You Are What You Read

It is nice when you come across a book that provides a clear title for a blog post about it. I recently read You Are What You Read: A Practical Guide to Reading Well by Robert DiYanni. He is a Humanities Professor at NYU and his career primarily has been in college teaching. When I picked up the book I immediately thought of the phrase, “You are what you eat”. It makes sense then since reading is food for the mind we are what we read. In the forward of the book he states, “ You Are What You Read celebrates reading’s value for learning and for living. It presents ways to enrich your reading practices and enhance your reading pleasure.”. In my emphasis on being a Bookhead this is what I believe about a passion for reading. Reading adds much to our lived experiences. I will just touch on a few points that stood out to me from the book. One of my favorite concepts comes out of chapter one in which he emphasizes the importance of questions in our mind while we read. As I have mentioned in the past on critical thinking having a questioning mind is important. Our questions can help us in finding the meaning of the text and also understand the context of the story or information in the best way possible. On page 15 DiYanni presents good insights on questions, “At their best, our questions about texts prompt us to think about them more thoroughly and expansively. Our questions encourage analysis and appreciation, and they invite us to explore the ways texts stimulates our feelings and thoughts about them.” So with a questioning mind we gain more personal in-depth insights into whatever we are reading. This works whether it is fiction material or non-fiction works. He also brings out the point that we each bring to the reading experience our own perceptions and personal experiences as we interact with whatever we are reading. Think of it that is how in a book club the whole group can read the same chapter of a book but there are differing ideas as each person’s perceptions tap into a different aspect of what the author is writing about. That is amazing if you think about it. DiYanni discusses in the book some stories in the Bible and this idea I see so much in stories from the Bible. Granted there is often a common truth in the Biblical story but each reader often applies it in various ways to their lived experiences. This can be seen in any work of writing. He then goes through different types of fiction, non-fiction and poetry to show how to interact with various genres of writing. One other point that stood out to me is his analogy of reading to sports in life. “Those who experience the pleasure and powers of reading early carry them into later live, as athletes carry to adulthood skills developed playing sports in their youth. Reading like certain sports…. Can be learned early and continued throughout one’s lifetime. An ability to read perceptively identifies a person as educated, and likely interesting. An ability to read with understanding and enjoyment provides a source of lifelong pleasure.” (page 157). For a Bookhead such as myself, as I call lovers of books, his reading concepts like these show great benefits to reading. There are many other ideas to help us enjoy and be better readers so that is why I encourage picking up a copy of DiYanni’s book and spend time with it. Near the end he also has short descriptors of 9 reading practices: Read – Actively, deliberatively, predicatively, retrospectively, interpretively, evaluatively, purposefully, habitually, pleasurably. At the end of the book he in his appendixes includes a discussion on print and ebooks. Also he looks at other recommended books on reading. Those added sections of the books are well worth reading the book just for that information. Reflection: What are your personal thoughts on the idea “You Are What You Read”?

Adventure at Your Library

Since COVID I haven’t emphasized like I did in the past the Library Summer reading programs that go on across the country. A couple of weeks ago I went to my local library here in New Braunfels to renew my library card. It was nice to see a full parking lot. I went in to renew the card and picked up a book to read. I only took one as being a Bookhead I already have a large stack of books to read at home. I then went over to the information table and saw information on the Summer Reading program. This as always brings back to me memories of my childhood in Barberton, Ohio and my mom taking me to the public library for the Summer reading program. I believe that started for me when I was in second grade. Reading captured my attention as being in a poor single parent home I could read about stories from all over the world. The passion for reading helped me academically in school. I have many good memories of the library reading programs and it was a highlight of my Summers. I picked up a free bookmark off the table and it had a theme for the reading program on it. The theme for this year is, “Adventure Begins at Your Library”. This is a wonderful theme. Adventure should be connected to libraries and reading. Culture at large looks at reading and libraries as boring so the theme is an important reframing. With libraries in today’s world they are much more than books, which of course as a Bookhead that is the most important part to me. Yet as I looked at the library calendar they have presentations for adults on self help topics such as creativity, coloring and meal prepping. They have activities for children and teens as well. Then when considering reading, that should be considered an adventure as well. Reading expands the mind in so many ways. With fiction the mind is transported into the story built by another person’s creative mind but the reader gets to also being absorbed into the creativity of the story. With non-fiction the adventure is opening up to new ideas and new information on topics for example I love topics such as psychology and spirituality. Each non-fiction reader has their favorite topics and it excites them to grow in new ways. So I am glad they chose the theme of adventure for the reading program. I am a little behind this year as the librarian said they would be winding down the program soon but he said there was a lot of involvement from all the ages at the library here in New Braunfels. Next year I will be more together and go back to announcing the Summer reading program at the beginning of the Summer. Reflection: How is reading an adventure in your life?

