Category Archives: Self Help Advice

Self-help articles, tips and advice on relationships, careers and overall personal and community well-being. Writings focus on physical, mental and emotional health. If you’re seeking practical advice on how to approach an at-home, work or social issue, read through our blog articles. Aim of the articles are to make it easy for you to receive help that you can start taking smart action on today. You deserve to experience love, peace and joy. You deserve to live your best life, the very life that you came into this world to experience. Here’s to hoping that the self-help articles at our blog play a positive role in helping you to do just that.

Power Up with Daily Motivation

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By Motivational Books Author Denise Turney

photo of assorted daily motivation quotes
Photo by Mikechie Esparagoza on Pexels.com

Power up with daily motivation and shift your life in the right direction. It’s easy. But it takes discipline. Start early. As a matter of fact, there may be no better time than morning, when you first waken, to start filling your mind with positive motivation.

Struggling to Get Motivated? What’s Your Morning Mood?

Why morning? Mental and behavioral habits kick-off in the morning. A good way to discover the power of morning habits is to use a journal, spreadsheet or a notebook to write down the first thoughts and/or images that pop into your mind when you wake up.

Do you wake with positive thoughts similar to those below in your mind?

  • “I’m going to learn a lot of new, exciting things today!”
  • “What a wonderful day to continue moving closer to fulfilling my destiny!”
  • “So happy that I have another opportunity to be with my family and friends.”
  • “Birds singing outside my window! What a blessing!”
  • “Did I ever sleep wonderfully last night. So happy to wake rested and ready to go!”

Morning Motivation

Or are these more in line with the first thoughts that surface in your mind after you wake?

  • “Do I have to face another day of trouble and hard times?”
  • “I hate morning. I’m just not a morning person.”
  • “Probably going to be another long day where I have to drive to and from work in bumper-to-bumper traffic then spend 8 hours with my stupid manager and dumb co-workers.”
  • “My neighbors are such a pain. Their dog better not have crapped in my yard last night.”
  • “Hope that community project I’m working on doesn’t fall apart. It’s been nothing but a headache since I started working on it, not to mention the fact that I’ve been working long hours, harder than anybody else on the project.”

Admittedly, I’ve awaken with both types of thoughts. For years, I thought I had no control over thoughts that pop into my mind, even thoughts I continue to noodle on as the day extends. What I did notice was how thoughts connected with how I felt.

Let Morning Goodness Motivate You

If you pay attention to how you feel in the morning, you might see the connection between your thoughts and emotions more clearly. Morning is important because it may be the best time to stop yourself from going too far in a negative direction. Regarding the power of morning, Psychreg shares, “The morning routine is a process of habit formation which produces better mental health and sleep patterns.”1

When it’s morning, you might also:

  • Feel more energized
  • Ride the strength of a good dream
  • Be more open to change
  • Not be impacted by the energy and behavior of other people as much as you could be later in the day

So, how do you power up with daily motivation? How do you power up, starting each day with positive, motivating thoughts, especially if you’ve spent years engaging one negative thought after another?

Setting a Powerful Motivational Intention

Start by setting an intention to focus on positive, love-based thoughts. This doesn’t mean that you ignore experiences you’re having. For instance, if you’ve recently experienced a loved one’s transitioning, your thoughts might broaden or deepen. Anger, sadness, frustration, hopelessness and rage could be a range of emotions that you feel as you work through the transitioning.

Thoughts that might pop into your mind in the morning as you work through the transitioning might include “my life is over”, “nothing matters anymore”, “life is so hard” or “I’ve had enough.” To shift these thoughts, you could:

  • Ask yourself why you think or feel the way that you do (often thoughts and definitely emotions don’t apply to you alone, so it’s good to ask why you think or feel the way you’re thinking or feeling)
  • Swap out one negative thought for two positive, motivational thoughts
  • Write down a motivational quote and read it each morning

Small Actions to Get Motivated

Consider starting small if you’re in the habit of starting the morning focusing on negative thoughts. As an example, if you have spent years telling yourself that you’re not a morning person and have, therefore, allowed or even encouraged yourself to think and feel negatively simply because it’s morning, small actions might prove empowering. Types of small actions you could take include:

  • Raising your hands as soon as you waken and saying “Thank you!” Avoid trying to feel a specific emotion. Simply start your morning by raising your hands and saying, “Thank you!”
  • Stretching in the morning. This is a great way to waken more fully, removing or reducing stiffness. When you stretch, you could also feel more energized.
  • Singing an upbeat song as you make your way from your bed to the bathroom
  • Taking in the gentle scent of a candle or fruity herbs when you get out of bed
  • Turning on soft, soothing music as you wash up
  • Counting 5 blessings before you brush your teeth and get dressed
  • Exercising for 5 to 10 minutes – rev up with a short, burst of cardio

Adding these small actions to your morning could cause your thoughts to shift in a surprising way. Keep at it and the changes could reach your subconscious, potentially helping you get off to a better start each day.

Time Saving Motivational Tips

Even more, these actions only take a few minutes, if not less, to complete. And that’s the key. Go with small changes. The more important need is to set the intention to power up with daily motivation. Absent setting the intention to start your day in a mindset of motivation or great positive expectation, you could drift into old morning mental routines which could rob you of a good day.

As you grow your good morning routines, another easy approach to power up could be to get a deck of motivational quote cards and read a quote a day. Or you could focus on a single motivational quote for an entire week. Reading uplifting books is another effective action. Both point back to intention.

You have to want to feel good. You have to intend to focus on positive thoughts. After all, this world has love-based and fear-based thoughts and experiences in it. Think of intention this way. Whether you focus on love-based or fear-based thoughts and experiences is up to you.

Make Joy Your Aim

Because joy is the aim, choose love-based thoughts and experiences. This single choice will impact all of your life in beneficial ways. Intention is critical whether you’re at home or work. In fact, CNBC shares that starting the day looking at a to-do list could shift you into a stressful mindset.2

Little actions set off a domino effect. Set the intention to power up with daily motivation and watch ideas surface. You might end up listening to a joke first thing in the morning, sitting on the porch and listening to birds sing or riding an exercise bike.

