How Clear Are the Lines Between Virtual Worlds and Real Life?

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By African American Books Writer Denise Turney

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Are the lines between virtual worlds and real life starting to blur? For some that could be exactly what’s happening. Years ago, computer simulated environments were relatively unknown to the masses. Now there are virtual world games and popular virtual realities like The Sandbox, Second Life and Active Worlds.

Users take on personas, some strikingly different from their real-life personality in virtual worlds. In some cases, it goes so far that strangers, only familiar to each other’s virtual persona, start dating, going on to actually meet in person.

Instead of letters or email, now there are images, sounds and facial expressions to power fantasy. It’s a combination that can make what happens in a virtual world seem and feel real. Even more, should you not visit virtual worlds, does that mean you’re completely free of blurring the lines between virtual worlds and real life?

Will You Stay Free of Blurring the Lines Between Virtual Worlds and Real Life?

And if you’re free now, will you stay that way?

After all, interest in the online world is growing. In fact, nearly four billion people have visited a social media platform, with the average time spent on social media at 95 minutes each day, according to Sprout Social. The numbers are staggering, especially considering how so many swore they wouldn’t spend a lot of time online or make online purchases.

Added to social media, go online and you have immediate access to chat rooms, discussion forums, podcasts, videos, avatars, virtual concerts, email, virtual relationships – the list goes on. It’s as if, as humans, we’ve moved our lives online. Life as we know it seems to have permanently changed. Have we reached a point where online environments now feel like an extension of the real world?

Why Researchers Are Paying Attention

And what’s the cost of blurring the lines, if any?

For starters, you don’t have access to as much natural light while you’re indoors plugged into technology, perhaps on social media or a virtual world, as you do when you’re outside walking, jogging or bike riding. Researchers are paying attention. During a drive home while I was listening to the radio, I heard about “nature deprivation”, a term I hadn’t heard before.

A University of Minnesota article refers to nature deprivation as, “a lack of time in the natural world”. SCAN of Northern Virginia has this to say about nature deprivation, “nature deprivation happens when children (and adults, too!) aren’t spending enough time outside and face negative physical, mental and behavioral health consequences because of it.”

If you were born in the 1990s or earlier, you might find this statistic shocking. Today, children spend less than 10 minutes a day outside. That’s one statistic. Another statistic shares that children spend about 30 minutes a week outside.

About Virtual World and Real Life Relationships

Lack of in-person relationship building and nurturing, outdoor playing, physical fitness and being in natural sunlight can come at a high cost. Millions of people experienced this firsthand during the COVID-19 lockdowns. One would think that being indoors during COVDI19 lockdowns would propel children and adults to start spending more time in natural outdoor environments.

Yet, that may not be the case. In fact, some people may have found more ways to try to feel deep human connections, as well as connections with nature, without having to go outdoors. Growing indoor plants, subscribing to grocery home delivery services, ordering food for front door delivery and starting friendships and romantic relationships 100% online are a few ways that people are bringing more of their life online.

Admittedly, home deliveries help you to avoid crowds, long checkout lines and driving in traffic. Those are benefits, for sure. Howbeit, if you opt for more and more online living, you could miss out on the opportunity to develop and nurture human relationships in-person, one-on-one. You could also put yourself at risk of developing depression.

Aim for Less Technology

Studies have shown that spending too much time accessing technology online or in front of a television or computer screen could lower your empathy. These habits could also make you more self-focused, causing you to think that what you do or say has little impact on others.

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Furthermore, when you try to make the virtual world “real”, you might feel a sense of isolation; you might feel disconnected from other people. Here’s what came from a study shared at the University of Minnesota, “When participants viewed nature scenes, the parts of the brain associated with empathy and love lit up, but when they viewed urban scenes, the parts of the brain associated with fear and anxiety were activated. It appears as though nature inspires feelings that connect us to each other and our environment.”

This could be why it feels soothing to walk through nature in safe areas. It could also be why people who love to garden or sit on the porch enjoy being outside so much. Being in nature, in the real world, is a mental health boost.

Support Your Mental Health

Regarding mental health, whether or not you spend a lot of time online, you could feel an improvement in your mood after you’ve been outside for just 40 minutes. On the other hand, start staying indoors, spending hours on social media and in virtual worlds, and you might feel stressed, anxious and less connected to others in as little as two weeks.

So, get outside and explore your environment in safe ways. Spend time talking and laughing with friends – in person. Go to a live stage play instead of streaming a movie at home. Encourage your kids to get outside and play, being active and getting in plenty of physical activity. See if you don’t feel better.

Feeling Anxious and Stressed Out? Check Out These Easy Ways to Relax

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By Books Author Denise Turney

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If you’re feeling anxious and stressed out, you’re not alone. Psychology Today shares that over the last few years, women and men have experienced higher levels of stress, a condition that can cause depression, which has also increased. There are multiple causes of anxiety and stress, including drug and alcohol withdrawal, work problems, relationship difficulties, bullying, money problems and a relentless schedule. Yet, there are easy ways to relax to reduce and eliminate stress and anxiety.

More importantly, relaxation techniques are worth exploring. Why? Stress is like an “always-in-motion” ball that’s hard to dodge. There always seems to be an event, responsibility, news story or experience that produces stress. The world’s changing landscape that’s filled with pandemic outbreaks, military conflicts, social inequities, job demands and everyday relationship challenges certainly doesn’t make it easy to sidestep stress.

Stress Benefit

That might come with reward, because not all stress is deemed “bad”. For instance, if you’re paying attention (also known as practicing “awareness”), stress could signal that it’s time for change. This happened to me years ago when I was between jobs. Here’s the thing. I had a good job, a home, reliable vehicle and warm, loving relationships.

I kept telling myself that I should be happy. But, something was off, and I knew it. There was a nagging feeling of being “stuck”. Talk about an uncomfortable, unfamiliar, unwanted feeling. Nothing that I tried got rid of that feeling of being “stuck”. And, I tried a lot of ways to shake that feeling. I tried exercise, meditating, reading positive material, positive affirmations and prayer, to name a few.

This was around the time of the market crash that launched the Great Recession. At the time, my hopefulness centered around the possibility that I was getting ready to become a full-time freelance writer. Although that did happen, it didn’t occur the way that I thought it would. It certainly didn’t happen the way I wanted it to.

When It’s Hard To Trust

For me, during this “hanging in limbo” period, stress increased. Before long, I was struggling to get and stay asleep (and, I generally have no trouble sleeping). If I could only see what was coming. That’s what I kept searching for. Oh, how I wanted to know what was ahead. You have no idea what I would have given to have a crystal ball sitting on my living room table back then.

