February Hunger Happenings

Transform Fears with Dream Write for Kids

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Dream Write is a children’s book that helps kids of all ages feel empowered to face their fears.

Years ago, I had a recurring nightmare: I was at a college I didn’t know, scheduled to take classes I didn’t recall signing up for, with no money and no means of actually making it to campus.

And while that may sound like a first world problem kind of bad dream, we all know how real a dream feels.

 In fact, how often have we tried to describe a dream to a loved one and have fallen short?😩 Our words don’t quite articulate the feelings experienced in said dream.

experienced in said dream.

The Game Changer

A cognitive psychologist had suggested I write down what I wanted to experience in my dream instead of what woke me up repeatedly filled with angst.

Not wanting to experience another night in waking to a puddle of sweat and a racing heart, I took her advice. I gave myself a brand new Range Rover, put five-hundred bucks in my wallet and chose a school and major that I wanted to study.

That night, I dreamed what I had written down.💡

It Gets Better

The power of our imagination. Dream Write inspires kids (of all ages) to transform their fears. (Photo credit: Bill Megenhardt)

Months later, my son was afraid to go to sleep. As a young child, he was afraid of seeing a grizzly bear attacking him in his dreams.

I’d thought of how my fearful dream had never returned, since the night I changed my dream through words.🤔

“You just need to Dream Write.”

The words were out of my mouth as if from some divine force. Together, we changed his fearful thought of bears into a funny story of a cuddly cub bear who wears a tutu and dangling earrings, replete with red lipstick.💄

To this day, my now grown son uses dream writing to help him transform his imagination to work for, not against him.

Each of us has the power to dream write.✍️

Dream Write Launches

No more scary, grizzly bear. How cute is this cub bear?🧸 (Photo credit: Bill Megenhardt)

My children’s book, Dream Write launched on Amazon late last week. It is a story about the power of our imagination and the power of the magic wand (✏️) we can choose to use each time we feel stuck or fearful.

Dream Write encourages children (of all ages) to discover their own inner power. Through an entertaining story and the cognitive game-changing tool of writing, we are reminded that we always have the agency to choose again. 

Not Just for Kids

The reader can be kids of all ages. This book is a call to action for YOU. (photo credit: Bill Megenhardt)

Dream Write ends with a writing prompt for the reader:

“It’s normal to have scary dreams sometimes. Share a scary dream you’ve had with someone you love. How would you write it differently? If it’s easier, you can write in pictures, too! The key is to change your story to something you want to happen.” Dream Write

Maybe you are considering going for a career change. Dream writing can be used for this as well. Fears — as we well know — are not limited to elementary-aged kids. We all experience them. Dream writing offers an effective tool to transform our fears into wonderful possibility. 

Serious Laughs Podcast

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All About Our Crazy Relationships

Relationships. We all have them. From our pets and plants to our siblings and spouses, to be human is to have ‘em.Life on this spinning planet (AKA The Earth School) offers us countless opportunities to explore who we are within and from our relationships. And it’s not just our two and four-legged creatures involved in this exploration. Nope! We have relationships with the foods we eat, the emotions we feel, the places we visit, the literal things in our lives.To be a student of the Earth school is to take a course in the relationship between our inner and outer world.🤯

Serious Laughs

Planet Earth needs some serious TLC right now. And that includes ample doses of humor. There’s nothing like a good wow-I-wish-I-was-wearing-Depends-now laughter to boost our dopamine levels.

Whatever life’s adventures, a sense of purpose arrives when we focus on two things: the what and why.

Serious Laughs is the what. It’s a place you can tune into each week to laugh and reflect.

Why Serious Laughs? Because life is H-A-R-D. It is not easy to be a human on the Earth School. It takes falling and getting back up again. It takes courage. It requires tenacity. And humor helps life’s various forms of medicine go down.

Laughter is universal. It offers the power to disarm and connect us to each other and to ourselves.

There’s a paradox going on in the 21st century: technology has allowed us to be more plugged into each other than ever, but a sense of isolation and disconnection is at an all time high.