Over time, actions you take to power up might change, filling your life with diverse love-based activities. You might even keep your mobile device off until after you’ve been up for 30 minutes. Keep at it. You’ll learn what works best for you. Whatever actions you take, watch your thoughts, choose love-based thoughts, live with confidence and make joy your aim.

Resources:

  1. https://www.psychreg.org/psychology-morning-routine/
  2. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/18/psychologists-morning-habits-to-help-you-be-happier-more-productive.html

Journal Writing That Taps into Your Core

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By Freelance Writer Denise Turney

a woman journal writing from home
Photo by Arina Krasnikova on Pexels.com

Journal writing is self-expression that heals. Why? Your defenses may be lower while you write in your personal journal. Write about an upcoming meeting with your manager where your workload will be discussed and you might feel empowered. On the other hand, if you had to speak with your manager face-to-face about your growing work responsibilities, you might do more than feel anxious.

Are You Employing Any of These Defense Mechanisms?

You might employ one or more defense mechanisms. For instance, you might project unconscious feelings of inadequacy because you’re speaking with someone in authority. This could mirror how you felt insignificant while addressing a challenge with your parents when you were a kid. Although the players are different, you’re projecting your feelings about talking about uncomfortable topics with your parents onto your manager at work.

Other defense mechanisms journal writing could free you from include:

  • Denial – Turning away from the “real” issue, striving to convince yourself that the problem doesn’t exist.
  • Repression – Akin to denial, repression involves an unwillingness to face and deal with a situation. However, instead of simply denying that the problem is there, you push the problem so deep inside your unconscious mind that it may never surface clearly enough for you to recognize the issue and take effective steps to heal.
  • Disassociation – A simple definition of disassociation is to “separate from reality”. If you daydream a lot, forget large gaps of time or you feel detached from what you’re experiencing, you could be practicing disassociation. Like other defense mechanisms, disassociation is largely unconscious.
  • Rationalization – In place of accepting the truth about what you or someone has said or done, you rationalize why something was said or done. An example of this is if your partner strikes you and you tell yourself (or a friend), “My partner hit me because her father had alcoholism and was physically violent with her when she was a kid.”

Be Honest with Yourself

Another often used defense mechanism is avoidance. This is an area where journal writing can produce great results. After all, while you’re writing in your journal, you are facing what’s going on.

At some level, you are acknowledging what has happened or what is in the process of happening. The closer you get to what’s really happening, the closer you can get to your core.

Stated another way, avoiding or denying your feelings, thoughts or experiences takes you away from healing. Hence, at the heart of journal writing that taps into your core is a compelling desire to be honest with yourself.

Surface Journal Writing

This isn’t to say that this honesty is always easy. But it is worth it. If you find self-honesty particularly difficult, start small. Start near the surface. Write about a color that you like. As a start, write about the color orange, red, blue or yellow.

More surface level journal writing prompts to help you relax into writing until you tap into your core include:

  • Writing in your journal about your last visit to the grocery store – How big was the store? What did you buy? Did you take advantage of price discounts?
  • Using your journal to describe flowers or plants you tended to in your garden last weekend.
  • Depict the last fun event that you attended with a friend.
  • Share the first three words that pop into your mind as soon as you awaken.
  • Look at a picture of a relative you know you can trust, someone who has proven that they love you with goodness and sincerity. Engage in journal writing to put on paper what you think about this person.

Spend two to three weeks engaging in surface journal writing. It should feel comfortable and non-invasive and non-threatening. Then, dig deeper through your writing, journeying toward your core.

Dig Deeper Thru Journal Writing

Ways to dig deeper through your writing include writing about your feelings in general. Then, writing about your feelings that are associated with a specific experience.

Go slowly. The aim is not to feel uncomfortable. Instead, the aim is to tap into your core. Ways to strengthen your efforts to reach your core, range from meditating three to five minutes before you start writing to doing 10 minutes of yoga after you write.

Despite your aim to reduce intense emotions, there are times when journal writing may cause you to feel excitement, anger, sorrow, hopeful, anxious, happy or a range of other strong emotions. Pause in your writing if emotions feel overwhelming or too strong.

Also, seek support from a licensed, ethical and effective psychotherapist if needed. Keep writing in your journal. This very act could help you start to lower your defense mechanisms, opening you up to a world of healing.

So Many Benefits

If you keep writing, you can become aware of your defense mechanisms. Another benefit is that you can become aware of your true self. Proving to yourself that you can be trusted is another benefit. After you start trusting yourself, the courage to try new things might spike.

More benefits gained from journal writing to tap into your core are:

  • Improved memory as you start to recall details the longer you write about a specific topic
  • Stronger creative writing abilities
  • Deeper learning of the world around you and how you interact with the world
  • Appreciation for yourself, others and your environment
  • Increased peace

You could also discover love-based ways to deal with conflicts and challenges. Byproducts of this could be sleeping better at night, healthier eating and drinking habits and a willingness to make better friends. This means saying good-bye to people who abuse you and welcoming people who sincerely love and care about you.

However long it takes, you’ll know when journal writing helps you tap into your core. And you’ll learn a lot about yourself, how amazing, how wonderful, you truly are. Again, the more you learn about your true self, the less you will tolerate abuse. After a while, you won’t tolerate unkindness for any reason. You’ll love yourself more and more.

Resources:

  1. 10 defense mechanisms and how to overcome them | Tony Robbins
  2. Dissociation | Psychology Today

You’re Too Close to Winning To Quit

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By Freelance Writer and Novel Author Denise Turney

archery target face in close up photography of someone close to success
Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels.com

Winning is a lot about commitment and tenacity. You need an unexplainable desire to succeed. Why? There are countless shifts, challenges, setbacks and surprising advances, not to mention totally unexpected industry trend changes, on the success path.

Spending months, even years, studying the industry or market you want to develop, sell and distribute products or services in is admirable. However, it’s not enough to insulate you from disappointment and rough patches.