The Importance of Keeping Our Free Thought Free

Since we are celebrating the 4th of July this week I thought I would share thoughts on a book that relates to the freedoms we enjoy in the USA. At least for right now we do; but freedom is shaky as there are forces that would like to see our country destroyed to prepare for a dystopian WEF world. I was delighted to purchase a book entitled You Can’t Say That!: The demise of free thought in Australia. It was interesting to hear of the book as I had followed the author, Melinda Richards, on Social Media back in 2020 as I wanted to follow some Australian accounts to see views of life there as our daughter was engaged to a young man in Autralia. We followed the news in Australia during Covid as their plans were to marry but the COVID shut down postponed the wedding for two years. During that time it was shocking to see a country seemingly crazier that ours here in the US. Of course we had Fauci who helped cause the whole Plandemic. Thankfully our daughter did get the chance to go and marry in 2022 once they opened up. Back to the book, in her introduction she is honest and open that the ideas in the book are her opinions which in a free country we should respect and appreciate. Sad to say our world, with the help of “Social Elites”, is creating a world where only the “Official opinions” are allowed. Differing opinions must be canceled even to the point of being thrown in prison like we have seen recently here in the USA of Steve Bannon being sent to prison. The Left crazies are now admitting the main purpose was to shut down his famous, “War Room” podcast. Melinda tackles a number of important issues in the book such as Identity Politics, The Myth of Equality, Re-birth of Colour-coded Society and COVID to name some of the main topics. With each chapter she provides substantiated facts the media often hide and important related stories to help the reader critically think about the issue. The sad reality though in our world is that many people are molded by brainwashed feelings so they cannot understand the facts. My favorite section was the COVID discussion as I remember following what going on here but also watching Australia as I was concerned where our daughter may be moving. In our house we knew early on the whole COVID situation had nefarious roots. During the time we chose to get our information from the doctors the Mainstream press and so called Experts castigated. We stayed away from the planned solution of the vaccine as by then the whole situation was more about control than healing and helping. Her chapter covers many of the insanities that we knew were driven by keeping the public like fearful sheep. Those in charge knew that fear works. At the time of her writing the book she admits there was not much research on the full results on the effects of the vaccine. We now know that the vaccine was more of a harm than a help. More and more reports are coming out of vaccine injuries in the form of heart issues, strokes, neurological issues and even increased death. My wife and I often discuss how Bill Gates and Klaus Schwab of WEF fame must be happy how their plan of depopulation has worked through the vaccine. At the end of the book she gives the readers some tips on what they can do to be change agents to fight back against the elites. And thankfully we see signs of more people waking up and understand the Elites don’t have their best intentions at hand. We have seen farmer revolts in Europe and more people in the USA here waking up. I do hope the same happens in Australia as it is a wonderful country and of course my daughter is living there so I hope Australians wake up instead of being woke. She provides 10 action steps at the end of the book. I won’t list them all as I would rather you buy a copy of her book. I will list a few of my favorites. Understand your beliefs and values and I would say stand up for them. Talk about the issues of the day as your opinion is just as important as anyone else’s. Do not comply is important as we need to live out and stand for our values. Her idea of Becoming informed is so important as well. For example with COVID there was information available but people just obeyed and did not research information for themselves and how many died needlessly due to fearful obedience. In that section I wish she would have listed some good resources to find information from as too many still go to the mainstream news for their information which is a daily brainwashing session. If you want to read a book to open your mind to move you beyond the dystopian nightmare we face in the world I recommend this book by Melanie Richards. Here in the USA I purchased the book on Amazon. Reflection: With the various issues in the world do you just accept the common narrative or look at other sources and critically think about the issue? Take some time and journal about your beliefs and values. Why do you believe what you believe?