Wouldn’t mind that now. Howbeit, that’s not how life in this world works. Life here is about taking chances. It’s about trial and error. For sure, life in this world is about trust. That period of feeling stuck taught me lessons on dealing with stress. Hopefully, several of the lessons shared below will help you as you continue your journey.

  1. Breathe – You might be surprised at how much stress leaves your body as soon as you start inhaling and exhaling fully. Try it. See if you don’t feel better. Focus on your breathing and you could experience deeper relaxation.
  2. Explore Nature – If you read my blog regularly, you know how much I value nature. Getting outside for a walk not only reduces stress. When you go outside, you can shift your mental focus. That alone can serve as a stress reducer.

Techniques to Stop Feeling Anxious and Stressed Out

  • Pivot – Piggybacking on the above tip, if you feel stress, try shifting your thoughts to a pleasurable topic. For instance, instead of worrying about bills, you could think about your favorite song. Or you could think about the last time you had a blast playing a sport.
  • Take smart action – Returning to the bills example, consider creating a budget and sticking to it.
  • Create – Use your talents and skills to create. If you love to paint, sit down and start working with colors. Love sculpting? Start on your next sculpture. Let your inner critic rest. Aim to simply enjoy using your talents to create.
  • Eat Healthy – Choose food and beverages that fuel your body with good energy. Reach for green, leafy vegetables. Definitely, drink enough fresh water. Try a healthy diet for two to three weeks and see if you don’t feel and sleep better. Amazing how reducing sugar in your diet (speaking of just one dietary change) can allow you to enjoy deeper sleep.
  • Forgive – This one may sound odd. However, it isn’t. Forgiveness works wonders. In fact, I think that forgiveness is a miracle worker! Should you perceive that someone has injured you, hold that person in a vision of light. You might even write them a letter. The goal is to “let go” of the burden, and unforgiveness is a burden. Carry it too long, and it can get especially heavy. So, forgive to reduce stress.

More Techniques to Stop Feeling Anxious and Stressed Out

  • Enhance Relationships – In line with forgiveness, take the time to enhance your relationships. This includes your friendships, family relationships, work relationships and social relationships. Improved relationships can make you feel “safe”. As your relationships improve, the times when you might worry that someone doesn’t think well of you could diminish.
  • Practice Awareness – This was mentioned earlier. It is worth repeating. Pay attention to your thoughts, what you’re focusing on and what’s happening around you. Also, pay attention to emotions that you hold onto. As an example, you might notice that you’re holding onto the emotion of sadness or the emotion of anger a lot. See if you can link the emotion to a thought (or a string of thoughts). Or, you might find that the emotion is linked to an experience or your perception of a person. Make your goal to feel better, to release stress and to enter into a state of peace and joy.
  • Focus on Blessings – Think about the good experiences that you enjoy. You might even decide to set aside 5 to 10 minutes a day to focus on blessings.
  • Journal – Write in a journal. Although you may find it beneficial to write in a journal every day, depending on your schedule, it might work better for you to write in a journal once a week. Definitely write down dreams that you remember. Dreams can offer guidance from your subconscious. Writing thoughts and feelings down is also a good way to “work through” stressors.

Trust The Process

Anxiety and stress don’t just feel bad; they can be blinding. In other words, anxiety and stress can blind you from the good that’s happening in your life. And, as you continue to focus on stressors, you could see the stressors grow.

This is what happened to me when I was in that “stuck” period. What did I do? I practiced the above stress relieving exercises. In addition, I trusted the process enough to eventually get “unstuck” and keep moving forward.

And again – trust may be one of the biggest keys to dealing with stress. After all, we can’t always see what’s coming. But we can trust that our Source loves us and is part of the guidance that we receive. That shared, trust can also help you to follow the right guidance which, alone, can reduce stress now and in the long run.

Resources:

Psychology Today – Depression and Anxiety Are on the Rise Globally | Psychology Today

13 Easy Ways to Start Selling More Copies of Your Books

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By Books Author Denise Turney

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You’re going to have to free yourself of magical thinking if you want to start selling more copies of your books. Why? Wishing that you’d sell more books won’t get you book sales. It’s not enough just to want to sell your books. You have to take smart actions. This might help. Think of selling books as another artform, of sorts, a measurable artform.

Furthermore, selling books is a mix of online and offline marketing and promotion. That is, unless you plan to only focus on selling books through a single retailer like Kobo, Apple Books or Amazon. If you want to go wide, you’ll want to list your books with a wide range of online and offline bookstores and retailers.

Work with Book Distributors to Start Selling More Copies of Your Books

Another action that you’ll want to take is to list your books with a broad range of book distributors. Ingram, Baker and Taylor, Bella Distribution, Heritage Group Distribution, CBL Distribution, Casemate and Publishers Group West are among dozens of book distributors. If you’re new to the book world, distributors get your books to online and offline bookstores and other retailers.

Because of the role that they fill, book distributors are as close to a must as you may get if you want to go wide and start selling more copies of your books. Therefore, entering into a contract with legitimate book distributors is an early step in the book sales process. Want to keep yourself honest? Create a spreadsheet and track which book distributors you contact, including the date and form of outreach (email, telephone, snail mail, etc.) that you use to introduce your books to distributors. Follow-up with distributors you haven’t heard from.

Before you reach out to book distributors, create a marketing strategy. For example, your marketing strategy might highlight social media marketing efforts, including the number of social media followers your literary accounts have. Other items you could include are scheduled book signings, public speaking events, scheduled book club discussions and the numbers of books you’ve already sold.

Although these aren’t part of the 13 easy ways to be start selling more copies of your books, they are keys to early and ongoing book success. For starters, write a great story. If you’re writing nonfiction, do sufficient research and lay discoveries out in an easy-to-understand way.

Due Your Due Diligence

After all, it’s what’s inside the front and back flaps of your book that readers most want. So, nail the book writing part. To ensure that you pull this off, make sure that an experienced and talented book editor reads your manuscript before you publish it. Another tip is to run a spell and grammar check on your manuscript, even before you send it off to a skilled book editor. Working with an editor who is familiar with the type of book you wrote (mystery/suspense, romance, science fiction, etc.) can yields great results.

Next, create an engaging synopsis, book title and book cover. Don’t skimp on these actions. They will play a direct role in your book marketing efforts and your book sales. Here’s another tip that I want to share with you.

Years of book marketing has taught me the importance of researching book editors, book publicity specialists and book marketing services before a deal is inked. The last experience that you want to have is discovering that you just paid two or three times more than you needed to for editing, cover design or book marketing services. You also don’t want to ink a deal with a specialist who does shoddy work.

Hence, do your due diligence. You’ll thank yourself later.

Easy Ways to Start Selling More Copies of Your Books

And, now for those 13 easy ways to start selling more copies of your books. Steps shared in this article deal with promoting a book that you want to market and sell online and offline.

