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.

Stop and Smell the Roses With Awe

Awe is a difficult emotion to reduce to a simple definition. Even though defining it is difficult we can understand it when we experience it. The deep sense of wonderment in staring up into a starry sky. The enjoyment of deep peace in seeing a beautiful sunset or sunrise. The pleasantness of pondering over a precious memory that brings a sense of calmness. All these bring into our lives a feeling of awe. Wonderment, reflection, expanding our spirit to consider a greater power in the universe are feelings that make up awe in our lives. How can awe help us in the turmoil of anxiety, depression, pain and existential angst? Months ago I came across a book The Power of Awe that discussed and answered this question. It is written by Jake Eagle LPC, a psychotherapist and Michael Amster, MD, a physician and professor. They worked together on a method called AWE method to help people bring more awe into their lives. They worked on the method during the pre-Covid time era and did research on the method during Covid. The book is the result of their work and research. I was blessed to purchase a copy early and was part of a short class the authors did live online. This experience of meeting them online revealed their passion for awe and for being true people helpers. What is this awe method? On pages 63 & 64 they give a synopsis. A stands for attention which is giving your focused attention to what you find amazing, you appreciate or a memory you are fond of. The W is for wait, take a slow in breath and out breath pondering what you are attending. Then the E is for exhale and expand where on your final exhale you grow your feeling on the object of your attention. If you think that sounds like mindfulness you would be correct as it would be classified in the mindfulness family. If I remember correctly they term the method as a micro dose of mindfulness meditation. This is a way to introduce mindfulness more into our lives in brief 30 second time frames. If the book they discuss how this is used as they recommend 3-5 times a day. Since it only takes about 30-60 seconds that is a mere 5 minutes a day which most anyone can do. I always recommend meditation to my clients but I have had some who say they don’t have the time. Then when I explain the AWE Method they say “I can do that!”. The authors show the result of studies in the book of how their regimen has helped lower anxiety, depression and pain in the lives of people. And remember most of the studies were done during Covid when anxiety and depression were off the charts. Near the end of the book one of the many problem areas discussed was existential anxiety which I find in many of the people I work with in the Post-Covid era. The angst goes beyond covid and relates to the cultural difficulties people face in a busy fast paced world. This whole concept of Awe reminds me of a lecture I heard once by Dr. Tal Ben Shahar. He was taking note to how hurried people are in our electronic gadget age. He reminded the audience to “take the time to smell the roses” and notice the wonderment of the world around us. That is one element I have personally found in the AWE Method is it creates a better sense of noticing the beauty and wonder in the world. On page 163 the authors address this “We have found that awe—remarkably—works to alleviate existential anxiety, because it brings us out of Safety Consciousness (where existential anxiety arises) into Spacious Consciousness. When we experience Spacious Consciousness, time, words, measurements, and comparisons don’t exist, and so existential anxiety is no longer relevant.” Appreciating a Higher Power, appreciating the wonders of nature and the good things that have happened in our lives builds a bulwark of inner strength that add to gratitude and enjoying life amidst life’s difficulties. You can find more about the AWE Method at www.thepowerofawe.com or better yet buy the book. As I write this it is still before Christmas. What better gift to give to yourself or another is a gift that will help build a life of awe in the New Year? Reflection: Take a few minutes to ponder on an awe experience in your life. Was there something you experienced that brought a sense of wonderment to your life? How did you feel when you experienced that?