Desire Has Real Affect

After years of pursuing novel writing, as well as freelance writing, one thing I have learned with certainty is that pursuing a dream brings a slew of uncertainty into your life. This is where desire has real effect.

Desire what you are pursuing deeply enough and can press your way through any obstacle, any setback. The key is to mix desire with tenacity. Refuse to quit, simply refuse to give up.

If you need motivation to keep going, consider:

  • What you will forfeit if you quit (e.g., chance to pass a successful family-owned business that you founded down to future generations, realization that you can succeed, a deeper knowing that you are a champion)
  • Why you started pursuing a dream in the first place (remembering why you want what you want will play a key role throughout your life)
  • Your purpose for being in this world. A deeper part of you, perhaps your core, could be guiding you toward a goal, down a path. Although it might feel like a goal or dream was birthed at your mind’s conscious level, your Higher Self could be calling the shots. Quitting would move you away from your purpose.

Someone Is Watching You

Someone is watching you. Think about it. Have you ever caught yourself watching someone?

Perhaps you were admiring the way they build effective teams, resolve conflicts, take creative ideas and mold them into enterprises that hold up for decades. Or you might have caught yourself admiring someone for the way they effectively juggle a busy family and operate a nonprofit organization that helps hundreds of people a year, all while maintaining optimum physical, mental and spiritual health. Well, just as you watch others, someone is watching you, perhaps admiring you and mimicking you.

You Could Be Close to a Breakthrough

More importantly, you could be an hour or days away from a huge breakthrough. Let’s say you have already put in 10 years of work, honing your craft or enhancing a product. For me, that’s writing novels, fleshing out characters, editing-editing-editing and then turning a manuscript over to a professional editor, then marketing and promoting daily until the story I wrote finds its readers. What’s the dream you’re working on?

Back to the 10-year example, throughout these 10 years, you’ve seen your share of trouble. Each time you felt inspired or motivated, believing that you were going to finally win in a big way, an unexpected setback appeared. The setback (e.g., economic shift, health issue, relationship breakup) might have demanded your attention to the point where you couldn’t focus on anything else.

What If Your Dream Is Closer Than You Think?

Ten years of that type of back and forth is a lot to keep pressing through. It’s understandable that you feel like quitting, but what if your huge breakthrough is closer than you think?

Other reasons not to quit include:

  • Quitting robs you of experiences. These are experiences that you will only enjoy after you accomplish what you set out to achieve.
  • Lessons that you learn on the success path can last a lifetime. You can also pass what you learn to your friends, family and beyond. But you have to succeed first. After all, people might not listen to you as fully as they can until after you succeed.
  • Your success motivates other people, shows others that they too can succeed. This is a powerful outcome. And you might not meet or become aware of all the people you’re accomplishments motivate. As an example, the fact that you didn’t quit and did yield the success you desired could encourage someone not to give up on their children who might be struggling with an issue right now. It could also encourage someone to exit an abusive relationship, trusting that a better life does, indeed, await them.

Become a Difference Maker

Regarding how your success motivates others, if you persist and commit to your dream, you could become a difference maker in your family. Nieces, nephews, cousins and siblings might dust off their own dreams, stirring up their courage and go on and step into a better life.

Yet, perhaps most importantly, by not quitting you open yourself up to bigger and better experiences. From where you are now, you cannot see just how far you could go. Right now, you can’t see every door that will open if you keep going. Neither can you see the many people who will come into your life, people you would never meet if you don’t succeed.

And yes, you will learn life lessons as you travel from success to success. Pursuing success will also change you. It’s been said that this may be one of the greatest success rewards.

Go Get It

You might have heard that even if you don’t fulfill your dream, you’ve won because, by pursuing your dream, you changed in rewarding ways. As comforting as this might sound, it wouldn’t be a stretch to think that, deep down, you want more than the inner change and the life lessons that come to you as you continue to pursue your dream.

What you want is to experience, breath and feel, what it is like to live with the success you may have started desiring when you were a kid. Simply acquiring life lessons and shifting internally is not what you got on this path for.

Good for you for wanting all of what you started on the success path to gain. The last thing you want is to come up short and be told “at least you tried” or “look how much you learned along the way”.

Keep going. Pivot. Make changes. Continue to learn. Be persistent, tenacious and committed. Don’t quit. You really can fulfill your dreams.

Are You Trapped in Success Illusion?

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By Freelance Writer and Books Author Denise Turney

person climbing on mountain real or success illusion
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

It’s easy to fall into success illusion. Desire to succeed, all by itself, could fuel the error. A history of getting what you want without having to work for it or knowing how the goal was met could also attract you to an illusion.

Success Illusion Signs

The unfortunate thing is that a success illusion feels good, but it’s not real. Signs that you’re in this type of illusion include:

  • You’re proud of how much work you do, how busy you are, without knowing if your efforts are paying off.
  • Fantasy is a mind trick you invest a lot in, spending hours each day dreaming about living at certain success levels without doing any work to really get there.
  • Defining achievements as “luck” – experiences that only happen to “special” people has become common for you.

Rewards of being trapped in success illusion are linked to emotions. If you’ve ever fantasized that you were in a relationship, working a career, fulfilling community or social goals, the types of actions that improve your and other people’s lives, you know how good it feels to imagine you’ve already accomplished a long-term goal.

Stop the Fantasy Rewards

You might even start rewarding yourself based on how strong the fantasy (and emotions linked to the fantasy) is. Let this happen and you could slip into a cycle of fantasy-reward, the very cycle that could keep you from actually taking smart actions to produce real success.

An example of this is of a gambler believing that, this time, she’s going to hit big. Should she have won $1,000 or more just once, she might convince herself that she’ll win big again, maybe even scoring a six-figure win. That belief could create “good feeling emotions”, propelling her further into debt.

Family and friends telling her that she’s trapped in an illusion might not work. At some point, all these loved ones might be able to do is to watch while she sinks deeper into debt feeding the illusion.

