Dealing with Loneliness – Try These Tips

Posted on by

By African American Books Author Denise Turney

person sitting on wooden planks across the lake dealing with loneliness
Photo by S Migaj on Pexels.com

Despite medical advances, people have been dealing with loneliness for centuries. Not only has loneliness been experienced across history, reasons that you could feel lonely cover a wide range. For example, you could feel lonely because of changes in your brain, social isolation, genetics, your diet, workplace culture, things you keep repeating to yourself, stressors, light shifts and seasonal changes. Fortunately, there’s a way out. First, more about loneliness and its impact.

Experiencing Loneliness

Loneliness could be experienced in combination with other emotional or mental issues like depression, PTSDs and seasonal affective disorder. The one fact that’s associated with loneliness is that it feels painful. Depending on how you’re using thought, you could be tempted to convince yourself that you’ll always feel lonely. However, you don’t have to feel lonely.

One factor that’s different about today’s loneliness is how many people live alone. Yet, living alone doesn’t always cause you to feel lonely. Out World In Data shares that, “Despite the popularity of the claim, there is surprisingly no empirical support for the fact that loneliness is increasing, let alone spreading at epidemic rates.”1

Another thing to note is that you do not have to stay lonely, if you feel that way now. In fact, there are actions that you could take to reduce and eliminate loneliness. But, first it’s important to note that loneliness is a “state of mind.” As Very Well Mind shares, “People who are lonely often crave human contact, but their state of mind makes it more difficult to form connections with other people.”2

Tips for Dealing with Loneliness

Also, “Researchers suggest that loneliness is associated with social isolation, poor social skills, introversion, and depression.” Keep in mind that, “Loneliness, according to many experts, is not necessarily about being alone. Instead, if you feel alone and isolated, then that is how loneliness plays into your state of mind.”2

Here are actions that you could take to free yourself of loneliness:

  • Strike up a conversation with a neighbor or colleague
  • Volunteer for community, social or work projects that cause you to connect more fully with others
  • Realize that loneliness is not a permanent condition and that millions of people have experienced it
  • Accept that loneliness is an indication that you may need to make a change (and that you can make that rewarding change)
  • Be willing to be uncomfortable during the early stages of a healthy friendship
  • Schedule a social event or a lunch or dinner with a friend or relative and keep the date
  • Talk with people you trust
  • Seek professional help if you feel stuck in loneliness
  • Focus on your good traits
  • Take time to rest and relax to avoid feeling overwhelmed which could shift into loneliness
  • Take advantage of opportunities to connect with people in-person

Develop Rewarding Connections When Dealing with Loneliness

Despite what you might read in the media, there may not be solid evidence that loneliness is at epidemic levels. Additionally, there might not be strong evidence that loneliness is even increasing. To begin, humans have not been surveyed about loneliness since the start of time.

What research has shown is that you can reduce or stay free of loneliness if you nurture healthy relationships. Also, by avoiding the temptation to isolate yourself, you could build and maintain deep connections. The importance of developing and maintaining rewarding and loving human connections cannot be overstressed.

Longer life on this earth, lower blood pressure, improved overall health and less stress are just a few of the benefits associated with having deep, authentic human relationships. Nurturing healthy relationships could also strengthen your immune system, reduce physical pain and give you a sense of purpose.

Step-by-Step Healing

Howbeit, healthy relationships don’t generally just happen. As with a physical fitness, financial or mental health goal, you have to work at good relationships. As an example, you could call friends once a week or you could visit a relative once or twice a month.

Attending family get-togethers, hosting holiday events and supporting family, friends and neighbors during times when they could benefit from support are ways to nurture healthy relationships. So too is actively listening when people talk with you. Simply making the time to be with and really listen to people goes a long way.

Regarding being there for a friend, I’ll never forget when a friend drove more than 50 miles to be with me after a loved one transitioned. Little did either of us know it, but less than four years later, a situation would arise that would find my friend benefitting from more support. I was there for her. These “I’ll be there for you” choices strengthen relationships.

Move Beyond Erroneous Beliefs

Replace “being there with someone” with excuses and you could weaken a relationship. Therefore, staying free of loneliness is about more than not feeling isolated or unloved. It’s also about taking the initiative to build and maintain good relationships.

Should a part of you believe that no one wants to hang out with you, counter that thought with truth. You are wonderfully created. As Psalm 139: 13-14 shares, “For you created my innermost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

You might need to repeat loving affirmations about yourself as you stand in front of a mirror to free yourself from erroneous beliefs. Until you do change your thoughts, just strike up a conversation with the cashier at the grocery store, your mail carrier or a neighbor. Take small steps to build healthy, loving relationships.

Starting Conversations

Keep starting conversations. It could be as simple as asking a question. Now, there may be instances when the person you’re speaking with brushes you off. People get in hurries. Or the person may not want to talk right now. But that doesn’t mean that everyone will respond to your efforts to engage in conversation the same way.

The more that you start conversations and connect with others in healthy ways, the more confident you may become. Before you know it, you might be considered someone who helps create good connections. You also might be regarded as a great communicator.

Feeling Less Lonely

If you struggle to start conversations, try taking an impromptu speaking course. This is what I did when I was in the military. It paid off. Years later, I was standing in front of crowds on stage delivering speeches. Another thing that I did was to agree with inner guidance that I received and started saying “Hello” to people who stepped on an elevator with me.

Admittedly, it felt awkward at first (my not thinking that the other person would want to speak with me). But I kept it up. Today, starting conversations is very easy for me. So, get started. Take the first step to build healthy in-person connections.

Reach out to family and friends regularly. For example, you could set a date twice a week when you will call friends or visit family. Don’t talk yourself out of building and strengthening healthy, loving relationships. Make connecting with others in a loving way a priority. See if you don’t feel less lonely.