  1. Create a website that you’re committed to updating at least weekly – Years ago, you could have simply designed an author website to sell books on and walked away, letting the website pull in book buyers. Those days may be over. To keep your author website relevant, update it no less than once a week. Ways that you could do this are to add a daily writing tip or fact about a character from one of your novels to the author website. Or, you could add a quote from one of your characters to your author website. Just commit to updating a data point at your website once a week or more. And, add strong meta data like targeted keywords to your website.
  2. Start a book blog – At this blog, you could write about book conferences, book festivals and book signings that you’ve recently attended or that you’re planning to attend. You could also share insights that are related to your latest book. Another step that you could take is to post feature interviews with other writers at your blog. As with your author website, the point is to keep the blog updated. In fact, you could link your blog to your author website and keep both updated with this one easy step. That’s what I do at chistell.com. This single, easy step pulls in thousands of potential book buyers a week at chistell.com.

Additional Ways to Start Selling More Copies of Your Books

  1. Send postcards and direct mail to bookstore buyers – Even further, build relationships with bookstore buyers. These relationships can make it easier for you to get your new books into bookstores months from now. To keep these relationships healthy, consider sending book buyers (including library book buyers) holiday greetings.
  2. Reach out to military exchanges through organizations like RangeMe to see if you can sell your books at military stores.
  3. Teach a course at a local college. Ask if you can sell and sign your books at the end of the course.
  4. Schedule and conduct podcast and radio interviews – Yet don’t just conduct interviews. Make sure that you interview on podcasts and radio stations that pull in your book’s target audience.
  5. Design a literary newsletter – Building a newsletter can help you to develop your own mailing list. Consider adding a free newsletter subscription form to your author website. Items to include in your literary newsletter are diverse, ranging from feature author interviews to book reviews to upcoming book events to discounts to holiday messages. Sign up for The Book Lover’s Haven to get a feel for more of what you could do with a literary newsletter.
  6. Attend book events – It’s true. You could sell thousands of copies of your books online, without leaving home. However, it’s also true that getting outside and attending book events is a great way to introduce your books to new readers. In fact, you could sell dozens of books at book conferences, book fairs and festivals.

Even More Ways to Gain Book Sales

  1. Use Sign-Up Sheets – When you attend book events, bring sign-up sheets with you. Let people know what you’re using the sheets for. As an example, you could use a sign-up sheet to grow your literary newsletter subscriber list. You could also use a sign-up sheet to email in-person event attendees information about your books, including how to order copies of your e-books.
  2. Feature your books on book promotion websites. Again, do your due diligence before you pay for services at book promotion websites.
  3. Do newsletter cross-promotions with other authors whose books are in the same genre as your books.
  4. Newsletter book market services – Pay for newsletter book marketing services. Make sure that you work with newsletters that have a high open-rate. It may not do you much good to pay for an ad in a newsletter that boast 10,000 subscribers but only has a 3% open rate. Also, work with services that have tapped into your book’s target audience.
  5. Zone in on Social Media – Just 10 to 15 minutes a day on social media can increase your book sales. Test different social media sites to discover which sites generate the best return for your books. Also, pay attention to what days of the week and times of the day are best to post book marketing material. Examples of this material are book covers, book reviews and book quotes.

Amazon Ads and Selling Books

Other actions that you could take to start selling books are to add your book cover, book title and author website URL to your email signature line. Definitely ask family and friends to tell people they know about your books. Reaching out to school book buyers is another way that you could generate book sales.

If you’re promoting a book that sells on Amazon, consider taking out Amazon ads, namely sponsored product ads. You could also build an Amazon store to introduce your entire line of books to readers. But don’t just start Amazon ads. Budget for the ads. Study relevant keywords. Be patient during this process, as this isn’t a quick process. Take your time and find dozens of relevant keywords. You also might find success with relevant Amazon ad categories.

Stay Motivated

It could take one to three weeks to start seeing results from your ads. So, keep your daily spend low or no more than $5 a day when you start working with ads. Download and review monthly reports until you start to notice which keywords, categories and similar products are working to bring in book sales.

Above all, don’t be dreamy about this. In fact, don’t be dreamy about any part of the book marketing process. It’s work. There’s nothing magical about it. Before long, you’ll witness the link between your efforts and the results that you’re seeing. Should a step not yield good results, consider altering a part of the action or replacing the action (in-store book signings, discussion board link shares, etc.) with another action.

Keep at it. There are readers waiting to read great books!

How to Manage Stress and Avoid Burnout

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By Books Author Denise Turney

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Major life changes can happen absent warning, creating a painful internal struggle. Because of this, it’s advantageous to learn how to manage stress and avoid burnout. It’s also important to stay open, flexible and willing to try techniques that work for you.

A sense of hope, peace and happiness are byproducts of effective stress management. Even more, effective stress management could help you to achieve and maintain hormonal balance. Why? When you’re stressed, your body can get flooded with hormones. To bring the point across, it may help to think of stress in visual terms.

What’s Stress

Toward that end, Loud Cloud Health shares that stress is referred to as “any situation that causes a biological reaction”. Imagine seeing stress as a “situation”. That alone may help you to see just how many events in your day could be causing stress. To start, there’s the morning and evening commute, school assignments, work projects, health challenges, bills to pay, relationship strains, family obligations and tight schedules.

That’s a lot to juggle.

Left unchecked, stress impacts every bodily system. For example, stress can weaken the immune system. It can also produce increased cortisol which, in turn, can cause inflammation. If you’ve ever dealt with achy joints, you know what it feels like to deal with inflammation.

Inflammation can also cause dental and back pain. Live with stress too long without adequate relief intervals, and digestive and cardiovascular systems could suffer. In a nutshell, “Our bodies are well equipped to handle stress in small doses, but when that stress becomes long-term or chronic, it can have serious effects on your body,” according to the American Psychological Association.

Manage Stress and Avoid Burnout

Additional symptoms caused by burnout and stress include shortness of breath, forgetfulness (grief can affect memory too – I could write a book about that), nausea, dizziness, constipation and headaches. But, you don’t need to be convinced that prolonged or chronic stress isn’t good for the human body. You already know this. The trick is how to effectively manage stress.

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Another reward is to find effective ways to live a full, rewarding life without running into burnout. Admittedly, pulling that off isn’t always a walk in the park. Today’s work world can easily push you into a 50+ hour workweek. Before you know it, deep sleep has become an odd and rare treat. Worse, a crammed lifestyle can let stress sneak up on you.