Improving Your Intellectual Reading Life

Last week I shared some thoughts from the book, The Intellectual Life. This week I want to share thoughts on my favorite portion of the book where Sertillanges discusses reading. There is one point I disagreed with but other thoughts I fully agree. He begins the section on reading with, “Now reading is the universal means of learning, and it is the proximate or remote preparation for every kind of production.” (p.145). Reading is vital to our educational growth for life and our vocations. He adds that our learning is through connection and collaboration with other minds which reading connects us with great minds and great experiences. He then moves onto a point that first bristled me as he mentions “we need to read little”. Why mention that in a section on reading. He then clarifies that he is emphasizing balance in life. We need to set time for reading but also time for self reflection and do other activities in life. I fully agree with that. In his clarifying on “reading little” he reminds the reader that in the book he discusses a wide variety of topics so there needs to be a breadth of topics we read about. He proceeds to another thought I disagreed with: that we should not read passionately. I firmly disagreed with that as that is against my concept of being a Bookhead that there should be an internal passion for reading. Reading between the lines he was a monk and a professor in an age that emphasized intellectualism. Religion at that time had an aversion to the passions of humankind so the use of passion to reading may be contrary to him. Instead he emphasizes reading intelligently meaning concentrate and reflect on what is read. Critical thinking is important in my mind towards reading so I fully agree with his thoughts there; but I believe a passion is needed as well to be enthusiastic about reading. Being passionate about reading helps in building other readers. Both reading intelligently and building a passion for reading is important I feel for all readers. Sertillanges discussed four kinds of reading and expands on them in the text. “…I distinguish four kinds of reading. One reads for one’s formation and to become somebody, one reads in view of a particular task, one reads to acquire a habit of work and the love of what is good; one reads for relaxation. There is fundamental reading, accidental reading, stimulating reading or edifying reading, recreative reading.” (p.152). With my work as a therapist and in my former teaching work my focus was usually fundamental and edifying in the area of psychology and spirituality. An area of reading I need to work on is recreative reading as I do not read much fiction. He continues in this section on reading to give advice of being open to reading the great thinkers from the past and present to learn from others. His big emphasis too is to read what interests you. That goes back to his concept of reading little meaning focus in on your interests in reading but be open to building a breadth of knowledge. As I mentioned last week there is so much of interest in the book as a whole and also in this section on reading. One final quote from the book I will share is, “No one can teach us without our own effort. Reading puts truth before us; we have to make it ours. It is not the dealer in the market place that feeds our body. What I eat must turn into my substance. I alone can bring that about.” (p.168). This reminds me of the phrase you are what you eat. Similar in our mindsets and thoughts we are what we read. We need to take ownership of what we read and make choices to put the reading that impacts us into our daily lives. Reflection: What type of reading do you enjoy the most? How do you go about choosing the books you read?