Resources:

  1. https://ourworldindata.org/loneliness-epidemic
  2. https://www.verywellmind.com/loneliness-causes-effects-and-treatments-2795749

20 Ways to Connect with Book Buyers & Sell More Books

Posted on by

By Books Author and Novelists Denise Turney

woman reading book in bookstore
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Book buyers are a robust team of people. They know what they like and they’re eager to jump into a good story. Check this out. In 2020 alone, print book sales in the United States surpassed 750 million units, according to Statista. Furthermore, Publishers Weekly reports that, during 2020, print book sales increased by 8.2%.1

Can You Spot A Good Thing

A lot of people know a good thing when they see it. And, little beats a very good story. In fact, it may be hard to find another entertainment form that costs so little and offers so much the way that books do.

Even better, Publisher Weekly goes on to say that, “With all major categories posting increases, unit sales of print books rose 8.2% in 2020 over 2019 at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. For the year ended Jan. 2, 2021, units hit 750.9 million, up from 693.7 million the year before.”2

Proof of the deep engagement derived from good story rests in the numbers. Not only did Statista and Publisher’s Weekly see an uptick in print book sales in 2020, they also saw a rise in ebook sales over the same time period. During 2020, in the United States alone, 191 million ebooks were purchased.

Good News For The Book Industry

That’s good news for the book industry. Lockdowns and companies turning to remote work likely had impact on the rising print book sales. That shared, it may take a while longer to determine whether or not book buyers prefer to read their books in print while they are at home. Should this be the case, brick and mortar bookstores and online book retailers might notice a drop in print book sales as larger numbers of people return to the office.

Who knows? Book buyers just might prefer to engage with e-books while they are commuting on trains, subways or while they have their mobile device hooked to a speaker system in their car as they drive to and from work.

Of course, talented authors who are passionate about their work will continue to find ways to identify, locate and connect with people who are passionate about the stories that they write. That’s not all.

Authors who believe in the stories that they write, be those stories fiction or non-fiction, will endeavor to discover new ways to find and engage with new book readers. These are people who have never read a book before. Or they might be people who have never read a novel or the genre of book that the author writes in.

Yet, that doesn’t make finding eager readers and book buyers easy. On top of that, actions that authors, book publishers and book publicists could take to connect with book buyers keep changing. The good news is that many of those book marketing changes are expanding the industry.

Working With Media Outlets

In other words, traditional ways of marketing books still yield good results. For example, authors can still generate book sales if they promote and attend book signings, particularly book signings at large festival and literary events.

And press releases can also gain traction, depending on the topic that the release is tied to. For instance, if an author hooks his press release to a major holiday or current event, the press release could get picked up by a local, regional, national or international media outlet. Authors who work these press release pick-ups the right way could see those media pickups lead to more exposure through radio and television interviews.

Ways To Connect With Book Buyers

However, book marketing actions have expanded beyond traditional book marketing pathways. Below are more traditional as well as newer ways that authors could connect with book buyers:

  1. Build a literary newsletter – Refer to The Book Lover’s Haven to find an example of a literary newsletter. The Book Lover’s Haven is a free literary newsletter that I started designing more than 15 years ago.
  2. Conduct podcast interviews – You can do these from the comfort of your home. Check out podcast directories to find podcast that focus on subjects that you write about in your books.
  3. Interview on traditional offline radio stations.
  4. Reach out to bookstores and schedule in-person book signings.
  5. Apply to have your books carried in Range to see if retailers and military stores will carry your titles.
  6. Attend book festivals and sell your books at these events.
  7. Teach a virtual writing course and spotlight your books at the virtual event.
  8. Do literary newsletter book advertising swaps with other authors.

More Ways To Connect With Book Buyers

  • Start paid advertising at online retailers that run online book ads.
  • Blog and post a link to your books in blog articles that you write.
  • Push out book marketing messages using text messages.
  • Send customized book marketing postcards to members of your target audience.
  • Post flyers about book signings and other book marketing events that you attend.
  • Take our social media ads to promote events that you’re attending.
  • Design an author website.
  • Sit on author panels at virtual and in-person literary events like writer’s conferences.
  • Start a program on an offline radio or television station. Focus on literature and mention your books at the start and end of each show.
  • Run ads on literary podcasts and other podcasts that attract your book’s target audience.
  • Make your books available in two or more formats such as print, e-books and audiobooks.
  • Perform live shows like Facebook live, etc. that center around an event in your book.

Consistency And Persistence Pay Off

There are a myriad of ways that authors, publishers and book publicists can connect with book buyers. A key is to be persistent and consistent. Social media may have proved this well. After all, it’s not enough to reach out to people once or twice a year. Instead, authors benefit when they reach out to book buyers several times a week.

It also helps when authors share valuable content and connect with readers simply to say, “Hello!”

Build Strong Book Buyer Relationships

Therefore, to deepen connections with book buyers, authors should focus on building relationships. Fortunately, several of the aforementioned book marketing actions do help to build relationships. Another good point as it regards book marketing is that readers know when an author has focused on creating a quality story.

A well written story suggest that an author respects her book readers. Whether authors see a well-crafted story as a marketing tool or not, it still stands that a quality product may be the best marketing device there is. So, start from the beginning. Write a good story. Then, start taking smart actions to market your book, finding its readers and turning them into happy book buyers.

How Women Friendships Cross Invisible Barriers

Posted on by

By African American Novels Writer Denise Turney

photo of women friends sitting on orange sofa
Photo by RF._.studio on Pexels.com

Women friendships demonstrate the power of love. As it is with love, the power of female friendship showcases patience, clear communication, flexibility, fun, care, empathy, sharing and deep understanding. If you’re like me, your early friendships started in childhood. Back then, it was fun, play and carefreeness that brought my friends and me together.

Impact of Early Friendships for Women

Shared interests worked like an anchor. The more fun that a girl and I had together, the stronger our friendship became. That’s how my early friendships started. For sure, that’s not how they remained.

In fact, it only took several months for those relationships that were filled with play and laughter to take on a competitiveness. Who had the latest toys? Whose doll was the coolest. After awhile, I started to wonder if a girl I’d previously considered to be my friend really was a friend. Fortunately, this only happened with one playmate.

Never will forget her. Did I ever look up to her. She seemed to have access to the best toys and technology. It was as if she lacked nothing, which is a wonderful way to journey through this world.

