give yourself a chance to win if you want to fulfill your purpose. To start, let yourself nurture desires that come from your true Self. Signs that you’re giving yourself permission to get what you truly want include a clearer vision of what you want and expanding appreciation. Additionally, you’ll feel a sense of “Thank You” more frequently and perhaps even more intensely.

Get Clear Vision to Give Yourself a Chance to Win

To reach appreciation, you might have to forgive. Forgiveness may be required, because you might be holding errors that you committed against yourself. You might be holding yourself hostage, away from peace, joy and new levels of success, until you pay for past mistakes.

Do this and you might force yourself to live in isolation, enter destructive relationships or develop physical illnesses. You also might trip yourself up each time you start to succeed. For example, you might willfully break a law, company policy or argue until you push people to be against you.

Practice awareness and catch yourself if you try to sabotage your success. Keep in mind, sharpening self-awareness is one consistent action that you can take to get clear vision. Here are more actions that you could take to get clear vision and give yourself the chance to win.

Daily Inner Vision Sharpeners

Write in a journal. Writing in a journal is effective at releasing thoughts and emotions. Additionally, journal writing is also a good way to jog memories that may be sabotaging your success. When you write in a journal, you might also make room for new insights, subconscious thoughts or formerly hidden guidance to breakthrough.

Sleeping deeply and sufficiently is another action that can sharpen inner vision, giving you the chance to win. Prayer, meditation, walking in nature and sitting in a peaceful area like a back porch are other actions that you could engage in to sharpen your inner vision.

Keeping a dream journal may also help. Further, you might start to see one or more symbols show up in your dreams hours, days, weeks or months before you experience a major inner or external shift. Pay attention to your dreams. After all, your subconscious mind or your real Self might be trying to get a message through to you.

Follow Right Guidance

There’s a lot of guidance in the world. For instance, you could seek out the guidance of “experts”, people who have spent years doing what you want to start doing or you could listen to naysayers. Look back over your journey and you may find that you’ve listened to all three at different junctures in your physical experience.

What results did you get when you sought out and followed these people’s guidance? Were the results as “spot on” and rewarding as the results that you got when you followed guidance from your real Self?

Here’s a warning as you give yourself a chance to win. As you follow your real Self, you might invoke sharp criticism from people who believe their lives would be better, easier, happier, if you do what they say. In this case, avoiding these criticisms might require you to go against your real Self.

This is when your clear inner vision helps even more. Plainly put, let yourself want what you truly want, practice forgiveness and self-awareness and nothing may stop you from succeeding. This doesn’t mean that criticisms won’t sting. It means that you won’t stop.

Take Action

Giving yourself a chance to win calls for action. As you advance, don’t be surprised if necessary actions feel like risks. After all, you’re on a new road. There will be unexpected experiences. You may not like some of these unexpected experiences, let alone be able to control or change the events.

For instance, a parent or child may transition (this person’s physical experience may end). As another example, a job may end or change significantly. Even more, you might relocate, start or end a long-term relationship or change a thought pattern that you formerly sought comfort from.

To help yourself, practice patience and keep going. Give yourself time to adjust to changes that enter your life as you start to pursue what your real Self wants.

Follow hunches. Don’t stop yourself by only dreaming about what you want. Go after what your real Self wants. As an example, if a loving relationship is what you want, explore more. Visit places that your inner guidance leads you to.

Keep Going

Work on your communication skills. Also, focus on being flexible, open minded and non-controlling. Spot when you engage in projection as a way to avoid dealing with what you fear. Throughout the entire process, take full accountability and responsibility for your life.

Here’s another example. If you want to operate a successful event planning company, research prospects, discover best places to spread the word about your business and build your team. Also, follow inner guidance and take on small events to learn about decorating, photography, floral designs and meal planning.

Additionally, discover financial investments that you will make to achieve success. Get serious about your success investment. Sharpen your inner vision, consider journaling and dream logging and follow inner guidance. Take smart action. And keep going. After all, it is your life. You really should give yourself a chance to win.

It is my hope that Love Pour Over Me will help you as you work your way to the success you want, especially if you have inner challenges to progress through. Love Pour Over Me tells the fictionalized story of a talented athlete who was abandoned by his mother and left to be raised by an abusive father. Despite the challenges, his ended is marvelous.