Passion for the Intellectual Life

Thinking back to the cruise I took in May the main book I was working through at that time was a philosophical work, The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods by A.G. Sertillanges, O.P. He was a philosopher, author and priest in France born 1869 and died in 1948. This was one of his most popular books. Obviously I do not know French so this was a translation. The book was challenging as it dug deep into living life as a philosophical thinker. He used his studies of Thomas Aquinas for the moral underpinnings of his concepts in the book. Being a philosopher obviously he was sharing his passion for the intellectual life. He shared in it that people in different vocations have various passions yet his principles of critical thinking, spiritual character, time management and organization relate to all of us in whatever vocation we are called to so I think this book has benefits to us all. In the start of the first chapter he speaks to the deepening of the mind. “I say the deepening, in order to set aside the idea of a superficial tincture of knowledge”(p.3). He is revealing the importance of having discipline and immersed engagement in the intellectual life. Personal discipline is important and that weaves through many chapters of this work. Personal choice from the will is also important in his thinking as he says, “The most valuable thing of all is will, a deep rooted will to be somebody, to achieve something, to be even now in desire that somebody recognizable by his ideal.” (p.10). That is a good reminder for all of us to willfully seek to be somebody in whatever our passion is. For myself it was to be best I could be as a professor to my college students when I was teaching. Now since I am focused on being a counseling therapist my passion is to be my best as a people helper to help others reach their potential in their lives. He explains how the spiritual disciplines relate to intellectual development. Being in tune with the spiritual aspect of life is important in this work. He emphasizes the importance of prayer and times of silence. As to silence he states, “Hygienists recommend three things for the body: the bath, the air bath and the inward bath of pure water. I would like to add for the bath of the soul the bath of silence, in order to tone up the organism of the spirit, to accentuate the personality, and to produce the active consciousness of it.” (p 51). Especially is our culture of stress and constant doing his discussion on adding silence to life is so important. Even just 10-15 minutes of silent meditation at the end of the day has benefits for our mental and spiritual growth. We tend to think of mindfulness as a recent discovery since Jon Kabat Zinn and others research on it in the past 20-30 years. Yet I capture in these writings the concept of being mindfully present. “So aquire the habit of being present at this activity of the material and moral universe. Learn to look: compare what is before you with your familiar or secret ideas. Do not see in a town merely houses, but human life and history. Let a gallery or museum show you something more than a collection of objects, let it show you schools of art and of life…” (p71). This points to his emphasis on the aspects of life going into depth to get to the richness of life experience. Too often we are too superficial in our observations and it carries over to superficiality in our relationships. There is so much in this classic book which is why I feel it would be beneficial for all to read it. It is a life challenging and self improvement text. One more item of many that stood out to me about curiosity in our work. “The intelligence is like a child, whose lips never cease their why. Does a good educator leave this fruitful restless questioning unsatisfied? Does he not take advantage of this fresh curiosity…” (p.123). This thought shows the importance of keeping curiosity alive in our work and all areas of life. Curiosity keeps life long learning exciting. Another aspect of this book I enjoyed is he quotes other French philosophers and since I have never read any works by the French this opened me up to research other great thinkers from his time period. It was helpful to learn about the spiritual disciplines and other concepts of life from such a great thinker. Reflection: Are you mindful in your observing of things in life around you? Try going to a park and be mindfully present in your observations. Also think of a time you were truly curious about something in life. What are your memories of that?

Building a Miracle Morning Reading Habit

The last post I did was about The Miracle Morning book. Then I went on a cruise for a week. It was wonderful to see people reading while on the ship. Hal Enrod in his book has a section on reading. He says at the beginning of that chapter, “reading – is one of the most efficient and effective methods for acquiring the knowledge, perspectives and strategies you need to change, improve or optimize any area of your life.” His SAVERS system calls for reading 10 minutes in the Miracle Morning hour. He then shares how later near bedtime he reads for another 20 minutes. He encourages aiming for a minimum of 10 pages a day. This seems like a small amount but he shows how that equates to about 3,600 pages a year. He admits his emphasis is on non-fiction for personal growth. In saying this he promotes setting your purpose goal of what topic who wish to read. His examples are happiness, money or relationships. Of course there are more topics than those so choose a topic area or topics you wish to improve in and thus read. In the chapter he also looks at tips on making the most of your reading time. With your reading time ask yourself who are you reading what you are reading? This will help in your focus on your purpose. He mentions many readers make use of their favorite religious texts as part of their daily reading. He encourages marking up your books by underlining or circling key points. I often write notes in the margin of the book. Doing this helps encode the key important parts of the book into your mind. He then also encourages re-reading favorite books. You can often gain deeper insight into a book when you re-read it. Reading is helpful in building and renewing our lives in so many ways. Don’t say there is no time to read as anyone can find 10-20 minutes a day to help change their lives for the better through reading. Reflection: What is a book you enjoyed re-reading? How has that book impacted you?