On the other hand, my family had a makeshift swing set in the backyard. As kids, we used an old inner tube that our dad tied to the swing set, to play on. Was it ever loads of fun. But it wasn’t new or up-to-date like my (is she really my friend?) playmate.

Adult Women Friendships Barriers

Topping it off was the fact that my playmate had perfect timing. Whenever I got a new toy, she’d stop by and ask to play with it. If I told her that she couldn’t play with the toy, she’d sulk, walk off and tell other kids not to play with me. Took me a minute to catch on to what was happening. Soon that habit created a barrier in our friendship. Before it was over, I no longer considered her a friend.

As unwanted as that experience was, it pales in comparison to barriers that adult friends may navigate. By the time you reach adulthood, you’ve heard people compare women based not only on their possessions (e.g. income, houses, cars, handbags) but also on their backgrounds. You might have even engaged in this behavior yourself.

Keep it up and you could create barriers around women based on their age, skin tone, where they were born and the languages that they speak. Although it might not look like it now, those barriers could keep you from meeting and connecting with awesome women. Those cultural barriers could prevent you from enjoying the most rewarding friendships. After all, how do you know what could become of relationships with women from different cultures you crossed paths with if you never embark on conversations with those women?

Rewarding Women Friendships

You might be passing up on rewarding friendships and not even know it. If you’re one of those fortunate women who hasn’t allowed culture to create barriers between you and other women, you know the blessings inherent in honest, open friendships that are anchored in love.

Additionally, you know how much you’ve learned about your friend’s culture, native language, family traditions, cultural celebrations, festive foods and more. Another thing that you might gain as you develop friendships that cross cultures is never-before-known ways to connect with your parents, children or partner. Other things that you might learn are ways to reduce or eliminate stress, balance work and the pursuit of your passions as you continue to learn.

What Women Friendships Gift You With

What you might not know is just how great an investment you’re making, not only in your friends, but also in yourself. For starters, the power of female friendship gives you a sense of belonging. There’s no way to put a price on the knowledge that you belong. That’s what women friendships gift you with. Other blessings to be gained from getting to know a woman and developing a real friendship include:

  • Lower stress
  • Strengthen emotional intelligence
  • Improve emotional and psychological coping skills
  • Support to establish healthy mental and physical fitness
  • Springboard to bounce ideas off of, particularly ideas on how to improve close personal relationships
  • Comfort while letting go of toxic relationships

The power of women friendships may never be fully known. Women friends build strong bonds. They sit and simply listen to each other during periods of grief. Should a woman experience setbacks, broken romantic relationships or start to believe that her life isn’t worth much, her friend will step in and fill those gaps.

Missing Your Best Friend

If you’ve ever been a friend, you know how easy it is to go thru a gamut of emotions and experiences with a buddy; you also know how much you want to be there for your friend. No one has to twist your arm or beg you to call or visit your friend. Also, you don’t have to be coerced to come up with the best ideas for having fun.

What you might not know is how many friends you could have had. Even if you’re open, steer clear of cultural divisions. If not, you could keep yourself from what could become the best friendship of your life. During hard times, you could experience a period of hopelessness that you wouldn’t have had to endure had you developed more culturally rich women friendships.

Enrich Your Life With Good Friends

To enrich your life with the power of women friendships, consider seeing women as an allay instead of as a competitor. Do this at home, work and school. Gift yourself with the opportunity to develop friendships with women whose cultural background is different from yours. Doing so could open you up to new ways of experiencing life.

Additionally, there might be a multi-pronged advantage to this. Not only could you build powerful adult friendships. You might demonstrate the blessings of developing relationships that cross invisible barriers for your children and extended family. Pull this off and your extended family could start crossing cultural aisles and finding friends they’d never have met.

How To Support a Grieving Friend

Posted on by

Books Author Denise Turney

grieving women hugging each other
Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com

Surviving the loss of a loved one is powerfully emotional. It leaves you changed. Try as you may, you can’t fully bounce back the way you used to be. It helps to have a good friend, someone who knows you and will just be there for you, their grieving friend. But how do you learn to help a friend who’s grieving?

When You’re Experiencing a Similar Loss

It’s hard to experience grief alone. Yet, there are times, such as major pandemics and large-scale job layoffs, when you may grieve with large numbers of people.

During times when you’re experiencing a similar loss with large numbers of people, you may not feel the full impact of the loss right away. In fact, you might delay grief, postponing the inevitable. Do that and you could get stuck, not to mention feel alone when you have no choice except to look at the loss.

Go through this once, and you may never forget the importance of grieving instead of repressing. Furthermore, you might not forget the importance of grieving as soon as a loss occurs. Another thing that you won’t forget is how deep the pain associated with grief can dig. It might not make a lot of sense now, but this combination could prepare you to help a grieving friend in the future.

Struggling In Awkward Silence

Even if you don’t want to, you might struggle in awkward silence when you’re around your grieving friend. You might not know what to say. You might not know what to do. Fortunately, if you really want to help, there are ways you can make it easier for your grieving friend to heal.

One of the best things you can do is to simply sit with your grieving friend and listen. As tempting as it may be, avoid offering advice. Even more, it might be good to postpone giving words of encouragement. Just be there and listen.

This is because, as good as your intentions might be, nothing that you say may help to heal your friend’s pain right now. During highly emotional times, the best words could be received as uncaring, cold or dismissive. I experienced this after my son transitioned.

When People Don’t Want You To Change

Despite people’s intentions, much of what they said felt dismissive. On top of that, I knew that the people talking with me had not experienced the loss that I had, except for one friend who’d years earlier lost a son. Also, some things that some friends said came across as if they wanted me to act as if nothing had changed. They didn’t want to see me changed.

When this happens, you could be tempted to try to push or rush your friend through grieving. Another thing to remember is that each person grieves differently. Here’s another way that you could help a grieving friend.

Steer clear of telling your friend that she or he is “doing good” while dealing with the loss. Not only does this sound judgmental (as if you’re judging how close your friend is reacting to how you think she or he should react), it sends the message that there’s a certain way to grieve.