“One in three Americans feels lonely every week.”-APA Poll

Serious Laughs is (what) a show about our relationships that’s infused with humor and vulnerability (why)because life is both bitter and sweet and filled with enough contradictions to make belly laughs a fantastic way to stave off a need for the loony bin.🤪

The 411 on Serious Laughs

Our podcast drops new episodes every Thursday:

SeriousLaughsPod-YouTube

SeriousLaughsPod-Spotify

And, of course, we’re on Instagram @seriouslaughspod

Soothing News for Worriers

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It’s a sunny day as I write, the sky a seamless swath of pale blue. The warmth of the sun’s rays kiss the floorboards and my feet.

Man, it feels good.

But only yesterday, rain pummeled down from a sky reminiscent of horror flicks. Driving through the puddled streets was an exercise in caution.

And yet, both today and yesterday, I have the power to choose my reaction to the weather.

Sounds easy enough; but what happens when the changed environment isn’t as benign as the weather?

What happens when a life change involves something someone said or did?

The Sky Isn’t Mad at You

We all know that a blue or cloudy sky isn’t about us. Mother Nature will continue to do her thing. Whether it’s a stunning 75 degrees or a chilly 45, we know the weather isn’t personal.

And yet, we tend to personalize our emotions and take them as static.

Unhappiness manifests when we take a negative emotion and either deny its existence or take it personally.

Life happens through us; we don’t own the experience. We are no less ephemeral than Nature itself. In her groundbreaking book, Just a Thought, Dr. Amy Johnson shares the subtle yet profound cognitive error plaguing most of us:

“Ever since you’ve been old enough to think about yourself and your thinking. Ever since you’ve been old enough to cling to and personalize your moving, changing experience, it’s looked as if what you experience is you. It’s looked like your psychological experience means something stable about who-you-are at your essence….It is not, and it does not.”

Our emotions feel personal. But they aren’t. As the Taoist philosopher, Wei Wu Wei said:

“Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9 percent of everything you think, and everything you do, is for yourself — and there isn’t one.”

What Brains Do

Our brains are wired to protect us. They are constantly chattering to us, offering us zillions of ways to look out for our safety. Our cerebrums are hardwired for our survival. So it’s no wonder that our brains:

  • compare
  • judge
  • predict
  • create narratives
  • solve
  • dramatize
  • find patterns

But here’s the great news:

We have the power to choose awareness at any moment. We can choose to acknowledge our miraculous brains without heeding its every suggestion (or what it often feels like, command).

Embracing Discomfort

When we feel anxious or depressed, our brains kick into overdrive, offering anything and everything to keep us “safe”.

For example, let’s say you are anxious about an important test coming up. Your mind might chatter on in the following manner:

“If you don’t study more, you will FAIL! You remember, you failed that test in 7th grade because you didn’t study enough. You aren’t as smart as other people, so you need to work twice as hard. What is wrong with you, thinking you can relax now when the test is tomorrow?! You should be ashamed of yourself. If you fail this test, you will be such a disappointment to your parents and friends. Is that what you want??”

Notice the word “should” and the brain’s razor-sharp ability to compare a past failure to the present situation — even labeling the failed test as a failure in itself instead of reframing it as a learning experience. Notice the brain’s derogatory language, questioning the person’s ability to make sound decisions, serving up potential embarrassment and shame on a guilty platter.

The brain’s chatter feels so personal. It can feel downright painful.

But when we remember that it’s not personal, that mental gymnastics is just what brains do, we can take a deep breath and observe.

We can lean into the discomfort we experience and know that, just like the clouds that cover the sun, the sensations of dread and angst WILL pass.

Fear only festers when we deny its existence.

When we acknowledge, with self-compassion, as the objective observer that we are experiencing negative emotions, they can more easily pass through us.

We experience emotions; we aren’t the emotions.

Soothing Our Brains

My son called me the other day from college, very stressed. I shared a 10-minute Calm meditation with him via text. Ten minutes. He called me the next day to say it “really helped.”

Meditation allows us the space to observe rather than react.

Meditation is an act of self-compassion. It is an unspoken invitation to the Universe and our soul to connect.

Often, our brains’ (initial) response to meditation is protest. The monkey mind tends to throw in all kinds of machinations. I liken the mind to an overtired toddler, fighting her afternoon nap:

“This is stupid! You have so much to do and all you’re doing is focusing on your breathing — what the hell point is that? Did you turn the oven off? You never returned that important phone call. You are so irresponsible. Do you even know what you are going to wear to that party tomorrow??”