Do You Want a Miracle in Your Life?

Stories of miracles can be motivational to improve our lives. I recently came across a book, The Miracle Morning by Hal Enrod. The message of his book is inspirational as you see him be transparent about miracles in his life and then enjoy his suggestions on how to move from victim in life to victor in life. He presents a helpful system in the book to kick up your daily living a notch. One often commonality in miracle stories is that they start with things we don’t like to experience – pain and difficulty. I remember years ago the pain of having two 99% closed arteries. The doctor said it was a miracle I did not die in my sleep. That experience opened my mind to be more engaged in living. Near death experiences are miracles in our lives but I don’t recommend having them. It is better to learn gratitude before something like that happens but happen they do. In Hal’s book he shares a near death experience of a tragic car accident. I won’t do a spoiler by describing it. Read the book. It was that accident that was clearly one turning point in his life to put him on a trajectory from victim to victor. He encourages readers for personal success to look at what they do in the morning and start the day off right with principles. His system of principles are- Silence, Affirmations, Visualization, Exercising, Reading and Scribing. The last one Scribing is journaling the principles make an acronym SAVERS so you can understand why he used scribing harking back to ancient scribes who would right things down. If he used journaling you would have SAVERJ which would not make a good acronym. He fully describes each activity and shows how you can do all 6 in a morning hour to start the day. He frees people up to try out timing that works for them. Another thing I like is through the describing of the principles he mentions other books and podcasts for the reader to seek out more depth on each topic. I bought his most recent edition that also includes the miracle evening in how to prepare for a deep sleep and end your day well. As a Counselor I see that so many people with mental health concerns also have poor sleep so sleep is extremely important and Hal gives very good tips for a good night’s rest. Of his six principles my favorite is reading so I will probably dig deeper into that in my next post. That will be in two weeks as I am taking a week break from technology. Reflection: Of the 6 principles for daily success which is your favorite? Choose one and then do an internet search for articles on the principle and dig a little deeper into it. Check out Hal Enrod’s book and think about the miraculous in your life.

Use Visioning in All Areas of Your Life

I have written about visioning in the past and have even done a post in the past about the book I will mention today. Sometimes it is good to revisit a book from the past. The book I am speaking of is written by Lucia Capacchione Ph.D., Visioning 10 Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams. If you have never read it do yourself and your life journey a favor and get a copy. She goes in depth in her 10 steps in the visioning process and how to do vision collages. Early on Lucia provides a statement that I feel captures the essence of visioning: “Visioning is purposeful daydreaming applied to everyday life. It is about thinking with our heart and allowing your true wishes to become reality”. Visioning has also been described in the idea of “Seeing with your mind’s eye”. I know when I would ask college students where do we see visioning used in life students would share areas such as sports, architecture, inventors and many other career areas. Visioning is looking outward to creating a reality from what we carry in our hearts and minds. Lucia rightly describes how visioning begins with dreaming. She provides a helpful section discussing how dreaming is a foundation for our visioning. She uses in the introduction of her book the example of the dream of Walt Disney that turned into a vision for Disneyland which then turned into the reality of Disneyland. My favorite quote about dreaming is “It is not that we desire too much, but that we desire too little. Our appetites are not too big, they are too small.” By C.S. Lewis. We limit ourselves in our lives by having little dreams or saying we are too old to dream. But we can have new dreams at every stage of life. A good example of this is the story of John Goddard. When he was a teen about 14 he came up with a list of about 120 things he wanted to do with his life. By the time he was 40 he had accomplished most of the list. What many people don’t know is he kept dreaming and by the time he died in his 80’s his list was over 300. We can keep dreaming and visioning. Now in turning your dream into a vision in Lucia’s book she says to focus your mind on key words and phrases that describe your dream. Write these down on paper. Meditating on what you are forming think what is in your heart for a title of your dream? Then craft a verbal affirmation or a personal declaration related to your dream. This leads to a focus phrase that will be hook in your mind as you look for images for your vision collage. Another thing I like about her book is that she explains how moving from words to pictures helps in building a vision poster in collage form to solidify your vision and dream inside of you. So at this point you move beyond word sorting & sifting through pictures and key words that expand your Theme Phrase you created. Lucia in the book recommends looking though magazines and cut out pictures and words the speak to your about your vision theme. Be concrete and specific in your search. Sometimes your inner critic will speak up and say this is silly or a waste of time. If that happens tell your inner critic to “take a hike”. Make room for imagination and be your own Dream Weaver. Now with your pictures and words cut out, do some matching and development of your Collage Design. Move the pictures and words you cut out of magazines around the surface of your poster. Allow an order to form and then prepare to paste the pictures and words to the poster. I have provided just a few basics from her book here to create an appetite to get a copy of her book or request it at your local library. Look at your present life journey and see where and what a vision collage experience may help you keep moving forward to what you want in life. Reflection: Take some quiet time and vision yourself into the future 5 years ahead. Do some dreaming and think where do you see yourself and what do you want for your life? Create a theme for that 5 years in the future. Then get a small poster board and look for pictures and other key words to motivate your vision. Include the theme you created on your poster. Then create your vision collage pasting the pictures and words on your poster board. Keep your vision collage somewhere you will regularly see it.