If you’ve talked with someone who has seemingly hit bottom and listened to them tell you about their past victories, even as they struggle to get through the day, you know what the end result of being trapped in a success illusion can look like. Once you believe that you’ve already done your best or that you’re winning when you aren’t, it can be challenging to pull out of the fantasy.

Free Yourself from Success Illusion

Add in the belief that it’s up to something else, a force, to map out your life and make what you want come true and you could end up sitting on the sidelines, watching you life (and opportunities to really succeed) pass you by. This might be a reason why scams work.

Fortunately, even if you find yourself trapped in a success illusion, you can get out. You can go free of the fantasy. There’s no way to con yourself about this. Honesty and truth have to be at work to free yourself. To begin:

  • Write down where you are and where you want to be. For example, if you’re $20,000 in debt, write that down. Then, write down how much you want to have in your savings, checking and retirement accounts. Later, you’ll identify smart actions you’ll take to get from where you are to where you want to be. For now, get clear about recognizing and accepting where you are now and where you want to end up.
  • List actions you took to get to where you are. The more clearly you see your role in where you are, the more empowered you might feel to create the good change in your life you want to experience.
  • In bulleted form, write actions you can take to change your course. Do this free of judging whether you think you’ll succeed at these actions. Simply brainstorm and bring steps you could take to achieve your goal to the front of your mind.
  • Identify resources and tools you can use to achieve your goal.
  • Get clear about why you want to achieve the goal. Sounds simple, but the why can keep you going, serving as powerful motivation.

Digging Deeper

Next, dig deeper into the process, mapping out detailed actions you’ll take. Commit to taking these actions. If you don’t, you could slip back into fantasy. To commit, you’re agreeing to be resilient and persistent.

Quitting can’t be on your list of things to do, not if you really want to succeed. Stay on track by creating a spreadsheet that list where you want to be, the actions you’re going to take and the actions you are taking.

But don’t just list actions you’re taking, list the results of your efforts. You need to see which actions are working and which actions you might need to change or stop.

In fact, if you’re serious about success, review results daily, weekly and monthly. Because this an ever changing world, you’re going to have to make adjustments as you continue on your path. Tracking the actions you take and the results of those efforts can make it easy to spot just where you need to make an adjustment.

What If Success Isn’t Sexy?

Another thing that your tracker might show are approaching trends. That’s another reason why reviewing the tracker daily, weekly and monthly is smart.

You might have figured out that achieving success is generally so un-sexy. But if the why of your goal is strong enough, each step you take can yield tremendous reward. In other words, you might feel on top of the world because you can clearly see that you are making progress.

A growing confidence and faith that you can gain success in other areas is a by-product of sticking to your goal and making continual progress. Keep in mind that, depending on your goal, you might have to continue advancing for the remainder of your physical experience.

Careers in the arts, scientific explorations and commitment to a community or your family are types of success goals that may not have an end date. So, keep going, stay focused, review your tracker and celebrate your milestone successes.

Doing so might not feel as cozy-good as a fantasy or an illusion. All things considered, it’s much better because it’s real.

Take Advantage of the Temporary

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By Journal Writer and Novelist Denise Turney

temporary colorful bokeh lights
Photo by Andre Moura on Pexels.com

Love for happy times to last forever in this world? Wish that those sweet, loving moments in your romantic relationship would go on and on, without an end? Oh, if the good times lasted forever. If your favorite emotions and experiences stayed with you permanently while you journeyed through this world.

Most Of Your Journey

Yet, that’s not how it goes. Good times don’t last forever in this world, but neither do challenging times. That’s very good news. What do you think?

To make the most of your journey here, start taking advantage of the temporary. As a first step, approach situations with the mindset that, despite how much you like or don’t like an experience, it -won’t go unchanged. Accepting this could keep you from jumping from relationship to relationship, job to job, worship center to worship center and so on.

Admittedly, it took me years to learn that nothing last forever in this world. Here, everything changes. Look back over your life and you might see that, although you suspected this was the case, you didn’t really believe it.

In fact, you might have thought that there was a special person, great job, best town, etc. that you could connect with and enter a state of permanent bliss. Of course, you could keep looking. Over time, you might start to notice that you’re moving in circles, looking for a permanence here that doesn’t exist.

Options

Here are some ways that you could take advantage of the temporary. Whichever options you go with, keep an open mind. There may be nothing that helps you to stay in the flow better than an open mind.

  • Wake with a spirit and mindset of appreciation. A very simple way to pull this off is to raise your hands as soon as you wake and simply say, “Thank you!”
  • Consider the people who helped develop experiences that you enjoy. For example, before you head to an amusement park, concert, festival, etc., pause and think about the event organizers, promoters, ride builders, artists, etc. who helped bring the event from idea stage to reality. Let yourself appreciate how these people, whether they know each other or not, worked together to create an experience that you are about to absolutely love.
  • Be fully present when you are wherever you are. You will never be in that exact place in the same exact state/perception again. Even if the walls, ceiling, sky, grass and trees look the same, so much has changed since the last time that you were there.
  • Pause before you eat a meal. Instead of only speaking grace, actually see the farmers working the soil, planting seeds and tending to crop. And see truckers delivery produce and other food to stores. Visualize grocery store stockers and cashiers stocking shelves and checking you out of the grocery store line. All of this and more may have occurred before the meal you’re about to enjoy made it to your plate.
  • Give thought to doing the same as it regards other areas of your life. For instance, you could think about the engineers, technicians and factory workers who designed and built the automobile that you drive. Allow yourself to see the many different people who work hard to help you gain the experiences that you treasure and enjoy.

Appreciate Temporary Experiences

The above actions can help you to see more clearly how temporary experiences are. Additionally, the above actions could help you to live with much deeper appreciation. Keep at it, and you might start to marvel at what’s happening in your life.

Also, to take advantage of the temporary, coach yourself. Teach yourself that you won’t have forever in this world to take advantage of opportunities. This doesn’t mean that you go through every door you see. It’s smart to pause, pray and wait for Higher Guidance before you walk through an open door.