And on and on it will go…and just like the overtired toddler, if you observe long enough, the chattering, overly vocal brain will eventually quiet and realize the Silent Observer (YOU) are in charge.

Meditation reminds us that whatever we are feeling or experiencing is temporary.

Meditation strengthens our spiritual muscle to better handle life’s ever-changing journey.

May the following meditation bring you peace and comfort:

The Daily Calm 10 Minute Meditation

The Snapshots We Carry

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There’s a photo of me in 5th grade sporting braces and a perm reminiscent of a poodle fresh from a blow dry. It’s 1980-something, a time when bigger meant better and this included the Linda Richmond-esque bifocal glasses with gold-hued stickers of my initials in one of the lenses’ corners.

For decades, I hated that skinny girl at the start of puberty. The one who begged her mom for a training brawe both know wasn’t necessary.

Yet over time, I started to look back at that photo and saw a completely different image staring back at me.

Snapshots Can Change

Hindsight offers the ability to see through the past with a different lens.

Think of any experience in your life — good or bad or somewhere in between. 

How we remember an experience affects our perception.

For years, I looked at the photos of me in 5th grade and saw a mess of big hair, huge glasses, and boobs that made Houston look mountainous. 

Now, on the cusp of fifty, I am able to see the tween I was less myopically. I’m able to zoom the mental camera out see the terrain of that time and place:

There I am, holding a baby in my 11 year-old arms. How cool is that? The neighbor, a mom of a 5 year old little girl and now a mom again, is trusting me with her kids. I get to babysit both of them regularly after school, and I’m so good at taking care of them. 

I move closer to my 5th grade self and speak directly to her:

You’re not skinny — you are thin. And it’s the 80’s — of course your hair is big!

Be kinder to yourself; no one has this thing called Life figured out. Don’t be in such a rush to grow up and get those boobs. Everything has its season and there’ll be plenty of time for boobs. Just revel in the stories you make up with your neighbor’s daughter each day after school. Trust me, all of these creative games you are playing with her will be something you’ll miss in adulthood.

The Illusion of Snapshots

Author and therapist, Lori Gottlieb (Maybe You Should Talk to Someone) writes about remains of our snapshots:

“People don’t always remember events or conversations clearly, but they do remember with great accuracy how an experience made them feel.”

We’ve all had that moment when we speak with someone from our past and they recall an event one way and we another. Since our perception dictates our reality, this makes sense — both people are correct.

We can look at the same snapshot — the same moment in time and see it differently because of the lens we respectively look through.

Perhaps the real illusion is believing there’s only one snapshot, one angle to view a memory.

Future Snapshots

We not only have the power to alter the filter of our past snapshots; we possess the ability to transform the mental photos on their way.

Instinctively, we do this with young children: seeing the wonder of who they will grow up to be while still wearing diapers.

One of the reasons parents possess so much power in those formative years is their ability — whether realized or not — to affect a child’s inner snapshots.

The great news: we can transform our inner snapshots at anytime to what we want to see.

I’m not talking denial or sweeping things under the figurative carpet. I’m referring to our ability to look at ourselves with compassion and unconditional love, embracing the fractured parts of ourselves to let in the light.

Imagine how the snapshots of your future will develop if looked at through the mental lens of self-compassion and willing vulnerability?

Talk about a Kodak moment!

The Dating Game

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When we alter our perspective, we change our experience.

*Rebecca was a knockout: green eyes, strawberry blond hair and a smile that lit up a room. It’s no wonder *Jon swiped left on her profile. After several texts on the dating app, they made plans to meet for coffee.

A few hours later, the two hugged and Jon said he would be in touch. 

“You better,” she said, her voice a flirtatious wink.

True to his word, Jon reached out after a couple of days, wanting to “play it cool.” However, his mind was already seeing them go on camping trips with his dog and sitting beside her at an Astros game.

                        After what Jon considered enough “polite texting banter,” he asked Rebecca out for dinner that upcoming weekend.