Journaling Helps

You may have heard someone who’s trying to encourage a grieving friend say, “you’re doing good” or “you’re strong” if the grieving friend doesn’t cry at all or doesn’t cry much. This could be a sign that the speaker doesn’t want to deal with changes grief can bring. It’s as if the person is saying, “You’re doing good at not making me deal with this loss much.”

Try to avoid this approach.

Instead, sit with your friend, even if you sit in silence. Another thing you can do is to gift your friend with a journal. Writing in a journal is a good way for your friend to express what’s she’s feeling and thinking. Journaling as a practice, is a good way to work through hard emotions and troubling experiences. Admittedly, it sounds simple. But it works.

You could also gift your friend with a daily devotional that includes personal writings from people who’ve felt the sting of loss. Some devotionals start with a quote or scripture, followed by the personal write-up.

Experiencing Difficult Losses

Because the devotional’s contributors have experienced difficult losses, your grieving friend might feel like he’s hearing from someone who knows and cares as he reads the book.

Gifting your friend with the freedom to weep is another way to support your friend. At some point, your friend might want to talk with you about the loss. The more they open up and talk, the more they might cry. They might also want to hear you speak their loved one’s name, showing that you want to remember and acknowledge that the person had been here.

If your friend’s loss is marital or job related, your friend might want to share uncomfortable emotions like anger, frustration and loss of hope.

You’re a Blessing

Ask your friend if it’s okay for you to visit. Should your friend start to isolate, consider stopping by her home or treating her to lunch.

Offering to cook, walk a pet, babysit or do another chore could prove beneficial. As good as in-person visits are, so too are regular telephone conversations. By your actions, let your friend know that you are there for her and want to support her.

And continue to understand grief. As a start, you could familiarize yourself with the grieving process (remembering that not everyone goes through the stages the same). Steer clear of quoting scriptures and trying to push your grieving friend toward thinking or feeling a certain way. All in all, if you’re a sincere friend, your grieving friend will likely appreciate you just being there.

How Children’s Books Open Healthy Family Communication

Posted on by

By Books Author Denise Turney

young girl and boy having fun reading books under tent
Photo by Yaroslav Shuraev on Pexels.com

The best children’s books dig into real-world topics. That wasn’t always the case. Years ago, children’s books were limited to covering light-hearted topics like farm life, welcoming a baby sibling into the family and making new friends at school. Children’s book authors steered clear of deeper social issues. Today’s shift toward tackling more realistic issues could help prepare kids for the real-world. It also opens dialogue for parents and children to engage in healthy family communication.

Children’s Books Tackling Important Life Issues

For example, as a parent, when you ask your child what they honestly feel about school, sharing experiences you may have had with bullying, poor grades or awkwardness, you can open a window of healthy dialogue. Reading children’s books about bullying or a character who’s struggling to fit in at school could also encourage your child to tell you what’s going on with them at school.

You could learn about something that’s been worrying your child simply by discussing a central theme in a children’s book. Even better, to reduce the likelihood that your child might feel as if she’s being probed, you could ask her how she feels about what happened to a character in a novel, lowering your child’s desire to conceal what’s really going on in effort to avoid judgment or embarrassment.

Read out loud to your child and you could do more than encourage literacy. You could introduce your child to characters who help build confidence and celebrate your child’s uniqueness.

Children’s Books That Speak to a Child’s Core

For instance, your child might be drawn to confident, creative children’s book characters like Pippi Longstocking, Matilda Wormwood, Paddington Bear, Arthur, Big Nate or Rosetta Blay. Or they might gobble up books written by authors like Judy Blume, Christopher Paul Curtis, Mildred Taylor, Tetsuko Kuroyanagi or Jacqueline Woodson.

Experiences characters in these and other children’s books have are timeless, making these books great family communication tools. Talk with your child about books he reads and you might learn a lot yourself, a lot about the characters, storylines and a lot about your child.

Living with an aging grandparent, caring for a pet, moving to a new country, dealing with rejection and facing a fear are open conversations you and your child could end up having, simply because you stopped to talk about a book your child was reading.

Children’s Books Relevant Topics

Who knows? You might start turning to children’s books as a way to start a healthy discussion with your child. Fortunately, the best children’s books cover relevant topics such as living in a blended family (with stepparents and stepbrothers and sisters) and living as an only child in a big city. Other relevant topics authors are taking on include:

  • Futuristic landscapes that stimulate imagination, offering entertainment and fun discussion
  • Fantasy stories that probe real life situations. An example is the classic Alice In Wonderland.
  • Competitiveness, self-esteem and confidence cocooned in an exciting adventure story. This may be one of the more popular forms of children’s books.
  • Important social issues that could be happening in a child’s life right now. Examples include books with young characters who are adjusting to their parents divorcing or getting remarried. Immigrating to another country, confronting bullying, accepting one’s body and stepping into leadership roles.

Enriching Reading Practice

As you talk with your child about books she reads, she might feel more valued and included. This could encourage more conversation.

Support reading and healthy family communication by choosing books that entertain and enlighten. Also, let your child choose books that he wants to read on his own.

Another thing – as your child ages, consider presenting him with more text-based stories. And keep learning and growing with your child. After all, that’s what the best children’s books are about – learning, growing and healthy, rewarding relationships, the types of relationships that encourage open healthy dialogue.

11 Easy Things You Can Do That Prove You Love Yourself

Posted on by

By Books Author Denise Turney

person holding golden love balloon
Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

Prove you love yourself. You know it’s time you did this. But how do you know you’re loving yourself, even now? How do you really know?

Think about it. If you were asked to list signs of having a cold, what would you list? Scratchy throat, stuffy nose, cough and tiredness? What if you were asked to list symptoms of being excited? Would any of these appear on your list – alertness, curiosity, rapid heartbeat, happiness and feeling alive?

Exploring Unconditional Love

Finally, what if you were asked to create a list of signs that prove you’re loved? If someone found your list, what would they find? Would they find words like warmth, kindness, appreciation, acceptance, realized value, welcomed, desired, cared for, connection, safety and trust?

What’s on that list reveals what think love is.