Emotions On Our Path To Wholeness

On the path we walk on in this life we all want to be whole persons not disjointed in our living. Recently I shared about another book that looked at holistic living with our mental health. Today I want to share about a book that centers on our emotions that make us who we are. Many of us struggle with managing our emotions especially the pesky negative emotions that are often when out of control, are a major influence on the problems we face. The book I wish to share is The Path to Wholeness: Managing Emotions, Finding Healing, and Becoming Our Best Selves by Dr. Mark Mayfield. Dr. Mayfield is a licensed professional counselor who is passionate about helping people with their mental health concerns. In his purpose section he shares the difficulty we have in managing our emotions. In this discussion I remembered how Dr. Scott Peck began his book, The Road Less Traveled, with “Life is difficult” which many stops along our life pathway is that way. With this book Dr. Mayfield wants to provide the reader with principles that will help us along our life path. He does this aptly with case studies of peoples’ stories he has helped as a Counselor and also sharing transparently life stories from his own life struggles. Each Chapter has reflection questions and action steps that add to the reader’s understanding so this is a book that would be good to use a journal while reading it. One important standout to me in reading this book was the importance of accepting our emotions: the good the bad and the ugly. Some clients will come to counseling with the idea of getting rid of their anxiety or depression. It would be nice to wave a magic wand and they disappear but not so. Emotions are and we can’t rid life of them. There needs to be an acceptance that the emotions are sign posts so we need to learn what the sign posts are saying. Dr. Mayfield in this book reminded me of what I used to tell students and tell my clients, “Learn to manage your emotions or they will manage you!”. The principles in the book help us in managing our emotions by understanding them and dealing with them in better ways. Near the end of the book Dr. Mayfield shares, “Wholeness is an ambiguous concept. Trying to attain it can feel like chasing a dream. It would be amazing to have a perfect emotional life, but is this truly realistic? Complete wholeness isn’t attainable this side of heaven, but Scripture says we can experience aspects of wholes as we work, strive and pay attention to integral things in our lives.” (page 137). Take a deep breath and realize you will never be perfect so why keep judging yourself by a standard of perfection. Yet we can keep learning and growing to have more abundance in our pathway of life. As I write this we are still before Christmas so what better gift is there than to help a friend with a gift that will keep giving in deeper knowledge of managing the emotional side of life for the better? This book can be found on Amazon and Barnes & Noble online. Reflection: How is the emotional side of your life? Which emotions are you good at managing? Which emotions give you the hardest battle to conquer? Know you have been gifted with a mind that can manage your emotions before they manage you.

Appreciating a Passion for Reading

I just finished a book that caught my attention with the title, Rise of the Reader. As much as I love reading I could not help reading what the author, Nick Hutchison had to say. Nick is a speaker and a coach who is the founder of BookThinkers, bookthinkers.com a resource that connects authors to readers. The author shares his personal journey on reading that became a passion for him. His turning point in his life books was in his college years when he worked a Summer internship. One boss turned him onto positive growth podcasts and he noticed many of the ones he enjoyed spoke about personal growth books. He quickly learned he could grow in so many ways by reading so the passionate habit began to grow. A powerful thought he learned early is mentioned on page 5, “The best investment you can make is in yourself. The most cost effective investment in yourself is not a formal education, a week long retreat, or an online course… it’s a book. Why? Books only cost you $20 and take just a few hours to consume, yet they hold the same power to change your life as any of those other resources. The potential return on investment (ROI) is insane!” Imagine the good and progress that could happen in the world if more people would capture that mindset. The same spirit in that quote permeates the book. Nick in the book provides a wide array of tips on building a reading passion and making the most of your reading. In his forward he provides a tip I often remind people of who tell me they don’t have time to read : read 15 minutes a day once in the morning and once in the evening which would be about 20 pages a day. Do that for 5 days a week and that is about 100 pages a week. Then realize in a 52 week year you will have read 5,200 pages about 20 books a year. That is a pretty good start for a reading journey. Of his many ideas on reading I like his emphasis to be intentional in your reading. With each book have a purpose for reading the book. He also emphasizes there should be an output to put what you read into practice and that helps us ingrain in our lives the concepts learned in reading. Of course with those thoughts you can imagine rightly that most of the reading mentioned is nonfiction books. He doesn’t leave out the issue of enjoyable reading of which fiction writing is so important in enjoying good stories and we can often learn life principles in fiction. Near the end of the book he mentions some of the impact of reading in his life journey. “well, throughout my reading journey, I have upgraded the lens through which I see the world many times. I am constantly searching for new world views – new lenses-- that allow me to become healthier, wealthier, and happier.” (page 125). This is a reminder of how reading helps us grow and keep growing throughout or lifespan. This is just one of the many benefits of reading. The last portion of the book he shares tips on a variety of healthy and wealthy habits for living that he has gained through the books he has read. Reading through these tips helps to understand what reading adds to our lives. This is a book that will help passionate readers reaffirm their passion for reading so it is a great gift to avid readers in your life. At the same time it is a helpful book to someone you may know who wants to get into reading but has mental roadblocks like they were never good in school or do not have time. The author debunks those myths and provides tips and tools for reading success. Reflection: Think over the books you have read. Which ones helped change the lens through which you view the world around you and what you want out of life?