Once you receive an internal “green light”, take smart action. In other words, don’t stall and sit back and try to talk yourself out of what you want. Go for the right things! That open door you’re looking at right now might not stay open.

Life Without Regrets

This brings up an interesting point. Among the things that people say they regret when they are facing the end of their physical journey is the fact that they didn’t do what they really wanted to do while they were here. The end of the road is not the time to realize you didn’t live your own life.

It’s also not the time to finally accept that you spent your days sacrificing (doing what you thought others wanted or needed). If joy is your strength, you’re going to have to consider what causes you to experience joy. Then, you need to allow yourself to have these experiences.

Because joy and love go together, these will be experiences that are rooted in goodness. So, take advantage of good open doors, knowing that those opportunities might only be temporarily available to you. Athletes might get this lesson more frequently than others. Smart athletes know the importance of taking advantage of good opportunities as soon as they appear.

Look Up

On the flip side, taking advantage of the temporary means that you don’t get bogged down with focusing on challenges. You don’t let undesirable experiences shift your focus off of love. Another thing, you don’t live as if you expect a bad time or a challenge to last forever. As someone told me at a worship center years ago, “trouble don’t last always”.

Did I ever gain lots of encouragement from hearing her say that. It’s true; trouble doesn’t last forever. But neither do good times stay exactly the same forever here. You might be doing yourself a favor as you practice appreciation and steer clear of believing that trouble will last. Set yourself up for greater success by moving from opportunity to opportunity, refusing to bind yourself to a current or past “good experience”.

Strength for Your Journey: Moving Through Life Phases

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By Writer Denise Turney

a woman moving through life phases on a path between trees
Photo by Erik Mclean on Pexels.com

Pay attention and you may notice that you are moving through life phases. There is no way to avoid these phases. Shifts and phases are part of this world’s journey.

Read enough autobiographies, memoirs and biographies and you can spot how other people shift through phases. Even more, you might discover strategies to help you when you approach a phase that someone else found profoundly challenging (but got through) as you read autobiographies, memoirs and biographies.

Just What Are Life Phases?

When one phase ends, it is as though a part of you knows there is an approaching ending. The phase may or may not align to your biological age. It is worth paying attention to, because if you are struggling, it could be due to a phase ending.

However, with the right mindset and care for yourself, you can release the phase that is ending and move with grace into the approaching phase. Depending on the source, you might hear that there are four or five life stages. For example, Learning Mind1 lists the four life stages as:

  • Stage One – Basics (this is where you mimic what you see, hear and sense others doing)
  • Stage Two – Discovery (you are starting to learn who you are)
  • Stage Three – Priorities (during this stage, you start to set life priorities)
  • Stage Four – Finding Meaning (it is a time when you are preparing to pass along your legacy)

Taking a Closer Look at Life Phases

CNBC reports that there are five life stages.2 Like the Learning Mind stages, these stages align to your biological age. You might enjoy reading the stages in depth to see how they differ and if any stage resonates with you. It could lead to the beginning of a new self-discovery for you. Here are the stages that CNBC shares:

  • Stage One – Dreamer
  • Stage Two – Explorer
  • Stage Three – Builder
  • Stage Four – Mentor
  • Stage Five – Giver

In this case, the fourth and fifth stages bring to mind wealthy businessmen like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie. These men spent decades amassing wealth only to give it away during their latter earthly years.

Which Stage Are You In?

Depending on your life experiences, you might find yourself moving through life phases that extend beyond the above four or five stages. As an example, Institute for Life shares that there are twelve life stages.3 But again, these stages align to biological age which might not actually be what is happening (more on that later).

Here is a final look at another set of life stages. These are the twelve life stages outlined by Institute for Life:

  • Rebirth – Potential
  • Birth – Hope
  • Infancy – Vitality
  • Early Childhood – Playfulness
  • Middle Childhood – Imagination
  • Late Childhood – Ingenuity
  • Adolescence – Passion
  • Early Adulthood – Enterprise
  • Midlife – Contemplation
  • Mature Adulthood – Benevolence
  • Late Adulthood – Wisdom
  • Death and Dying – Life

Because culture has profound influence on you, moving through life phases with grace can align with culture. You will certainly learn about moving through life phases by watching your elders. From your parents to your grandparents, great aunts, great uncles and great-grandparents, you are learning.

Culture and Life Shifts

It does not matter what your biological age is. You never stop learning. And as you learn, you teach.

At its basic level, culture is a combination of social norms, beliefs, traditions, arts and expression forms shared by a group of people. Baraka is a film by Ron Fricke that offers up-close, snapshots of distinct cultures. Watching Baraka or a similar film can open your eyes, helping you to see that your culture exists among many distinct cultures.

The way you live and what you believe are not common across the globe. It can be humbling to accept this. Or you can allow it to enlighten you.

As you become enlightened, you will again spot how everyone, regardless of culture, is moving through life phases. Looking back, see if you can spot when you were shifting. How did you do?

Support Through Phases

Did you realize you were moving through life phases? Were you gentle with yourself? Following are actions that could help you when you find yourself in a shift.

  • Read about life stages
  • Explore autobiographies, biographies and memoirs (they hold clues)
  • Travel to experience diverse cultures
  • Accept that your perceptions are not global. Millions of people thrive but do not share your life perceptions.
  • Gift yourself with patience. You are entering new territory. Give yourself time to adjust.
  • Journal what you are feeling, perceiving and experiencing.
  • Dance
  • Include laughter in your daily diet
  • Pursue peace instead of the goal to always be “right”
  • Accept that you never lose anything that is real or true, regardless of the phase you are in
  • Spend time with people who are in the phase you are living in as well as time with people who are living in different life phases

Stay free of trying to fit your life inside someone else’s perceptions or beliefs. It really is your life.

Timing of Life Phases

Moving through life phases might not happen according to your biological age. Should your childhood force you to step into adult roles early or realize that you are fully responsible for yourself at a time when others your age continue to believe that it is their parents’ function to be fully responsible for them, your age might have much less to do with the phase you are in.