Symptoms That Show You Need to Manage Stress and Avoid Burnout

Talking about stress being sneaky, here are a few signs that you could be headed for stress or burnout:

  • You’ve become cynical. Spotting mistakes and wrongdoings at work could become second-nature should you reach the cynical stage. This is when complaining becomes “what you do”.
  • Just the thought of going to work feels like a burden.
  • Focusing and concentrating is like running a marathon. Concentrating and focusing is just hard to do once you enter burnout.
  • There’s no reward associated with your job that seems to be “enough”.
  • Turning to external substances like alcohol or food has become an easy “escape”.
  • Family and friends comment that you have become short, argumentative, judgmental or hard to be around.
  • And sleep – what’s that? Getting a good night of sleep is something that you may not have done in weeks.

Options to Manage Stress and Avoid Burnout

Below are a few ways that you could start managing stress and avoiding burnout. If you already use stress help techniques, see if any of the below actions resonate.

Combining one or more of the following self-care stress relief techniques to your existing routine could help even more. Fortunately, this may apply whether you’re dealing with stress at home, while visiting family or at work.

  • Practice Awareness – Notice how you are feeling. Even more, notice when you are experiencing early stress symptoms. As tempting as it may seem, stay free of turning away from what you’re really feeling. After all, if you get into the habit of turning away from what you’re feeling, you might start to believe that you’re merely irritated when you’re outraged. Or you might think that you’re just a little tired when you’re frustrated or entering early depression. Let this happen and you might not spot stress symptoms early enough to curb them before they get stronger.
  • Change Routines – Alter plans and change routines once you become aware that these routines and plans cause you to feel stressed. As an example, instead of saying “yes” each time a relative, colleague or friend ask you to babysit, work on a community project or help with an event at the worship center that you may attend, set healthy boundaries. If you’re like me, it may take several tries before you start to become comfortable with setting healthy boundaries and telling people that you’re not going to fulfill their request.

More Burnout and Stress Support Options

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  • Deepen Loving Relationships – Depending on how you deal with stress, this one could be challenging. A trick about stress is that, as you start to use stress reduction tools, you might want to flee. In fact, instead of turning to family and friends for stress support, you might want to hide. You might want to be alone, day after day. However, rather than giving into this desire, let trustworthy relatives and friends be there for you, the same as you’re there for them. Meet with family and friends in-person. Call loved ones and enjoy talking. Do so with people who you know are trustworthy, people who you genuinely trust. And, if you feel like there’s no one to talk with, take small steps. Start building new friendships. Of course, if you need more stress support, consider speaking with a professional, someone who has years of experience helping people move through stress and burnout.
  • Care for Your Body – Take good care of your body by eating and drinking healthy foods and beverages. Getting sufficient sleep is another way to take good care of your body.
  • Explore Nature – Try this stress and anger relief action and see if you don’t feel better. You might love walking, jogging, hiking or bike riding in nature. Do so in a safe environment.
  • Express Yourself – Back to stress support option #1. Consider journaling, painting, singing, dancing or adult coloring to express yourself. Let emotions that you’re feeling and thoughts that you’re thinking flow out while you express yourself.

Stress Around The World

Here’s something that you may find comforting. When it comes to stress and burnout, you definitely are not alone. Loud Cloud Health shares that 60% of adult Americans state that they deal with constant daily stress. Regarding work, 15% of American workers would like to resign from their job due to stress.

Furthermore, a 2018 study, found that 74% of people living in the United Kingdom felt so stressed that they felt overwhelmed or incapable of coping with the stress. More than half of these people shared that stress caused them to feel depressed. Higher numbers of people shared that stress caused them to feel anxious.

Take Action

It’s not better in other parts of the world. IT News Africa shares that, “The South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG) reported that 1 in 4 South Africans struggle with depression.” Workplace politics, poor job satisfaction and challenging work environments are among the job stressors. Clearly. these issues are not going to go away on their own.

Both burnout and stress management and elimination require honesty. That’s where self-awareness comes in. Avoiding and healing from burnout and/or stress also requires the right actions. You deserve to be happy. Burnout and chronic stress shouldn’t be part of your routine. Please try different stress support techniques and incorporate ones that work for you into your day. The rewards could be lasting.

Everyday Blessings of Slowing Down Your Life

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By Books Author Denise Turney

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Slowing down your life offers long-term gains. These blessings show up even if you slowdown from living a life of fun and excitement. For starters, your body gets a chance to get enough rest. Let your body rest enough and you could experience mental clarity, improved mood and peace, just to name a few.

Embracing a simpler life also leads to better relationships, better health, reduced stress, deeper sleep and a sense of fulfillment. However, there’s a belief that hustling or “doing more” yields the aforementioned benefits. You might have entered the “hustle culture” in your teens, pushed by the belief that more action equals greater good.

Before you know it, you feel like you’re always sprinting on a treadmill. Instead of slowing down your life, you add more to it, actions like new religious ceremonies, spiritual retreats, volunteer charity events, traveling abroad, etc. The aim is commendable. It’s just that a frenetic lifestyle rarely, if ever, leads you into peace and lasting fulfillment.

Shifting Into Slowing Down Your Life

Which is why you might be exploring a slower lifestyle. If simpler living appeals to you, it could be that you realize chasing possessions and living at a fast pace won’t yield the lasting satisfaction that you’re seeking. Fortunately, it’s easy to start the shift toward a simpler, more fulfilling life.

For instance, you could declutter your home. Toss out items you haven’t used in a year or longer. Empty space can open your energy so that you recognize new opportunities.

Living A Less Cramped Life

Here are more ways to ease into living a slow life:

  • Raising your windows and opening doors (Do all things in peace and safety.)
  • Starting the day with a thankful prayer or by simply raising your hands in appreciation
  • Walking in nature in safe places three to four or more times a week
  • Hiking, running on the beach and horseback riding one or more times a year
  • Listening to family and friends when they communicate with you (This means, that your cell phone and other distractors are not in sight.)
  • Treating yourself to a relaxing bath at least once a week

Additionally, you can invest 30 minutes of relaxation time in the end of your day. It’s as simple as sitting on the porch or front stoop listening to your favorite, relaxing music. Or you could simply sit and watch the neighborhood happenings.

Preparations for Slowing Down Your Life

These are just a few ways to start to shift out of a frantic, high-gear lifestyle into simpler living. Of course, if you live with someone, you may want to talk the lifestyle change over with them. And, who knows? You might be surprised to discover that they have wanted to live slower for a while.

A couple I interviewed on Off The Shelf Books had success with this approach. After they discovered that they both wanted to explore living a slow life, they spoke with their families, letting them in on their plans. Then, they sold their beautiful house in the suburbs.

In place of the large house, they bought an RV. Entrepreneurs at heart, it didn’t take them long to get their remote businesses going. This was years before COVID19. Now, not only do they operate their own successful businesses, they live debt free.

Debt Free – Link Between Money and Slowing Down Your Life

Besides the chance to live debt free, living a slow life offers the opportunity to enjoy deeper relationships with family and friends. Also, living a slow life reduces the feeling of needing to text or talk on your cell phone nonstop.