When is the last time you gifted yourself with what’s on your list? Ask yourself, when is the last time you made yourself feel loved. This is a time when you (you alone) treated yourself in a way that caused you to feel unquestionably loved.

Prove You Love Yourself as an Early Start

Confession. When I was younger, I thought self-love was selfish. Back then, I thought the Creator put me in the world to love everyone else except myself. Guess that’s why I sometimes felt like love was a risk, a risky chance that might or might not yield the results I was seeking.

Now it makes perfect sense to me. The entire time I was committed to loving everyone except myself (again thinking that loving yourself was a selfish and negative act to engage in), I was waiting for someone else to love me. Each time I believed that I had loved someone else, sacrificed for someone else, I expected to receive love.

When that didn’t happen (and looking back, it seems like it didn’t happen a lot), I felt disappointed. Love seemed like a trick to me. Or, as Amy Winehouse sang, it was as if “Love Is A Losing Game”. Fortunately, I didn’t give up on love.

People Who Help Your Prove You Love Yourself

Do you believe in love? Is love powerful, weak, necessary, real or unreal to you? Did you become familiar with love during your childhood? Hopefully, your parents, extended family and friends gave you love. It is my trust that the people circling you as you grew up demonstrated love for you. Even more, I trust that those people poured love into you, making it easy for you to realize that you have value.

Whether or not that happened, you have to work to love yourself. You have to prove you love yourself. And you have to prove it throughout the day.

Yet, life gets busy. Before you know it, you’re telling yourself that you don’t have time to rest. You start to believe that sacrificing your peace and joy for a relationship, a job, a belief is best. Even more, you might convince yourself that you just don’t have time to do what it takes to make yourself feel loved. That’s why breaking big impact actions into small steps helps.

11 Easy Self Love and Self Care Acts

Here are 11 easy things you can do to feel loved. They’re simple acts that can have a long, powerful and lasting impact. Add these to your daily routine and see if you don’t start to feel better, see if you don’t start to feel more loved.

  1. Listen to a song that causes you to feel hopeful, happy.
  2. Sit still for five minutes as soon as you awaken. Do the same five minutes before you drift into sleep at night. These are easy self-love and self-care actions. After a while you might decide to increase the time to 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes at night.
  3. Write yourself a love letter. This love letter doesn’t have to be long. The aim is to tell yourself, to demonstrate to yourself, how much you truly do love you.
  4. Breathe deeply for 60 seconds. As a tip, you could use a virtual timer to sit still, sit quiet and breathe for 60 seconds. Should this sound like too much time, start smaller. Start breathing deeply for 30 seconds and then work your way up to 60 seconds.
  5. Stand in front of a mirror and tell yourself three things that you appreciate about yourself today, right now. Pay attention to how you feel as you do this. Notice if there’s an area where you find yourself struggling to believe something good about you. (Hint: You’re awesome!)
  6. Drink fresh water each day. Also, eat a healthy diet.
  7. Exercise daily – moving your body in healthy ways is an act of self-love.
  8. Get outdoors and enjoy a safe walk in nature. Stay outdoors for 45 minutes. This simple act can improve your mood, mental focus and physical well-being.
  9. Take one day a week to rest. Instead of working, do fun, relaxing things that you enjoy.
  10. Dance to a song that you love once a day. Not only is this fun, it’s great exercise.
  11. Open up to loving relationships. Say good-bye to people who constantly criticize, belittle and abuse you.

Whether you give love to someone else or to yourself, it is from within you that love flows. To feel empowered and confident enough to be who you really are, prove that you love yourself. Go beyond simply saying that you love yourself. Prove it.

How Books Can Shorten Hard Parts of Your Healing Process

Posted on by

By African American Fiction Author Denise Turney

african american woman using a singing bowl while sitting for healing
Photo by EKATERINA BOLOVTSOVA on Pexels.com

Your healing process is ongoing. It takes courage and work to heal. But that doesn’t mean that your healing process has to be hard. After all, too much struggle and you could become tempted to quit. Face it. There’s no getting around it. In this world, maintaining inner health requires more than thought. If you’re serious about getting and staying well, you’re going to have to take inspired action, including reading books you’re guided to.

Magical Thinking Is Not Part of Your Healing Process

It can’t be overstressed that you have to take smart actions to heal. Magical thinking is not going to save you. Instead, learning, growing and paying attention are healing keys. Reading empowering books can be a shortcut to healing.

Howbeit, reading a lot of books, including popular self-help books, may never be enough if you don’t take the right actions. For example, to gain the most from self-help books, commit to completing exercises and worksheets in those books.

Types of worksheets you might find in self-help books include questionnaires that are used to measure your self-esteem. Others include visualization exercises designed to help you identify your core beliefs. Examples of core beliefs are “life is good”, “life is hard”, “people are kind” and “I succeed when I give my best”.

Books Offering Healing

Surprisingly, some exercises in self-help books are easy to put into practice. Yet, that doesn’t mean that the work won’t dig deep. This happened to me years ago. After experiencing frustration and disappointment, I started reading self-help books. For years, that proved to be rewarding.

At the start of one of the books, the author shared that most people who buy self-help books not only don’t finish reading the books, they also don’t complete the exercises. I took that as a challenge. Before I knew it, I was committed to finishing each self-help book I bought.

More importantly, I was committed to completing each exercise and worksheet in the books. While working on one exercise, I broke down in tears. To this day, it surprises me how much of an impact that simple exercise had on me.

Your Healing Process Exercises in Self-Love

It was an exercise in self-love. Was I ever shocked to learn how hard it was to stand in front of a mirror and repeat “I love you” to myself. Had thought it would be a piece of cake. Actually, at first glance, I thought the sheer mention of the exercise was silly.

By the time I finished that book, I knew I had to work on loving myself, and I did. It was one of the strongest, most clear parts of my healing process.

Reading that book and doing the exercises proved to be an eye opener. Yet, that’s just one way how reading books can help you to heal. Safely looking into the inner workings of a successful person’s life can also prove beneficial.