                        With bated breath, he watched the 3 dots surface on his phone…then stop…then start up again. In what felt like an eternity, he received the following text:

                        I can’t this weekend. I’m heading to a family reunion upstate. But let’s definitely get together the following weekend!!!

Crushed, Jon was grateful the text didn’t allow for her to see the disappointment on his face. Instead, he texted back a no-big-deal thumbs up emoji. 

Jon spent the next week researching restaurants and cool things to do in the area. On Wednesday of the following week, Jon texted Rebecca again:

Hey! Hope you had a great reunion with your family. Does this weekend still work for you?

The beautiful strawberry blond texted back within the hour:

I just found out that I need to fly to LA for a work event. I’m sorry for the confusion. But let’s definitely meet up the following weekend.

Jon felt like his heart strings were being pulled against his will. For the past two weeks since meeting Rebecca, Jon had replayed their long coffee date in his mind like a record stuck on the same groove: the angle of her face as she laughed when he told her a joke about getting older, the excitement she expressed when talking about her love of contemporary art. The way it only felt like the two of them at the coffee bar.

The following week, Jon began looking on the dating app again. A few girls “liked” him, and he started to engage in texts with two of them.

The excitement of meeting Rebecca and their potential was fading.

And of course, that’s when Rebecca reached out to him:

Hey! How’s your Thursday going? I’m back in town. Did you have a fun weekend?

Jon’s veins flooded with a dopamine high. 

Good! I’d love to take you for dinner this weekend🙂

Aw. Thank you. I’m just so exhausted. Let’s shoot for next week.

Online dating makes me think of the Hindu parable of the snake and the rope. A man is walking alone in the desert when he sees a rattlesnake. His heart races and his adrenaline is at an all-time high. But before he runs away, he takes one final glance at that snake, only to discover it’s a rope. Suddenly, all the adrenaline and fear left his body.

Our perception creates our reality. When it comes to dating, the myriad of emotions we can experience can feel so personal, so real. But like the weather in the sky, our emotions are temporary. When it’s rainy outside, we don’t take it personally. Likewise, when we experience a negative emotion, we are not the emotion itself. We can observe it and know that like weather, it will change. We have the power to alter our perception, to see the dating world as a rope, not a snake. 

Jon will never know why Rebecca keeps putting off meeting him again. He will never know “the truth” about why she reached out to him if she’s not interested in dating. But he CAN experience a more enjoyable dating life if he’s not weighing everything like that man walking in the desert: fearful, anxious, considering every interaction with a stranger a matter of life and death.

When we consider dating a game, we don’t take the experience as seriously. We can enjoy the moments themselves. We can change our goal from something less lofty (meeting “the” one) to meeting new people (making new potential friends while learning more about what we like and don’t like).  A game is about having fun, not torturing oneself with what ifs and failed attempts at mind reading.

*Names have been altered to protect the individuals.

—–

Click here to discover relationship health.

The Ghost and Ghosted

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There’s another side to ghosting that is often overlooked but needing our attention.

*Jackie liked her date the way you appreciate a jacket on a cold day: He was comfortable but not someone she saw herself with. However, by the end of their dinner, he expressed he was “smitten” with her.

Despite knowing her attraction to him held a verbal equivalent of “meh,” she felt—what many of us feel at times—an inexplicable pressure to give him another chance.

On the second date, the distance between Jackie’s lack of attraction and her date’s attraction for Jackie had grown. 

“When can I see you again?”

Jackie could feel her throat tighten, unable to find the ability to say the words aching to form:

Look, there is not going to be another date for us. I think of you like a brother. End of story.

Well, that’s what Jackie wanted to say. Instead, she said:

“Yeah, let me look at my calendar.”

She dodged a kiss with a yawn.

Jackie is a divorced mom with 3 daughters who works full time as a neonatal nurse. She barely has time to date, but the time she spends dating is nothing compared to the physical and mental hours wasted, pretending there is potential with someone. 

A people pleaser, Jackie decided to text Mr. Smitten and tell him she met someone (a lie).

            “I thought that way, I could enjoy a potential friendship with him.”

            Mr. Smitten called her immediately, his voice sounding like someone losing a limb. “Oh man, did you really meet someone else? Oh man. That hurts. But can we be friends? I mean, I’m really attracted to you, but I promise to stay in my zone.”