If you have been practicing awareness through yoga, nature walks, meditation and stillness, you may spot a shift early. For instance, you might feel uncontented with a living or working situation that previously you accepted or appreciated.

Now, the situation causes you sorrow, confusion or regret. Back to John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie. During one phase of their lives, it may have seemed right to pursue money as if it were life’s singular purpose. While in another phase, this pursuit did not appear as valuable, wise or rewarding.

Strength for the Journey

Allow yourself to review how you are moving through life phases. Consider what you have learned. Think about when you thought you knew more than you did. How did letting go of the belief that you knew more than you did change your perceptions, impact those around you?

Did you become more open minded, or did you become angry, upset that the world did not stay the way it was when you were younger? Let go.

Life is big. You cannot control it.

Continue to move forward. As an eternal being, keep awakening and evolving. Invest in grieving the loss of a phase as it ends. And allow yourself to welcome and celebrate the new phase that you are entering. You may receive strength for the journey as you realize that countless others have been where you are.

Resources:

  1. 4 Stages of Life: Where Are You on the Journey? – Learning Mind (learning-mind.com)
  2. There are 5 stages of life—here’s what to do at every age ‘to minimize regrets,’ says life coach (cnbc.com)
  3. The 12 Stages of Life | Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D. (institute4learning.com)

How Reading Good Relationship Books Opens You to Love

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By Freelance Writer and Books Author Denise Turney

man and woman sitting on the floor reading good relationship books
Couple Reading Good Relationship Books – Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Reading good books is a great way to escape the world’s rigors. You learn, grow, exercise your brain, enjoy virtual travel, are introduced to favorite characters and much more. If you read a lot of books, you can shortcut the time it takes to understand new material at work and school. One of the greatest rewards gained from reading books may have escaped you. When you read good relationship books, you can open to love more.

How so?

As you read fiction or nonfiction relationship books, your guard drops. It’s not like you’re reading a draft of your biography or autobiography. Fear of being criticized or judged is reduced, perhaps isn’t present at all while you read, allowing you to gain what is being shared more fully.

That’s a huge benefit.

Good Relationship Books Drop Your Guard to Love

After all, if you don’t retain what you read, it’s akin to looking at computer code you don’t understand. More ways that reading good relationship books opens you to love follow:

  • Novels not only help you drop or remove an internal mental guard, they show couples interacting and communicating with each other up close. Witnessing these couples engage can offer tips on what you could do to strengthen your relationships.
  • Of course, communication is key to healthy relationships. This is an area where nonfiction relationship books can yield a wealth of positive results. While reading nonfiction, you can learn communication techniques such as how to be an active listener and the importance of thinking before you speak. PsychAlive also shares that additional solid communication techniques include sticking to the facts when communicating with your partner, being honest and being sincere.1
  • Books make it easy to take in information together, keeping couples free of feeling as if one person in the relationship is offering most of the information or “telling the other person what to think, feel or do”.
  • You can learn about you and your partner’s attachment styles while reading good relationship books.
  • Even more, you can discover you and your partner’s communication style.
  • Opportunities to identify how couples express and receive appreciation is also unearthed through reading.

Relationship Books with Quality Research on Love

Fortunately, in today’s book market there are many relationship books that are built upon years of quality research. This is how you get access to volumes of survey responses and empirical science. In other words, you can quickly learn what works in healthy relationships.

To be healthy, relationships also require that each person in the bond love themselves and continue to evolve and awaken to love. Both fiction and nonfiction books dig into the importance of loving yourself. Should you be tempted to focus on your partner more than yourself, reading good relationship books could be a relationship saver, not only as a couple but for you, as an individual.

After all, you’re not just in a relationship with your partner. You’re forever in a relationship with yourself. Hopefully, the communion you have with yourself is loving, healthy and not dysfunctional. If that incredibly important union is dysfunctional, here’s to hoping that you are working to heal gaps or injuries in the union that you have with yourself.

Spotlight Relationship Love and Goodness

Today’s book market also has lots of titles, particularly fiction, that spotlight dysfunctional relationships. Bookstores and libraries, online and offline, shelve novels that focus on physically, psychologically and emotionally abusive relationships.

Gain from reading these books by focusing on what “not to do” in your relationships. Steer clear of believing that dysfunctional relationships are “normal”. Instead of reading books to convince yourself that every couple hits each other, curses one another or belittles each other, focus on what you want from a coupling.

Get clear about how you want to be treated. Then, read books that share effective techniques and strategies you can use to start treating yourself that way and how you can encourage your partner to treat you this way.

Reading to Gain Loving Interactions

Because experiences, including loving interactions, aren’t linear in this world it’s helpful to get introduced to couples who have overcome great odds. Nonfiction and fiction books have facts, stories and background information to help you pull this off.

You’ll probably spot the win early into the book. For instance, a character may have had a troubling childhood or a character might have gone through a challenging intimate relationship earlier in her life. In addition to giving you hope that you too can overcome childhood or past relationship challenges, reading these books could strengthen your belief that you can go on to enjoy being in a healthy, rewarding love connection.

Books Helping Readers Open to Love

Whether you’re reading fiction or nonfiction, a key is to commit to open up to love. In other words, make opening up to love more a primary goal. You could do this by:

  • Pick books that deal with forgiveness if you know you need to forgive to remove an internal block and open up to love
  • Join a book club to get diverse insights and perceptions
  • Complete worksheets in nonfiction relationship books. Talk about a way to learn, grow and awaken. Effective worksheets can help surface parts of yourself that greatly impact your relationship, parts of yourself that you had repressed or kept hidden out of your conscious awareness for years.

Celebrate successes that you have in your relationship with yourself and with others. Recognize that good relationships extend beyond marriage and dating. If you live alone, you’re in communication with neighbors, family, colleagues and friends.

Celebrate Relationships and Greater Love

Reading good relationship books that showcase personal and interpersonal connections can help you grow as an individual and as a relationship partner. At the end of each year, consider how much you have gained from the relationship books you read.

Continue the process of reading books that help you deepen your understanding, awareness and growth. This single decision saves you years of research and trial and error. Additionally, as you complete activities in nonfiction books that aim to remove internal blocks, you can open to love more each day.