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Furthermore, it eliminates the need to log onto social media to measure how valuable others perceive you to be. Reduce cell phone and social media time and you could find it easy to actively listen to your loved ones. Signs of a slow life vary by person, but could find you:

  • Selling a big house and downsizing to a smaller house
  • Releasing clutter from your home and workspace
  • Reducing and eliminating debt
  • Spending more time outdoors
  • Turning to nature instead of substances to feel good and have fun
  • Watching less TV, news and opinion pieces

Better Mental Health

Check out these other blessings that you could experience after you start living a slow life. The good news is that living a simpler life doesn’t require money. All you generally have to do is to simply start to live slower. Here are additional blessings:

  • Better mental health (Less debt equals less stress.)
  • Reduced risky behaviors (When you stop trying to keep up with the Joneses, you might stop feeling like you have to engage in risky behaviors like over drinking, over eating and shopping beyond your income.)
  • More brain power (Not only does living a slow life boost brain power, live slower and you could find that you’re focusing better. This, in turn, could improve your decision making.)
  • Availability to increased energy (It’s no secret that clutter has an effect on energy. The less cluttered your home and automobile are, the more energetic you may feel.)

If you’re up for embracing a simpler life, you might opt to work jobs that align with your core principles. In other words, instead of working jobs that pay lots of money, you might start choosing jobs that make you feel you’re living in your destiny. These jobs might be structured to allow you to live the life you appreciate most.

About Those Surprises

Thanks to a growing remote workforce, jobs that offer flexibility are increasing. And, if you’re like the couple I interviewed on Off The Shelf Books, you might use technology to start and manage your own remote company. Enjoy these blessings while remembering that life in this world offers surprises.

Regardless of the lifestyle that you choose, experiences may come that cause you to feel fear-based emotions like frustration, disappointment, anger, sorrow and hopelessness. Practice daily self-love and you could find it easier to navigate through these experiences.

Benefits, lifestyle shifts and surprises surfacing, consider trying a slow living lifestyle. As previously mentioned, there are ways that you can ease into this new, rewarding lifestyle. Give yourself a month. After you’re living a simpler life, see if haven’t become more physically active.

Also, see if you haven’t become more patient, a better listener and a better communicator. You also might discover that your appreciation for life expands. As a tip, stay open to new changes. Live with courage and appreciation. It’s up to you to make your life rich, exciting, balanced and filled with the most amazing blessings.

How Goal Setting Can Make a Difference in Your Success

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By Books Author Denise Turney

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Desire for success and goal setting are like twins. When the former is paired with vision and powerful emotion, it can serve as an effective motivator. Yet, that doesn’t mean that the path will always feel easy. In fact, if you focus solely on what you want without developing and sticking to a goal setting plan, you might not ever realize your dreams.

Success Roadblocks – About Distractions

There are many reasons why this might happen. To begin, you could encounter distractions. I was thinking about this earlier today while I was walking outdoors. Less than 10 minutes into the relaxing walk, a northern mockingbird started making scratchy chat calls. Since I’d heard these aggressive, territorial birds screeching and making warning calls before, I didn’t think that the chat calls were meant for me.

So, I kept walking. Next thing I knew, the mockingbird swooped toward me. Then, it gave another round of chat calls and started to aim toward me again. This time, I turned with a bag I’d been carrying and prepared to fight back. As I watched the mockingbird glance toward a tree, I knew that it was protecting its young. It didn’t matter than I’d been walking more than 10 yards away from the tree. The bird had perceived me as a threat.

The First 90 Days

Between working to calm the bird and stay out of its path, it dawned on me that I also had to steer clear of oncoming traffic. That’s when I realized how easy it is to get distracted. One small experience, one seemingly tiny event, and you could be focused on something that has absolutely nothing to do with what you really want. It happens quickly. Even more, it happens so easily that it appears to occur absent thought. [When’s the last time you were distracted? What was going on?]

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And that’s just one real life example of how easy it is to get distracted. Decide to pursue your success goals, and you may encounter interference from old internal patterns. As a matter of fact, this may be why the first 90 days of a new initiative can stir up feelings of doubt, fear and overwhelm.

During the first 90 days, your brain has to shift out of old routines, making room for the newness that you want to introduce into your life. An example of this might see you arriving late for crucial 9am meetings simply because your brain is in the habit of starting your day at 11am. You might even convince yourself that you’re not a morning person. What’s really happening is that your routines are interfering with your big dreams.

Becoming Fluid with Goal Setting Success

This is a reason to stay flexible with goal setting success. To achieve a big shift, you’re going to have to be adaptable. This means that you’re flexible in your thinking, your perceptions and your actions.

To help yourself become flexible, start observing your routines. For instance, at this time in your life, do you stay up until early morning, retire to bed and then absolutely refuse to wake and get out of bed until 11am or later the following day?

Also, do you come up with reasons to avoid face-to-face communications? Have you started to feel more comfortable limiting communications to emails and texts messages? If so, this could signal that you have a pattern of keeping people at a distance. Areas that this pattern could turn into a success barrier for include sales, training, leadership and the arts.

Routines and Pattern Distractions

Pay attention to your routines. Left alone, they could become ongoing distractions. They could become like a bird that won’t stop swooping in on you. Before you know it, you could start to focus on steering clear of the bird to the point that you lose sight of your real success goals.

That’s when life may feel like it’s happening to you instead of like you are creating your life experiences. Therefore, practice awareness. Identify patterns, including thought patterns. Watch these repetitive choices. Don’t let them become distractions.

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To change patterns, get up at different times. Take a shower instead of a bath a few days a week or vice versa. Exercise in the morning instead of at night. Move furniture, food items, hygiene products each day. Little changes like these can help get your brain off autopilot, the process that routines hide in.

Goal Setting Using Small Goals

Other ways to stay flexible while you pursue goal setting success, are to break goal planning into small goals. Here’s an example. Let’s say that your desire is to earn six figures a year selling novels that you write.

Instead of trying to sell 25,000 copies of your first published novel within its first month of release, break the aim into little goals. Toward this end, you could create a schedule to write and publish a new novel every three months. Bake in time for a professional, experienced editor to review your manuscripts and offer quality feedback.

Small Goals at Work

Small goals to achieve your desire of earning six figures a year selling novels could include:

  • Designing and copying colorful book marketing flyers
  • Distributing a certain number of flyers a week, locally and nationally
  • Scheduling radio and podcasts interviews
  • Completing and submitting author vendor applications to attend cultural, book and arts festivals that attract thousands of attendees
  • Preparing content to push out via automated social media platforms
  • Developing and mailing postcards that spotlight your books
  • Building and promoting your author website
  • Setting up relationships with book distributors, bookstore buyers and wholesalers

This list could expand considerably. There’s that much that you could do to promote and market your books, if that’s what you want to do. Monitor your results. Pay attention to which actions get you closer to your goal of earning six-figures a year selling novels that you write.