            Again, Jackie could feel the tightening in her throat. She wanted to say:

What is the point of us developing a friendship when we both know you want more? 

            Instead, Jackie agreed to meet Mr. Smitten for lunch the next day.

            When we try to live for others, altering our lives to satiate others, we are doing two detrimental things:

  1. Telling ourselves (and the world) that we don’t matter.
  2. Hurting the very people we are trying to “protect.”

If Jackie allowed her truth to come out, it would be kind to both parties. Something simple yet direct like:

You seem like a great person, but unfortunately, I didn’t feel that x factor that is so important in a potential romantic relationship. I wish you only the best.

There’s often this unspoken sense in the digital world that the words we use don’t have an effect on people looking on the other end of the screen. Perhaps this is a common reason people in the dating world (and otherwise) “ghost” someone. But people pleasers are just as likely to ghost someone—not wanting to face the potential disappointment they will cause the other party.

Jackie didn’t ghost Mr. Smitten. She lied to him and herself, hiding behind a story to prevent dealing with the potential fallout of truth. In a way, she became a ghost to herself, rejecting the idea that she mattered.

Mr. Smitten deserved to know there was no romantic potential, so he could move on and meet someone who felt about him the way he once did about Jackie.

We humans are wired to avoid pain and discomfort, so it’s no surprise that ghosting offers a “quick fix” to avoid dealing with the potential anxiety that comes with confrontation. But there’s that other, more clandestine side of ghosting we need to watch for as well: lying to ourselves and by extension, the other person in the dating equation. It’s better to rip off that emotional Band-aid now than string someone along, hurting two people in the long run. 

Each of us matters. When we remember this, we stop lying to ourselves and others. The desire for truth eclipses fear of confrontation—the real ghostbuster;-)

*Name changed to protect privacy.

A Different Kind of Love Letter

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There’s something powerful about the written word–especially when those words are crafted with the intent to alter the present.

Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking with the insightful and engaging, Alicia Elatassi on her Podcast, Vibes by Alicia. While our dialogue focused on feeding ourselves emotional nutrition (the main focus of my book, The Friendship Diet: Clean Out Your Fridge, Get Real with Yourself, and Fill Your Life with Meaningful Relationships that Last), one of the great questions Alicia asked me was:

Where can young women find the willpower to stop accepting emotional crumbs and leave a relationship that isn’t serving them?

Enter Faith. A relatively easy quality to possess in spades when we are flying high, but something fleeting and hard to feel when we are in a bad place—physically or mentally.

Then I remembered the Love Letter I wrote to the Universe. I wrote about the qualities of a partner I wanted, writing the letter in the present tense—not the past or the future. The idea is to write the letter and read it aloud. There’s something powerful about putting your desires onto paper; something energy-shifting about giving voice to the qualities you see in someone before he or she has physically materialized. Since time is a human construct, what matters is consciousness. According to author Larry G. Maguire:

“It is by our perception only that things appear to be, and not to be…. In fundamental reality, there is merely everything existent in a single moment.”

Mini-quantum physic lesson aside, when we reflect on the qualities we want to experience in another partner, we are paying attention, we are going within for answers, we are getting real with ourselves. The qualities we are looking for will not be found on social media or even in your close friend’s Love Letter. This writing exercise is a Love Letter to YOU, a subconscious reminder that what you want matters.

The Love Letter to the Universe can be written whether you are single, married, divorced, or widowed—the current relationship status doesn’t matter because YOU are the common denominator. The Love Letter offers a kinesthetic check-in on what matters to you and what you want to experience.

But back to Alicia’s thought-provoking question:

Where can young women find the willpower to stop accepting emotional crumbs and leave a relationship that isn’t serving them?

An internal shift occurs when you write a Love Letter to the Universe. There’s this energetic knowing that the figurative winds have suddenly changed. Faith starts to flow. You can’t look at the list you’ve created and remain willing to accept emotional crumbs. The more you refer back to your list, the more difficult it will be to continue swallowing the status quo. There will come a point when that Love Letter for Mr. Right will feel more real than the boyfriend who stares at his phone throughout dinner.