Resources:

  1. Top 10 Effective Communication Techniques for Couples – PsychAlive

Achieving Real Success While Living Through Change

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By Books Author and Freelance Writer Denise Turney

man upset about change pushing carton boxes with negative words to avoid real success
Photo by SHVETS production on Pexels.com

Real success is birthed in adaptability. Unfortunate events, ranging from scams, sickness, relationship problems and job stress, can stop your progress if you let them. To stay sharp, you have to adapt. This applies to good change too. After all, it’s not just undesirable experiences that create emotional and behavioral challenges.

This is due, in part, to how your brain works. Your brain is a complex organ that works hard to protect you. At first glance, that may sound like a win-win. Yet, it comes with results that could produce mental blocks and resistance to change.

Thrive – Getting Beyond Survival

Forbes puts it this way, “The key aim of the brain is survival.” Furthermore, “unpredictability and uncontrollability, in particular, create a malicious combination with which our brain finds it extremely difficult to deal. This in return further elevates stress levels and produces undesirable emotions that we would rather avoid.”1

Should this happen, you might feel a range of emotions. Even more, your perceptions about the world, people and relationships could shift, maybe improve or become disruptive. If you struggle during change, your heartbeat might hasten. Or your appetite might shift significantly. Other changes you could experience include temporary memory fog (where you find it difficult to remember people’s names, etc.), a harder time focusing, lack of engagement or connectivity.

Although these experiences may be related to challenges in adjusting to undesirable change, they could also occur if you undergo change after you receive something that you’ve long wanted. Today’s world offers countless opportunities to improve your adaptability skills, positioning yourself to smoothly leap change hurdles and enjoy real success.

Signs You Resist Change

Resisting change can feel magical, like a trick. You convince yourself that you can stop change. And if you can’t stop change, you tell yourself that you can limit the impact that change has on you. The problem is you’re living in a world of constant change.

Keep resistance to change up and you might exhaust yourself. Even more, you’ll stop yourself from experiencing sustained real success. More pronounced signs that you resist change include:

  • You stop showing up for projects, relationship conversations, financial talks, etc. that require change
  • Negativity becomes your trademark
  • Nostalgia is a dominant emotion you experience
  • When you consider “good times,” you’re thinking about the past
  • Gossiping about leaders championing change becomes normal for you
  • “This is the way we’ve always done things” is a familiar phrase you speak

If the this was a world where very little changed second-by-second, your resistance may yield a reward. But because the world is always changing, constantly, this type of resistance doesn’t pay off in good ways.

Tips to Achieve Real Success with Change

Here are specific ways to achieve real success while living with change. If you resist change, consider adding two or more of these actions into your day.

  • Learn something new every day. Practicing awareness is a quick learning path. Simply pay attention to what’s happening inside of you and around you.
  • Break a habit once a quarter. Train your brain to expect and smoothly adjust to change.
  • Monitor your results. For example, if you’re improving your budget and dealing with rising rent, you could identify two to three expenses that you could reduce or eliminate to counter the increase, so you’re overall monthly expenses remain flat or potentially lower. Track how you’re staying free of spending money in these two three areas.
  • Stay curious. You were curious as a kid; revisit the practice.
  • Create new solutions to deal with change. This could help you break habits that produce unwanted results.
  • Be honest. Accept what you see and keep adjusting until you’re living the life you want.
  • Meditate and move outdoors. These two steps can calm your brain.
  • Read good books and get sufficient quality sleep each night.

You Can Do It!

Anywhere you go, there’s change. Even if you stick to a routine religiously, you will encounter change. There are job changes that range from workload to types of work you do. Rising rents might motivate you to move. Then, there are relationship changes from breakups to makeups to new relationships.

The list goes on. On top of that, some changes are temporary, allowing you to bounce back to a former state. Other changes, like a loved one transitioning, are permanent. As you go through change, it may help to remember that none of us is in control of the universe.

Additionally, it might be helpful to remember that you are always loved and cared for. This is one of the harder truths to remember when you’re moving through great change. The good news is that, as previously shared, you can achieve real success while navigating change. Here’s to your success!

Resources
1. How To Optimize The Brain’s Response To Change (forbes.com)

A Mystery, What If You Can’t Let the Departed Go

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By Freelance Writer and Mystery Writer Denise Turney

blue sea visit to say goodbye to departed loved ones
Photo by Moisés Pereira on Pexels.com

It’s hard enough to let the departed go after a funeral or homegoing service. Even if you consider yourself a spiritual person, you can’t deny that there’s been a huge shift. Communicating with your loved one who has left their body will either end or take great work to continue.

Leaving Your Body Is Not the End

If you believe you’re an eternal being, you know that leaving a body is not the end. On the other hand, if you believe that the only reality is a fleshly existence, the departure is permanent. Regardless of your belief, there’s been a great change. And you have to deal with it.

Remembering your loved one, instead of working to forget them, is a way to maneuver through the change. Looking for ideas? To keep your loved one’s memory alive, you could:

  • Write a letter to express emotions related to your relative or friend
  • Create a collage with pictures of fun times shared between you two
  • Talk with relatives and friends about the departed
  • Frame a picture of your loved one and keep it in your living space
  • Light a candle for someone dear to you who has transitioned

Also, allow yourself to laugh and smile at happy memories. For sure, it might take work, but start to move through guilt feelings and guilt thoughts. Begin to treasure the sweet memories that you created with your loved one.

Dealing with Trauma or Grief

This is where watching home videos, reading cards from your departed friend and re-reading a letter could prove helpful. The key is not to depend on these experiences. After all, nothing is forever or permanent in this world, including routines you make to deal with trauma or grief.

Other smart actions you could take to move through grief and let the departed go are below. As with other life experiences, go with what works for you.