Achieving Success After Success

But, here’s the thing. It’s important to stay flexible, to remain fluid. Why? Like that bird that seemingly swooped in out of nowhere, you may not be aware of every thing that’s coming. Furthermore, to continue achieving success after success, you will have to adjust small goals.

Who knows? Along the way, you might even have to discard goals that you’d been pursuing for years. So, stay open to change. Learn to pivot.

To stay encouraged, read motivational success quotes in the morning and at night before you retire to bed. Additionally, you might find it helpful to put on earphones and listen to recordings of positive affirmations for success. Twice a year, pause and acknowledge your achievements. But don’t stop. After all, success is not final.

Keep going. Stay flexible. Watch patterns and routines that could transform into distractions. Should you get distracted, refocus on your deepest desires, your largest goals. Break those goals down into small goals, if you start to think that your goals are too big for you, and again – keep going.

Why Is Flexibility to Change a Key to Success?

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By Books Author Denise Turney

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Change is everywhere. It’s this world’s constant which begs a question. Is flexibility to change a key to success? After all, being flexible in business, at play and other life areas can keep you free of disillusion, hopelessness and nagging frustration. And this could help your energy stay balanced and flowing.

Flexibility to Change Associations

Yet, if you have heard that it’s important to learn how to pivot to experience sustained growth, why might you resist change? To start, you might associate change with loss.

For example, if your early experiences with change caused you to feel as if you’d lost what you value, you might choose not  to be flexible and resist change. This may have occurred with me after my mom transitioned when I was a kid. That certainly was my first early experience with a major change. Not only did it feel like a massive, painful loss, I soon learned that it was a change that I could not reverse.

Reasons You Fight Change

Other reasons why you might not want to get flexible and instead fight change include:

  • Change ushers in a certain amount of uncertainty. When change arrives, you really don’t know how an experience will fully impact you or turn out.
  • People, including family and friends, may perceive you differently. An example of this is when a job layoff occurs and people no longer respect you due to the fact that your work title has changed.
  • Past instances of change may have happened after your peers pressured you into doing something. Dislike the outcome of what you did and you could resist change and also think that it’s better not to form close relationships.
  • Failure and change could be linked in your thinking. A path of freedom from this could be to start to see failure as a learning experience. Because change in this world is always occurring, failure definitely isn’t permanent.
  • Sense of loss of power is another reason why you might resist change. This could happen whether your role in a family, at work, in the community or another environment changes as you age, your children get older, etc.

Change Is Constant

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As Heraclitus shared, “the only constant in life is change”. However, rather than accepting that as truth, look around. See if your experiences prove that change is always happening in this world. For a shortcut, you could start with your appearance. Even when you think nothing is changing about your appearance, one day you’ll look up and see just how much change has been occurring to your body second-by-second, day-by-day.

Furthermore, you might notice how often your judgments and opinions change. Let your judgments and opinions change and your mood could shift as well. In fact, depending on your age and how many new experiences you let enter your life, you might discover that it’s tough to hold onto a judgment, opinion or belief.

So, stay open to being flexible. Also, similar to how you stretch in the mornings to get flexible in your body, step into positive experiences that stretch you. Examples range from being flexible at work by taking on projects with elements that are “new” for you to making friends with caring people you’d rarely bothered to say “hello” to.

Mental Flexibility

Vacationing at a different location, building your own furniture, sewing your clothes for a year and serving as the coordinator for next year’s community book festival are other examples of stretching yourself. Each of these experiences offers an element of “newness”. They may require research, speaking with people who you had before chosen not to communicate with and accessing a set of resources you’d previously overlooked.

Regardless of how “stretch” experiences turnout, you’ll learn. And, you’ll grow if you chose to be flexible. Even more, your fears that are associated with change may diminish or go away. That may invite a bounty of good change into your life.

Mental flexibility clearly comes with rewards. It can be the path to breaking bad habits and patterns that once worked but no longer do. Therefore, look for areas in your life where you could insert change. Practice awareness to spot instances when you’ve invested way too much into a rigid, strict way of thinking, feeling or behaving.

Practice Awareness

By practicing awareness, you can catch yourself planning entire days, weeks and months in advance and then becoming angry when events don’t go the way that you think they should. Also, keep in mind that it could take effort and courage to get flexible. Fortunately, to be flexible does not mean that you‘ve changed. Being flexible doesn’t change your personality and core beliefs.

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Instead, when you adapt as you make a change, you’re simply adjusting your perception of change. You’re also building courage. This is not to say that being flexible in business or other areas will guarantee success. But it will prove that you can adjust to change. Additionally, it will show you that you’re stronger than any change you could experience.

Get flexible, celebrate change and who knows what good might come into your life. Should the rewards not seem to outweigh the risks, start small. You could do this by setting goals. Then, break the attainment of the goals into small, daily actions. Honor each action that you complete. Actually acknowledge the progress that you’re making..

Celebrate Successes

Another step that might prove beneficial is to track your progress on a spreadsheet. That way you can look back at your efforts and your results midway through the year and at the end of the year. Pay attention to the progress that you’re making, even if the forward change seems small to you.

By tracking your efforts and results, you can spot areas that need to be adjusted sooner. Keep going. It may not be long before you witness the good that you’re creating. Let that happen and you might seek out good change, instead of hiding from change. That’s when you could become the driver of the blessed life that you’ve been longing to live.

A Life Filled With Sweet Love Notes

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By Books Author Denise Turney

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Romance is delightful, intoxicating. When enhanced with sweet love poems, romantic cards and sharing, it can mirror your worth back to you. This could be why, at the start of romance, this world can seem nearly perfect. You might believe that you and your lover can get through any challenge as long as you have each other. Admittedly, it’s during these early days that romance can be empowering.

Stay in Awe to Create Sweet Love Notes

But how do you hold onto emotions that flood early romance after you’re two or more years into a relationship? How do you keep romantic relationships as pleasurable as sweet love notes, preventing the relationship from taking on staleness?

A good start is to practice being in awe of everything around you. As an example, you could pay attention to birds fluttering their wings outside your home or on the path that you walk.

Try to hear the sound of water bubbling as it fills your sink or tub. See if you can create a song, using the sound of your washing machine or dryer as background music. Simply let yourself be fascinated and in awe of what’s happening around you.

Establishing Good Habits That Support Sweet Love Notes

As you practice being in awe of your experiences, let that spirit of awe inspire you toward greater appreciation. The more you appreciate what happens to and around you, the more you may appreciate your romantic partner. Then, express your appreciation by surprising your partner with short love notes and romantic cards.