Committed to Your Healing Process

For instance, if you’re committed to healing from addiction, procrastination, workaholism or a habit that keeps you from living your best life, reading an autobiography or biography about people who have faced the same challenge could keep you from feeling alone or isolated.

Keep reading about how those people overcame the challenge and you might reinforce your belief that you can overcome this challenge too. By way of these lessons, you may regain inner health. You may feel better about yourself and about life in general. The effects can be far reaching.

Although inner health and success (career success, rewarding relationships, etc.) may not appear connected, they are. Additionally, just as poor physical health can drain your energy, weak inner health can suck the life out of your mental stability, hopes and happiness.

Good Inner Health a Hallmark on Your Healing Process

Get into the habit of beating yourself up and you might not notice how your inner health is declining. In fact, make depreciating yourself a habit, and you might start to think that going through the day feeling “humdrum” is normal. If you want to increase your energy and live a joyful life, don’t let this be your path.

Stir up your courage. Ask to receive inner wisdom. Seek out guidance from the Creator. Trust the healing process. Furthermore, take inspired action. As again, it’s not enough to simply want a healing. Additionally, it’s not enough to just think about living with inner health. You have to take the right actions.

Self-Care Priorities

Even more, you might have to take the right actions over and over again. Keep your focus on the outcomes that you want to experience. Stay focused on your fitness goals, relaxation strategies, career successes and the health of your relationships.

Also, keep your self-love and self-care practices top of mind. Reading books, including self-help books and a powerful autobiography or biography can offer motivation. At the start of your healing journey, you might not feel as if you need motivation. But that can change and fast.

Should you feel mentally or emotionally exhausted, a primary source of healing might come through books. Reading about someone else’s courage to overcome offers conviction. This happened to me when I was a kid, trying to make something good of my writing dreams.

More Ways Books Aid Your Healing Process

Learning of other people’s success commitments proved healing for me. Just knowing that someone had surmounted hard odds was energizing. For you, self-help books might provide techniques, strategies and insights that you can use to shift your beliefs away from loss. Other ways that books could help your healing process include:

  • Lower your defenses so you can receive healing
  • Build connection with people dealing with similar challenges
  • Offer clear pathways thru hurt to healing
  • Provide tools to take smart action
  • List treatments and healing organization resources

Ongoing Mental Healing

In turn, you might incorporate healthy, loving actions into your daily routines. There’s so much good that can be found in books. Despite what they look like, books are not just words on pages. After all, books are written by people who’ve faced their own challenges. Effective self help books are authored by people who have spent hours, maybe years, interviewing, surveying and studying children and adults.

Writers of these books have the skill to share medical and scientific results without being judgmental. It’s this approach that could draw you closer, make it easier for you to accept new healing actions. Keep going. Don’t ever give up on yourself. Long term emotional and mental healing could be closer than you think.

Be Courageous Enough To Step Into Your Destiny

Posted on by

By Novel Writer Denise Turney

213 let's go design, motivational destiny graphic
Photo by SevenStorm JUHASZIMRUS on Pexels.com

Have you ever had a vision? In just an instant, have you seen yourself in a specific place, finalizing an achievement? Let that happen just once and you might believe in your destiny. On the other hand, even if you say that you don’t believe in destiny, such an event could change your life. Why?

Sparks of Inner Vision

Inner vision lets you see your life differently. Instead of seeing yourself as merely enduring whatever comes at you, you may start to see your life attached to a purpose. This happened to me when I was a kid. At the ripe age of 10 years, I had an experience that revealed to me that my destiny was to be a writer.

Now, this wasn’t something that I had asked or prayed for. Instead, it was revealed to me. It’s odd to me now how I linked this revelation to worldly success. In fact, I don’t think a year passed after I’d received the revelation before I started fantasizing and imagining myself selling millions of copies of my books. If I only knew what was up ahead, which brings us to the topic of this article.

Dreams and fantasies aside, it takes courage of conviction to walk into your destiny. But, that makes it sound like it’s a choice as to whether or not you step into your purpose. And my experience has been that it may not be all choice.

Research Your Calling

Oh. You could refuse to do what you know deep inside you should do. Yet, that choice won’t leave you happy. Even more, you might struggle for the rest of your physical experience to live in peace. So, by all means, walk into your destiny.

Before you begin, research your calling. Read specific examples of courage that are directly related to your destiny. After it was revealed to me that I was a writer, I started catching the bus to the downtown Knoxville bookstore. Once inside the bookstore, I searched for research books that focused on the art of novel writing.

Another action that I took was to buy magazines geared toward writers. Back in those days, I bought and read Writer’s Digest and The Writer. Later, I added Poets & Writers to my list of magazines to buy and read. Over the years, that branched out into exploring the pages of periodicals like Publisher’s Weekly and Literary Market Place.

Keep Learning

Those early days were spent learning, learning, learning. And, of course, writing.

Because this world is not magical, I highly encourage you to research the field that your destiny abides in. Not only will this help you to see what may be required of you to walk into your destiny, it could protect you from slipping into magical thinking.

While you’re researching the field that your destiny is in, be bold, be courageous. Find the courage to start taking smart action. For example, if your destiny is to open and manage a health clinic, consider enrolling in medical courses. Complete building licensing forms. Get familiar with tax laws that impact health clinics. You could even start conducting market research to discover best places to open the health clinic.

Facing Obstacles

That’s just the beginning. As you conduct research and start to walk into your destiny, keep learning. Also, network with people who are living examples of courage. These are people who have succeeded at doing what you’re trying to do. As a tip, if your confidence could use strengthening, consider keeping your destiny to yourself.

Wait until you become courageous to share your destiny with others. Why? Another person’s doubts could jab your confidence, causing you to stop. And this is just one experience that could hamper your efforts.

Slow success or seemingly no success is another potentially big roadblock. An example of this is when you’ve done lots of research on your destiny field. Following the research, you’ve taken courses and continue to learn. Added to that are the smart actions that you take to walk into your destiny. All this and more – and results could still fall short.