The Love Letter to the Universe is a powerful honing device when you’ve found yourself living by default, accepting whatever empty calories come your way. When we list the qualities we want in a partner, as if they’re already here in the flesh, we stop settling. We get comfortable walking away from what doesn’t serve us, discovering the very qualities we want in another, in ourselves. And when we love ourselves, we never starve.

Alicia’s Vibes Podcast: https://www.audible.com/pd/Vibes-by-Alicia-Podcast/B08JJM9S9B

The Friendship Diet:  https://www.amazon.com/Friendship-Diet-Yourself-Meaningful-Relationships-ebook/dp/B089GZJ5B5

Source: https://larrygmaguire.com/does-time-exist/

What’s Love Got to Do with It?

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There’s a disconnect between what retail glorifies as romance and what romance truly is.

            Valentine’s Day. A time hallowed by Hallmark (the TV channel included), teeming with jewelry commercials, and stores littered with giant pink hearts and boxes of chocolate. Retail stores ply our senses with confectionary romance. 

All that pink can start to look like Pepto Bismol (or make you feel like you need some to quell the nausea from the retail overload).

There’s nothing wrong with the romantic holiday arriving each 2nd week of February. The tricky part comes when we lose sight of the why behind romantic gestures. According to author Kelly Gonsalves:

“Being romantic is about expressing love and dedication in a way that’s intentional, unmistakable, and deeply affectionate.”

The Hallmark Channel and Kay Jewelers offer the image of romance, all shiny and with a figurative (and often literal) bow on top. But a woman could receive a sparkly jewel and not feel an ounce of romance; she could watch flick after flick of cheesy Hallmark movies about “love” but not experience anything more than the gas she incurs eating too many bowls of popcorn.

Our retail-centered modern world offers ways to say you matter to me. But it’s the why behind those acts that make all the difference. When there’s genuine connection, romance can be found in a thoughtful gesture—something as simple as bringing your loved one a coffee made just the way he likes it. When there’s reciprocal authenticity, romance is no longer an annual event cranked out by American Greetings, it’s a regular occurrence.

But what if I’m single? You may be asking. Romance can occur regularly for a party of one. Take yourself for a manicure. Treat yourself to a good book or a massage. Go for a scenic bike ride. Remember: the most important relationship you will ever have is the one with yourself. And just like a relationship with someone else, even the small gestures can pack a significant punch.

Tina Turner’s famous hit, What’s Love Got to Do with It? is ostensibly about a girl telling herself that the boy she likes is only interested in him physically. Yet at the closing chorus, the lyrics speak a different story:

I’ve been taking on a new direction
But I have to say
I’ve been thinking about my own protection
It scares me to feel this way

What is the girl in the song scared of? What is she trying to protect and why? To love means to experience vulnerability, to accept vulnerability as a way of life, to cozy up to it and break bread with it, to look our fear directly in the eyes, knowing you might get your heart broken. The Hallmark movies, the Jared jewelry commercials—these are fairytale ideas that have nothing to do with watching a loved one go through chemotherapy or losing someone in a car accident. Love takes guts; love means you’re in the ring, knowing there are no guarantees.

What’s love got to do with it? In my opinion, everything. 

Source: https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/how-to-be-romantic

Proprioceptive Thinking: The Sixth Sense

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Lost your way? The Proprioceptive Question will guide you to the answer.

Proprio what? And what the heck does it have to do with a 6th sense??

Last summer, a dear friend of mine (Steve Bernstein, author of Stories from the Stoop) introduced me to a gem of a book: Writing the Mind Alive: The Proprioceptive Method for Finding Your Authentic Voice. Co-authors, Dr. Metcalf and Dr. Simon offered a form of meditation through proprioceptive writing. Through a powerful yet simple ritual of writing to baroque music on unlined paper, we possess the ability to create a conduit between our inner and outer world.

But not all of us are writers. Some of us find meditation in running or baking or gardening. So, I began to wonder: Could the proprioceptive method work in other forms of life?

Proprius is Latin for “one’s own” and typically refers to our body’s proprioceptive system. We are regularly taking in life through our five senses, transmitting whatever information comes into our brain, processing “from the inner world of our bodies, the world we alone inhabit.” (Metcalf and Simon). It’s this proprioception that allows us to feel our bodies, as our own. It’s why, when we have a stroke or illness, we can sometimes lose the feeling of literal embodiment. 