Keep it up. Let sharing sweet love notes with your partner become a habit. When this occurs, your brain may signal you to enter states of appreciation when your lover wakes, smiles, holds your hand or shares a funny joke.

As rewarding as this can be, there may be a more empowering act that you could take to keep your romantic relationship vibrant. And that is to commit to helping your partner to awaken. Make yourself a top priority when it comes to awakening too!

Timeless Sweet Love Notes – Inspire Inner Awakening

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For instance, your partner and you could encourage each other to meditate, notice life’s wonder, try new things, have more fun and laugh more.

Here are more actions that may inspire inner awakening. The first action deals with how you kick off your day. To begin, start your day with thanksgiving. You could raise your hands and simply say, “Thank you for the opportunity to step into new, surprising love-filled experiences.” Other actions include:

  • Sit still for 5 to 15 minutes in the morning and before you go to bed
  • Journal – Write in a daily journal. Also, write when you experience strong emotions like excitement, nervousness, fear or joy. Even more, you could journal about times when you feel love moving between you and your partner.
  • Choose a romantic partner who takes full responsibility for their self. Should this occur, your partner won’t hold you responsible for how they feel, think or behave. Talk about sweet love notes, no more being held responsible for another person.

More Ways to Inspire Inner Awakening as Sweet Love Notes

  • Pick a partner who practices self-love, is not violent verbally, physically, financially, emotionally or mentally. You want to hook up with someone who’s healthy and committed to walking in love, sharing their life with you as if they were giving you sweet love notes.
  • Take relaxing walks with your partner. It’s amazing what being outside does to your energy. It’s a good way to experience awe about what’s happening around you with your lover. That alone could make daily walks romantic gifts.
  • Attend a spiritual retreat with your partner. At night during the retreat, write and share short love poems.
  • Soak in a warm, relaxing bath that has a gently scented aromatherapy foam.
  • Live in the present – looking for things that fill you with awe is an easy way to do this
  • Read romance novels out loud with your partner.

Stay Open

Stay open. Accept that you don’t know everything about your partner. This can help you to receive everyday actions like washing the dishes, caring for the children, cleaning the sink or folding laundry as if you’d just received sweet love notes.

Regarding simple actions that feel like you received sweet love notes, there’s the energy booster, otherwise known was “decluttering”. Yes. Decluttering your living space supports openness. It’s about opening up and letting go.

Instead of buying more clothes, shoes, appliances or electronic gadgets, you could upgrade or exchange products. Considering that money is a leading cause of relationship breakups, de-cluttering comes with benefits. It can free your energy and your finances.

Living a Life Filled with Sweet Love Notes Is an Ongoing Practice

Even more, it may train your brain to spot habits that are cluttering your romantic relationship. As an example, you might notice that you search for a personality trait or habit (chin rubbing, frequent yawning at night, etc.) that your partner engages in that you let irritate you.

The next time this happens, try to find something about the habit that makes you smile or laugh. It might take several tries, but if you really want to, you could do it.

Above all, aim for spiritual awakening. Become more aware of your thoughts and how they are shaping your experiences and emotions. Catch yourself if you enter a spiral of criticizing your lover. The more awakened you are, the easier it is to share sweet love notes.

Awakening or becoming who you truly are, is all about love.

Family Is Everything: Reimagining Fathers and Sons

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By Books Author Denise Turney

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What happens between fathers and sons matters, endures. Family is everything because, to begin, family is the bedrock of your experiences. It might not appear this way when you’re a kid. In fact, the world may feel like it’s your oyster then. You may have confidence to pursue your biggest dreams. After all, you’re not alone. If you’re fortunate, your parents afford you financial, emotional and physical security.

Ongoing Support Between Fathers and Sons

All you have to do is go to school and maybe work a part-time job as a teen. Ongoing support you receive helps you to recover from disappointments. Doesn’t matter if you’re an only child and a son who’s expected to take the helm in less than 15 years. Like Raymond, before you’re out of your teen years, you may have bounced back from tremendous challenges. Come on. Face it. You’ve bounce back and, if you’re like Raymond, you’ve bounced back more than once.

And this could be why my dad told me that “children are resilient” when I was growing up. Back then, I felt angry when my father shared how resilient he thought kids were. Basically, I interpreted him saying that kids are resilient to mean that a child could wipe away any amount of harm, replacing it with fun and laughter, as if no harm had happened to them.

What My Dad Said Was Like Magic

What my dad said was like magic, except that it wasn’t true. In fact, what happens to you during childhood can stick around for a long time. Raymond knows this for sure. His story is part of a father and son novel that is leaving an imprint on readers. If your story is similar to Raymond’s, you may believe that family is everything but wish that it wasn’t.

In Raymond’s case, his father was all that he had. You see, his mother abandoned him when he was two years old. Years would pass before Raymond would become aware of the fact that his father struggled with alcoholism. By then, the damage had been done.

There was no resiliency at work here. But does lack of resilience mean that communication between fathers and sons has been permanently eroded? Additionally, would it even be worth it for these two men, one a generation ahead of the other, to try to resolve their issues and move forward? Would it even be possible to repair such a damaged relationship and advance?

Questions Worth Asking

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These are questions worth thought. Why? As this blog opened with, family is everything. Family is where you learn to perceive your worth, even if what your family teaches you is all wrong. Also, regardless of the pain that you experience at the hands or statements of your relatives, family is still home.

Family is the place you return to off and on. Even if you have hard emotions as it relates to the only “family” that you’ve known, it’s still your family. It’s still your home. For this reason, it’s worth it to do however much work it takes to clear away the debris and to heal inner wounds.

For some, this work may include truly transparent father to son discussions. Work like this can be slow. At times, the work may be grueling. During these “dear father dear son” talks, men may have to face past experiences that they’d rather run away from. A son may hold his father responsible for every failure, disappointment and feelings of being “stuck” that he’s experienced. Although it may not be voiced, a father might view the responsibility of caring for his son as too heavy a burden.

Father To Son Discussions

This is why it can be scary to be fully transparent and talk openly during a father to son discussion. Not everything that comes up will be beautiful. Yet, these conversations can be beneficial and rewarding. Hopefully, these conversations will dive into the expectations that these two men have of one another.

Expectations play a big role in family love and definitely in the father to son relationship. A study mentioned in Psychology Today points to how father to son expectations can prove too burdensome. The Psychology Today article shares that, “fathers’ rigid expectations can cause low self-esteem and relationship satisfaction in their adult sons.”

Staying in these hard places is not necessary. But, it takes consistent work. Fortunately, many sons and fathers exercise the courage to face this work, to do this good work. As Psych Alive states, “Most men will have a strong pull toward salvaging something of a relationship with “the old man.” We may still have a desire to address the damage,and try to have a more personal relationship with our fathers.”