Overcoming Challenges

Back to the destiny of opening and managing a health clinic. As it regards smart preparation, you might have improved your credit. Then, you might have taken out a lease on a building, purchased medical equipment and started interviewing potential employees. Because you’re serious about stepping into your destiny, you may have purchased marketing tools to help get the word out about your new health clinic.

You’ve done so much. Yet, after your health clinic opens, you could experience financial challenges due to new regulations. That or you might find yourself faced with a staffing shortage. Or you could find yourself dealing with clients who try to pay you in “sad stories” instead of cash or insurance.

Courage of Conviction

Now is not the time to abandon your destiny. What this is a time for is courage of conviction. As a saying goes, remember why you started. Exercise your mental courage and inspire yourself to keep advancing. Ways to do this include:

  • Reading biographies and autobiographies of bold and courageous people who helped to reshape the world
  • Visiting a mentor and discussing your concerns
  • Seeking answers and insights from industry leaders
  • Asking for assistance from area influencers (these could be financiers, real estate experts, marketing specialists, etc.)
  • Building a team of like-minded people who offer each other strategy, financial, technical and organizational support

Also, see yourself as a success. Just don’t slip into magical thinking. In other words, don’t fall into the trap of thinking that things are going to improve or work out simply because you want them to. Stay flexible and adapt. Keep reminding yourself that nothing in this world goes unchanged. Just because your dream hasn’t been fully achieved yet, that doesn’t mean that you’ll never walk into your destiny.

Be Bold and Courageous

Find the courage to ask for what you want as you continue this journey. This is very important, as it’s really hard to get what you want if you don’t ask. Each day take a step forward. Call an influencer. Complete a required training. Try using new technology.

Engage in online and offline marketing. Keep growing your teams as needed. Incorporate sufficient quality rest and a healthy diet into your day. This can keep your energy up. Definitely keep taking smart risks, the types of risks that require you to be bold and courageous.

Remember that this is a long journey. It’s more a marathon than a sprint. Because your destiny may be linked to your passions, the rewards may easily be both internal and external. If you don’t quit, when you walk into your destiny, you may see how many other people were linked to your success. You just might change more people’s lives than you imagine. Keep going!

Stop Waiting – It’s Time to Make Your Dreams Come True

Posted on by

By Books Author Denise Turney

flowers beside a have a dream canister on wood table
Photo by Ylanite Koppens on Pexels.com

Have you ever had a dream? I’m talking about a dream that felt so real, it felt like the dream was a part of you? Even more, you might feel compelled, literally pushed, to go after the dream. It’s as if your very identity is linked with the dream. Visions of huge success may flood your thoughts. You could spend hours fantasizing about what your life will be like after your dreams come true.

Clear Dreams

Let that occur and nothing may be able to stop you from pursuing the dream. Howbeit, pursuing a dream and fulfilling a dream are different. In fact, you could get stuck thinking about your dream and never take the actions required to make your dreams come true. I don’t want you to get stuck in this loop. That’s why I’m sharing the following actions and strategies that you could use to fulfill your dreams.

You may feel hope, fulfillment, satisfaction, peace and happiness as you start to see results from each of these actions. That alone is worth making a good shift. It’s also important to mention that smart action is generally required to reach your dreams.

Nothing Magical or Mystical

Effects don’t appear out-of-nowhere. Absent a cause, there are no effects. The right actions or causes produce the right effects or results. Hoping, wishing and fantasizing about what you want are not effective strategies. As a matter of fact, you could spend years hoping, wishing, fantasizing and asking for an experience and never realize that experience if you don’t take the right actions.

After all of these years, I’m still reinforcing that in myself. As long as I’ve been taking actions to fulfill my goals, I still wrestle with the belief that my goals will just-come-true at some magical, mystical right time if I’m patient. Therefore, if you wrestle with this same belief, if you seriously want to make your dreams come true, take the right actions.

Right Actions

Commit to accepting the fact that you must take the right actions. Throughout the process, you may come to see that this is the most important step that you can take to achieve your dreams. Other choices and actions toward dream fulfillment include:

  • Get clear about what you want. This is important because there are countless distractions in this world. Clarity will help you to focus and persist.
  • Research what others did to achieve similar goals. To do this, you could reach out to people who’ve achieved dreams like yours. Build sincere relationships with these people. After you build these relationships, ask these achievers what they did to do what it is you are seeking to do. Although you might not get the same results these achievers did even if you do exactly what they did, if you follow a similar plan, you may definitely experience good results. So, stay open. Make changes as needed.
  • Identify the individuals who are most likely to back your dream. Make these people a part of your support team. Throughout the process, you’ll need to contact these people to receive encouragement, motivation and maybe even confirmation that you’re on the right path.

More Right Actions

  • Discover which organizations and/or individuals are most likely to buy products and/or services that you create. Do this if your dream is to earn a comfortable income creating and selling products and/or services. As with other actions, take your time with this discovery. You could work with market research experts. Or you could A/B test marketing efforts. Get this right, and you could save yourself years of effort. After all, marketing and promoting to the wrong people won’t get you the sales that you’re looking for.
  • Ask for what you want. Once you discover who’s most likely to buy your products and/or services, introduce yourself to these people. Ways to introduce yourself to the right people include:
    • Attend festivals, conferences, trade shows and seminars these people attend. But don’t just attend similar events, approach influencers and ask them to do business with you. One way that you could get a Yes is to study an organization. Find out its struggle areas. Then, see how your products and/or services can help the organization reduce or eliminate these struggles. Share this solution with influencers at the organization when you introduce yourself.
    • Write and send direct mail to influencers.
    • Also, ask people you know who know these influencers to make an introduction for you.

Consistency Matters

More actions that you can take to make your dreams come true are to incorporate technologies into your efforts. As an example, to sell novels, I attend book festivals, introduce myself to book event organizers and network with publishers, editors and book marketers. Other actions I take include speaking at colleges and designing and mailing postcards and book flyers.

However, I don’t just take these actions once and then sit back and await the results. Instead, I take these and lots more actions consistently. And, it’s this that leads to additional steps that you could take to achieve your dreams.