Writing Important in the Healing Process

Since I often in my counseling practice recommend journaling to clients I decided to reread Writing As a Way of Healing by Louise De Salvo Ph.D. Hers is a book I often recommend to clients. She was not a therapist rather she was a professor of Fine Arts with a specialty in memoir writing. Yet this book shows she understood the power of writing as a way to heal. Early in the book she discussed Dr. Pennebaker’s research on the effectiveness of journaling with trauma. Let me list some guidelines on writing for healing that she distilled from Pennebaker: 1. Write 20 minutes a day over a period of four days. Do this periodically. This way you won’t feel overwhelmed. 2. Write in a private, safe, comfortable environment. 3. Write about issues you are currently living with, something you are thinking or dreaming about constantly, a trauma you’ve never disclosed or resolved. 4. Write about joys and pleasures too. 5. Write about what happened. Write, too, about feelings about what happened. What do you feel? Why do you feel this way? Link events with feelings. 6. Try to write an extremely detailed, organized, coherent, vivid, emotionally compelling narrative. Don’t worry about correctness, about grammar or punctuation. 7. Beneficial effects will occur even if no one reads your writing. 8. Expect, initially that in writing in this way you will have complex and appropriately difficult feelings. Make sure you get support if you need it. (pages26-27) Other than helpful tips on doing your own personal writing she provides stories how writing has helped people even famous writers such as Henry Miller, Virginia Woolf and others. De Salvo is also transparent in how writing helped her in her life with various situations. The examples she gives at times reveals how writers gain insight even from reading other writers. On page 54 she shares how May Sarton gained insight into writing laments by reading Henri J.M. Nouwen’s book, Out of Solitude. Reading through this book again gave me more insights and a deeper appreciation on the importance writing is in healing the many areas of our lives. Through writing we can bring closure to areas that need healing. It is also a process to flesh out new realities by visioning what we want for our life story. Reflection: Let’s do a creative activity to write about growth in our inner self. Look over this list of principles from my book, Living More Than OK: Critical Thinking, Creativity, Savoring Life, Goal Setting, Self-Esteem, Resilience, Purpose, Thankfulness, Taking Risks, and Spirituality. Take a clean sheet of paper and first at the top of the paper draw a symbol or paste a picture from a magazine of a symbol that you want to depict the inner life you desire, (maybe a tall tree, a flower, a lake, or ect.). Secondly below your symbol write 3 principles from the list that you would like to improve in your life. Then lastly write a paragraph about how growing in your 3 chosen areas will help improve your inner and outer personal life.