Healing Wounded Relationships

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Psych Alive goes on to share that, “If we decide to tackle this wounded relationship in therapy, we will invariably encounter an array of painful childhood memories. We will experience waves of disappointment, rage, and grief at the loss of what we never had with our fathers. By bravely revealing and working through this boiling cauldron of emotion we may come to a meaningful resolution.”

If this is your first time looking at the father to son relationship, make no assumptions. Each father to son relationship is different. Howbeit, what may be common among the father son relationship is the list of needs that a son may have of his father.

Common Father to Son Needs

Below are common needs that sons may have of their fathers as shared by All Pro Dad:

  • Sons need to know that their fathers love their mothers (remembering that all fathers are also sons)
  • It’s important for sons to see their fathers rebound from failures (this may help free sons of the fear of failing – after all, failures are tremendous teachers)
  • Appreciation from a son for how his father is present when they are together may be unable to be fully measured or expressed
  • Forever love, regardless of what a son does or says
  • Affirmation that he is valued, worthy and good just as he is at his core
  • Leadership is another need that sons have of their fathers. Sons benefit from watching their fathers exhibit effective, loving leadership skills.

Father Son Places of Safety

Since we’re all connected, it’s important for each of us to do what it takes to be strong. The wounded father to son relationship has to heal and strengthen to where both fathers and sons know that they are empowered simply because they are alive. A good first step may be for fathers and sons to examine their expectations of themselves and of one another.

Substituting hard expectations with the expectation of being loved, accepted and supported is a good start. Simply feeling safe to share thoughts and ideas is also empowering. Fathers and sons — everyone — needs this safety.

Healing Support for Overcoming a Sad Childhood

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By Books Author Denise Turney

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You’re not alone if you suffered through a sad childhood. Even if you grew up as an only child, a journey that can prove hard while living with unforgiving parents, you’re not alone. Tragically, millions of adults are seeking healing support for overcoming a sad childhood. Although it may not provide sufficient solace, it can be comforting to know that you are not alone. Furthermore, it may prove empowering to know that you can start overcoming childhood programming and live a good life.

Acknowledge What Happened To You

A first step is to acknowledge that your home-based early childhood curriculum was wrong. Concerning home-based early childhood curriculum, this refers to what you were told about yourself when you were a child. Other elements that it encompasses include responses that you received when you felt that you succeeded and responses that you received when you felt that you messed up or failed. Each of these elements contributes to early childhood programming.

Although it might feel good to hear that it’s easy to become someone who overcame poor childhood programming, overcoming a sad childhood can take decades. The key is to get started. Fortunately, tools exist that can help you get to the core of the problem and start overcoming bad childhood programming today.

Techniques For A Better Life

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For example, there’s the Morty Lefkoe Technique. Many of the shorter techniques are free and can be practiced in the privacy of your home. Other techniques may require the experienced support of a professional familiar with the Morty Lefkoe Technique. The UNPL Center also offers techniques for overcoming errors in childhood programming. Then, there are licensed clinical psychotherapists who can help you start overcoming a sad childhood and get on the path to living a good life.

But, first do your homework and check out techniques and professionals that you’re thinking about working with. You want to have a good, trustworthy connection with a mentor, clinician or therapist. Consider avoiding people you feel intimated by, afraid of or in awe of. After all, we all (including therapists and clinicians) are working our way through this world. If you’re afraid of a therapist or intimidated by a clinician, it could be a sign that something is amiss.

Facing The Past To Experience A Better Now

More steps that you can take are to acknowledge what you are feeling. Also, acknowledge what happened to you. Here are a few ways that might make the process easier:

  • Write in a journal. This is long hand writing, the type of writing kids used to do in elementary and middle school. Keep your journal in a private place if you’re not ready for someone to read your private thoughts.
  • Type how you’re feeling about experiences that are similar to painful and happy childhood experiences. Do this for a year and notice how you’ve progressed (even when you thought that you weren’t advancing).
  • Enjoy a nature walk outdoors in a safe place. While you’re walking, talk out loud about your experiences and how you have started overcoming those experiences. Do this in a safe place so you’re not overheard. Or, you could simply keep the volume in your voice down.
  • Join a support group that includes people who’ve experienced similar childhood traumas and stress like you did. Share at your own pace. Don’t feel forced to share more than you feel comfortable sharing. In fact, during the first few support group sessions, you might not say much at all. Just be open to sharing.

Getting Your Perceived Needs Met

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Additional keys to overcoming a sad childhood are to honor your feelings and your perceived needs. For instance, you may have had one or more absent parents. This situation could have left you to fend for yourself as a child and/or found you responsible for taking care of not only yourself but one or more siblings.

Should this be the case, you might believe that you don’t deserve to be heard, paid attention to or cared for. Instead, you might think it’s your life responsibility to always take care of someone else. Acknowledge that you feel you don’t deserve to have your needs met. Then, identify the needs that you do feel you have and start taking steps to meet those needs.

More Ways To Become An Overcomer

There are even more keys to overcoming a sad childhood. Here are some of those other keys:

  • Write down your achievements – This may sound easy, but if you’ve been in the habit of degrading yourself, it may take patience to make this a habit. Keep in mind that this is not about bragging or boasting. Plus, you’ll be writing these achievements for your eyes only. It’s a way to start letting you recognize just how much good you bring to the universe.
  • Set clear boundaries – Free yourself from thinking that it’s your job to take care of other adults, fulfill every request that’s made of you or ensure every project turns out right.
  • Talk to yourself with love – Make daily affirmations for success a part of your day. But don’t just repeat daily affirmations for success, slowly say daily affirmations for success and give yourself time to soak in the words. Truly allow yourself to feel and believe what you’re saying.
  • Keep it going – Throughout the day, continue to talk to yourself in loving ways.
  • Practice patience – Be patient with yourself. Loving yourself may be a new venture for you. Give yourself time to adjust and keep adding more steps and actions to this wonderful life of “you loving you”.

Prove That You Love Yourself

Also, engage in three or more activities that you love each day. In other words, if you say that you love yourself – prove it! Prove that you love yourself by being patient, kind, generous, compassionate and gracious with yourself.

This is an ongoing process. In fact, it’s part of a journey that could go on for decades. However, you should see advancements, good results. And, should you experience setbacks, continue to be patient and loving with yourself. Part of this includes only allowing people who love and genuinely care for you into your inner circle. After all, the way that you allow others to talk to you and treat you is a sign of how you talk to and treat yourself.

Rooting for you, as I’m on this path too. Keep going as Raymond does in Love Pour Over Me. In reference to books, you could add happiness self improvement books to your collection. Another step that you could take is to start working with a self reflection planner. Track your progress. Celebrate your successes!