  • Practice the right actions consistently. This is among the reasons why it’s important to get clear about what you really want. To achieve your dreams, you may have to take actions over and over again, for months, perhaps years.
  • Stay open and flexible. To make your dreams happen, you might have to change a technique. So, stay open. Definitely be flexible and adaptable. This world is constantly changing. You’re going to have to adapt to keep advancing in this world.

Make Your Dreams Come True

Read books, watch videos and listen to tapes that inspire you toward your goals. In other words, focus on what you want. Doing this could inspire new ideas and improved actions that you could take to reach your dreams.

Additionally, continue to learn. Don’t stop learning. The industry or field that your passion is in changes. As you continue to learn, you can stay abreast of the changes. Another rewarding choice is to take smart risks. When you respond to your inner dream giver, you start a journey that never ends while you’re in this world. If you want to make the journey sweet, incorporate loving relationships, hobbies and communications into your life.

Why? Having loving people to share your journey and dream fulfillment with is a sure key to happiness. Wishing you boundless success.

7 Easy Relaxation Techniques

Posted on by

By Books Author Denise Turney

woman practicing yoga to relax
Photo by Marcus Aurelius on Pexels.com

Daily relaxation techniques are becoming a must. Without effective relaxation techniques, finding inner peace may feel like, at best, a fleeting achievement. If you’re a news junkie, you know how opinions shared by influencers, people whose thoughts you value more than your own, can shift mood. Then, there’s military conflicts, economic upheavals, climate change and pandemics. You have to deal with all of this in addition to your personal relationships, raising a family, job demands and personal finances.

Ways To Relax While  Facing Challenging Life Changes

It wouldn’t be shocking if you’re feeling overwhelmed. All things considered, it also wouldn’t be a surprise if you were struggling to find effective ways to relax. Let this be your situation and we may have something in common. Thing is, years ago, I thought I had a solid handle on inner peace.

Then, the Great Recession hit and so much changed. For starters, the job that I’d been depending on for more than a decade (that’s a long time when you’re talking about the same job these days), was on shaky ground. Over the course of several months, that shaky ground would give way, causing that job to evaporate.

But, it wasn’t only about losing a job. In fact, that job shift created a myriad of changes, many which I hadn’t seen coming. There was health insurance, which I eventually paid for myself. On top of that, my car note, auto insurance, rent and grocery bills weren’t just going to float away.

The Watcher In Your Life

And, there was that challenge of finding a new way to fill my days. If you’ve experienced a change that has emptied your day of just two to three routines, you know how challenging it can be to replace routines.

It’s this has-to-be-done work that aligns with the first ways to relax, especially when you’re stuck in the habit of accepting stress into your life. To enter inner peace with this first of the seven relaxation techniques, stir up your courage and commit to practice self-awareness.

That’s right. You have to fill the role of “watcher” in your own life. In other words, you have to observe and be honest about what you see yourself thinking, feeling and doing. Finding inner peace requires you to take responsibility for your life.

Self-Awareness And How To Relax

So, the first of the relaxation techniques is to practice self-awareness. However, it won’t work unless you’re honest with yourself. To inspire honesty, you could track your progress. For example, if you want to drop 15 pounds, consider using a spreadsheet to track when and what you eat and drink each day.

Also, record and track exercises that you do and how long you exercise. Look at the spreadsheet each day. It won’t be long before you see the connection between your efforts (thinking about losing weight is not an exercise and won’t see you drop pounds) and your results.

The other seven relaxation techniques are also easy. A key is to really want to relax, to really want inner peace. Once in the morning, and again, at night – breathe deeply. Also, sit still and simply “be”. See if you can empty your mind of the day’s experiences, interpretations and judgments. Just be. At first, you might only do it for a few seconds. After a while, you might be able to simply sit and be still for several minutes. The goal is to connect with your core or with your Source.

Three Daily Choices

The third how to relax action is to incorporate at least three things that you enjoy into your day. Add these three things to each day. As a tip, choose actions that align with your core values. Additionally, choose actions that do no harm and involve peace.

For instance, you might listen to jazz each day. Or, you might sing songs, paint or write poems. If gardening causes you to feel at peace, working in a garden could be among your natural ways to relax.

The point is to actually incorporate these actions into your days. As fourth among the natural ways to relax, consider bringing potted plants inside your home. Potted plants do more than decorate your living space. Plants also help to remove toxins, inspire healthy mood and encourage you to care for yourself and other living things. After all, keeping plants thriving requires care.

More Relaxation Techniques

Looking for more ways to relax? Check out these relaxation techniques:

  • Connect with family and friends who open you up to peace. These people don’t have lots of conflict in their lives, as they are committed to walking the path of peace.
  • Get enough deep sleep each night. Tips to help you sleep good include taking a relaxing bubble bath an hour before bed, reading a novel or watching a light movie.
  • Finalize family and work projects as they come up. This doesn’t mean that you start and finish each responsibility on the same day that the responsibility rises. But, at least start working on the projects and set a date for when you’ll finish them. Avoid postponing responsibilities, as this choice could invite worry.

Finding Inner Peace And Happiness

Despite the constant conflicts and shifts in the world, it’s possible to find natural ways to relax. It’s possible to succeed at finding inner peace.

However, you’ll have to work at it. Experience inner peace once and you’ll see that it’s worth the commitment. Even more, it’s worth practicing self-awareness so that you can catch yourself early should you start to veer away from peace.

Another important thing is to seek natural ways to relax. Plants and creative arts like painting, playing music, singing, writing and dancing are great tools to turn to. So too are walking, jogging, swimming, bike riding and hiking.

New Discoveries

As you continue your life journey, you may discover new natural ways to relax. In fact, you might reach places where relaxation techniques that you used no longer prove as effective as they once did. Keep advancing. Believe in your innate good. Keep exploring. If you get stuck, consider reading books that share more natural relaxation techniques.

As odd as it might feel, also break up your routines when they start to feel stifling. What you may find consistently effective is simply sitting still and being. That will probably never lose its power. While you sit still, don’t try to imagine yourself differently. And don’t try to solve an imagined or actual problem. Simply be. Do this twice a day and see what happens.