The 6th sense is the invaluable gift we all have to synthesize our five senses, reacting to the world around us on a physical, mental and spiritual plane. But we often lose awareness of our 6th sense, even take it for granted while we are healthy. We run on autopilot and can lose the gift of self-reflection.

Enter proprioceptive thinking—a cognitive and spiritual launching pad for those moments when you’ve lost your way, when you’re uncertain about a relationship or a situation, when you’re anxious or depressed. While proprioceptive writing involves handwriting to slow down and answer the proprioceptive questions throughout what is known as a Write, proprioceptive thinking is an opportunity to ask a proprioceptive question—either aloud or in your mind.

So, what is “the” proprioceptive question?

What do I mean by _____________________________?

Think of the above blank as your metacognitive/spiritual Mad Libs:-)Into the blank goes whatever is going through your mind as you draw, talk, swim, cook. 

I’ll give an example from my own life now. Today was spent collecting pathetic drops of water from the spigot outside my house. I was trying to garner enough water to flush a toilet in my home.

My proprioceptive question is:  What do I mean by pathetic?

By asking the proprioceptive question, I am slowing down, using language as a tuning fork for my intuition. Slowing down literally awakens our gut (and our gut is lined with millions of nerve cells that actually “talk” to the brain).

At heart I’m a writer. I can ask the proprioceptive question in my head, but the revelations flow from my pencil.

What do I mean by pathetic? I mean it’s three days without a shower or running water. Pathetic that so many people are living without water and heat and electricity for days now. Pathetic as in sad. Houston, we have a big problem. 

I encourage you to consider the proprioceptive question when you are feeling stressed or confused. The question just might recharge your inner compass. 

An Alternate Reality

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There’s a greater reality that technology will never surpass or achieve...

Our perception is everything. How we interpret the world around us and our engagement with it greatly determines our lives in both quality and creation. Check out an Amazon review for almost any product and you’ll discover five star and one-star reviews—for the very same item! Listen to couples—happily married, on the brink of divorce and every state in between—and you’ll hear two different tales regarding the same relationship.

Technology is in the midst of creating an ever-evolving AR (Augmented Reality), where you can simulate life in an alternate world (i.e., bungee jumping in Costa Rica, skiing in Aspen, playing tennis at Wimbledon).  The pandemic has caused us to gravitate to this screen-laden world where attendance is taken virtually or noted in the clever acronym, IRL (In Real Life). Our life lessons are growing more comprised of chats, texts, emojis and screenshares, where an icon is considered sufficient (albeit online) presence.

I’m not knocking the myriad of gifts that arrive as a by-product of our tech-savvy world. I’ll be the first to admit that I love knowing my lessons can be found easily on a universal learning platform that our school uses, lessons that I create and decide when to share with a convenient click of a button. Children with underlying health issues are no longer prevented from engaging in learning now that we offer a streamlined learning program; students can learn at their own pace, replaying a lesson for greater understanding, translating into their first language where necessary.

But there’s a greater reality that technology will never surpass or achieve: the ability of humans to alter their perceptions and by extension, create their own reality. As the late Dr. Wayne Dyer said (author of The Shift) 

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

The other day, one of my 6th graders sounded palpably upset when I announced an assignment to read a few chapters independently that week. His icon glowed as he spoke:

“I feel so much pressure. My head hurts. This book is hard for me to enjoy.”

The boy is a voracious reader and extremely bright. His voice was tight with unshed tears. The stress he was feeling was his reality, his perceived reality.

I reminded him of how much he loved to read. I asked him what was different this time.

“I like to read at night, under a blanket with my favorite stuffed animal beside me.”

“Then that’s what you’ll do,” I said.

Oh, how he let out an audible sigh. Gone was the shaky, holding-back-tears in his voice. Gone was his perception that the world was closing in on him.

We are no different from my sweet 6th grader. We all possess the power to perceive the best and worst at every moment. My student had perceived me as “safe” to articulate his anxiety, which in turn, created an alternate reality for him. 

Consider your own life and how you perceive it. If there’s an area you aren’t happy with, how might you alter your understanding of it? Each moment is a gift for you to interpret and manifest a different reality.