  • Hold an annual memorial to honor your loved one. For instance, you could hold a private or a public memorial on your loved one’s birthday. This happens with departed entertainers and other celebrities.
  • Visit a cool spot that your loved and you frequented on a special day once a year
  • Add your friend to your artistic work. As an example, you could include your friend’s name in a poem, short story or play that you write. Or you could paint a picture of your friend.
  • Keep in touch with relatives of your loved one. Do this in healthy ways and with the agreement of the relatives.

Messages from Beyond

Depending on your beliefs and abilities, you could receive messages from beyond. Should you be a gifted seer, you might receive messages from beyond from someone you don’t know. In this case, the process to let the departed go could extend into the unknown.

A young girl named Carolyn deals with this in Spiral. Her experience is similar to what other people with the ability to be a seer have shared. “I felt another presence, like I wasn’t alone,” some people who receive messages from beyond say.

Another experience these people share is how they “heard people’s names, dates, places like cities and streets” they’d never heard about before. These cases may occur because there’s an unresolved issue, which raises a good point.

What if it wasn’t you, but the departed, who was having trouble letting go?

What Happens in Ghost

Ghost is a popular movie that deals with this. At first, Demi Moore’s character moves right into grieving, a healthy step. After all, delaying grieving might seem safe, protecting you from strong emotions, but it won’t keep you from realizing that someone you love is no longer here.

Then, strange phenomena start to occur. Unwillingness to turn away from what’s happening and clear memories about her partner, key Moore’s character, Molly Jensen, into the fact that she could be hearing from her loved one. Together, Molly and her departed loved one, a man named Sam Wheat, solve a murder.

Following through on what Sam shares with her is the only way that Molly will get to peace. She becomes as emotional as Sam is to solve the mystery. Fortunately, Molly does find who murdered her boyfriend, Sam. After that, both Molly and Sam are free. It truly was a loving way that Molly let the departed go, so he could continue his journey.

Love People While They’re Here

If we’re truly nonphysical beings, it’s not impossible to think that a departed loved one could connect. Just as they would if they were still in their body, a loved one could seek help to resolve an issue they were unable to close while they were here. Carolyn is up for the task in Spiral. For her, a 10-year-old girl, it’s as if she has no choice.

Choices this young girl makes help more than the departed let go and enter peace. Her works influence an entire town, opening up the possibility for generations to live free. Carolyn gets it.

Unresolved issues could make it hard to let the departed go. Therefore, take it easy on yourself. Treat the people in your life, including strangers, with love. Appreciate people you say you love. Say what you want to say, rooted in love. Let people know how much they mean to you. Share your love. Be kind, thankful and caring.

After all, this world is a mystery. One day, you’ll have to let it go. Loving everyone you meet can make the process easier for you and the people who cross your path.

Signs Someone in Your Family is Your Best Friend

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By Freelance Writer and Book Author Denise Turney

two family friends laughing at each other
Photo by Laura Stanley on Pexels.com

It’s sweet when someone in your family is your best friend, especially if you grew up with this relative. Know them since you were a toddler and you have loads of history. You’ve been there for each other nearly every step of the way.

The Best Friend Who Makes You Feel Accepted

Because you know each other so well, there’s often no need to explain your opinions, beliefs or ambitions to them. Another gain is that you don’t have to work to be your “authentic self” while you’re with your family friend. Hanging out with them is a great way to feel accepted, like you belong.

That alone is strength, is empowering.

Despite these advantages, you might not think of a relative as your best friend. Even more, you might not know who in your family is your best friend. That person could be your parent, an aunt, an uncle, cousin, grandparent or a sibling.

Signs Someone in Your Family is Your Best Friend

They might even be someone who became part of your family through marriage. Signs a relative is your best friend include:

  • You laugh a lot when you’re with them, the knee slapping rib busting kind of laughing
  • Sharing a secret with them is easy
  • When you’re with them, you feel loved
  • Your energy shifts into a better space when you two are together
  • Going days without communicating with them isn’t something you want to do
  • If you’re in a jam, they are among the first people you call
  • Both of you turn to each other for advice
  • Vacationing together is fun
  • Family get togethers are events you look forward to as it gives you a chance to hang out someone in your family who is your best friend

You’re Not Alone

A friend keeps you from feeling like you’re alone in the world. Having just one person in your life who makes you feel like you belong can boost your confidence and give you hope. When you feel like you belong, you can also:

  • Reduce your stress levels
  • Improve your sense of worth
  • Sleep better at night
  • Face mistakes you’ve better with confidence
  • Realize how alike you are to other people
  • Cope with challenges better
  • Avoid feeling deep loneliness
  • Live life with a sense of support
  • Feel empowered to ask for help
  • Know someone loves being with you, loves your company

Someone in Your Family You Trust

This world is full of ups and downs, constant change. It’s impossible to know what’s coming next every second of every day. To get through the world’s ongoing shifts, you might need to talk with someone you trust, you might need to talk through plans with someone who has your best interest at heart. A family member who’s your best friend gives you a quick ear, someone to bounce ideas off.

When someone in your family is your best friend, you also have someone you trust who you can discuss personal issues with. Instead of calling or texting a neighbor, colleague or classmate and hoping that they won’t spread intimate details you share with them, when a family member is your best friend, you can relax and know what you share won’t become gossip.

After all, you’ve both shared private details with each other for years. If neither of you has ever shared these private details with another relative, there’s a comforting shelter of trust that when you ask, “please don’t tell anyone else” your request will be honored.

Family Friends Offer Relationship Stability

When you’re sharing dating details, relationship troubles, vacation exploits and fun and games with your relative friend, it could all end in laughter. Let misfortune arise, something like a bad health diagnosis, and don’t be surprised if you weep absent embarrassment with your relative friend.

You might ask them to accompany you to your future doctor visits. It could be a good way to shield yourself from emotional and psychological hurt. And again, having this relative friend with you could keep you from feeling alone.

The older you get — or put another way, the more time you spend in this world — the more you might see the value in relationships. Even in this ever-changing world, good relationships offer the most stability.

So, consider letting the person in your family who is your best friend know how much you appreciate them. Tell them how happy you are that, in addition to being family, they care enough to be your best friend. It’s what makes family real sweet.