Niyomi – Self-Help Literature (ENG 3402: Topics in Literature)

How do you practice self help?

Before we go ahead and predecessor self love we should know what it means. Self-love is a state of appreciation of oneself that grows from actions that support our physical, psychological and spiritual growth. Self-love means taking care of your own needs and not settling for less than what you deserve. Self-love can mean something different for each person because we all have different ways to take care of ourselves. In the article,”13 steps to achieving total self love” by Alison Rachel Stewart is about how to achieve self love. In the article she says,”I was really struggling with my mental health and was suffering from depression and anxiety. Looking around at other beautiful, successful women, I wondered: How do they do it? How do they manage to feel so good”? I can relate to this quote because I was also struggling with depression in my past and I would see other females doing successful things and staying independent.

In order to practice self love you need to learn the roots of self love. According to the article” the root of self love” it says that you need to invest in yourself. When you start this responsibility you may run into some confusion like where should I start? What do I do? Self-love is an emotional investment that brings up so much from the past that it’s easier to distract ourselves from it.

Another thing you need to do is check in with your emotions. When we create time for our well-being we open the door to all our emotions that allows us to understand our essential being and senses. The last thing you need to do is give yourself time.Time is something a woman never really gives to herself and yet it’s something she desperately needs to support a healthy nervous system and menstrual cycle.All she needs is time to herself to do what her essential being calls for and she can reset every part of herself for long term health and wellbeing.

NiyomiBernardezPresentation

Research Project & Presentation

Practicing self love can be very hard when you put others’ needs before yourself. Self-love is a state of appreciation for oneself that grows from actions that support our physical, psychological and spiritual growth. Self love to me means taking care of your own needs and not sacrificing your well-being to please others. Self love can mean something different for each individual because we all have different ways to take care of ourselves. I’ve read three articles about self- love. The first article is about different ways to practice self love and to be good to yourself. The second article talks about the importance of self love and the third article talks about how to practice self love when you have a low self esteem. The first article listed different ways to practice self love. A few caught my attention but I only chose three to describe in my PowerPoint. I do want to talk about one of them, which is finding your happy place. I already do this, for example if im not having a good day I would just find a positive place where I can think to myself and think positive. My happy place is my balcony because I can enjoy the weather from high up and allow myself to be present in the moment. This is how I practice self love but other people may cope with practicing self love differently. The importance of self love is accepting your emotions for what they are and putting your social well being first. When you practice self love you become more confident and accepting of yourself. Accepting who you are may be difficult if you don’t admit your mistakes or own your outcomes, etc. “The importance of self love” by Zubayer Khan Zakir talks about self love and it’s benefits,etc. In this article the author says,” we all like to spread love, but the question is — do we produce enough for ourselves?” I like this quote because this is a question I need to ask myself, I just honestly don’t know how to go about it. In my opinion I feel I don’t produce enough love for myself because as I said before I like putting other people I care about before myself.

NiyomiPresentation

Practicing Self-love

I am going to be doing my research project on practicing self love. Before I do start I would like to start by making sure we understand what self love means. Self-love is a state of appreciation for oneself that grows from actions that support our physical, psychological and spiritual growth. Self-love means having a high regard for your own well-being and happiness. I chose this topic because I feel like I haven’t been putting myself first. I’m always putting myself second. I tend to put other people’s needs before my own and that’s not bad but it’s also not good.

So I just want to take the time to research how to take care of myself and my needs in order to benefit my life. Self-love can mean something different for each person because we all have different ways to take care of ourselves. The questions I hope to address are like why self help is important and why should we start practicing it. I found three articles that I will be discussing in my paragraphs.

The first article i’m going to be talking about is“30 ways to practice self love and be good to yourself” by Jessie Hays. This article gives plenty of ways you can practice self love. Jessie says,”Find your happy place. Where’s the one place you feel totally at ease, calm, happy, positive, high on life? Go to that place when you are going through hard times, or imagine yourself being there. Think about how it feels, what it smells like, what it looks like”. I can relate to this quote so much because when I’m mad or upset I go to my balcony which is my happy place. I would enjoy the fresh breeze and allow myself to be present in the moment. This works for me but it may not work for other people because as I said before people cope with practicing self love differently. Another quote that caught my eye was when she says,”Treat others with love and respect. It makes us feel better about ourselves when we treat others the way we hope to be treated. That doesn’t mean everybody will always repay the favor, but that’s their problem not yours”. This quote is basically saying to treat others how you want to be treated. So being available and helpful to those in need. I can connect this quote to “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne because in the book she says,” when you do not treat yourself the way you want others to treat you, you can never change the way things are. Your actions are your powerful thoughts, so if you do not treat yourself with love and respect, you are emitting a signal that is saying you are not important enough, worthy enough or deserving”. The rule of treating others as you would want to be treated in their place will ultimately lead to your own happiness. This quote connects to what I was saying because it’s the same idea. Make it a habit to try to place yourself in the shoes of another person because you never know what the other person is going through. It doesn’t matter if it’s a friend, family member or even someone on the street.

The second article i’m going to talk about is “The importance of self-love” by Zubayer Khan Zakir. This article was stating the important aspects of self-love. The author says,”When our loved ones make a mistake we often forgive them easily, but when we make a mistake we are often too hard on ourselves”. I can relate to this quote because I am so hard on myself when it comes to making mistakes. I act like it’s the end of the world when it really is not. Everyone makes mistakes, but learning how to learn from these errors, let go, move on, and forgive yourself is important for well-being. I need to learn how to forgive myself because if I do then I can move on with my life instead of ruminating over past events that can’t be changed.

The third article I’m going to talk about is “How To Practice Self-Love When You Have Low Self-Esteem”. This article is about how you can navigate the journey of self love and the best way to improve self-esteem when you are feeling stuck. Self-esteem associated with the way you view yourself. I have low self esteem when it comes to certain things like lack of confidence. The author says,”It can be a struggle to accept any compliments or comments on your finer qualities”. I can relate to this because I’m very insecure about my self and when I get compliments I just find it hard to accept.

Work Cited

https://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/30-ways-practice-self-love-and-good-yourself.html

Hays, Jessie. “30 ways to practice self love and be good to yourself.”

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxjb3Ntb2Rlc2lnbjM2MHxneDo0MTY0MzFjMmQzNmU3ZWI2

Byrne,Rhonda.”The Secret”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thedailystar.net/lifestyle/reader%25E2%2580%2599s-chit/news/the-importance-self-love-1684162%3famp

Khan Zakir, Zubayer.”The importance of self-love”. January 8,2019 at 12:00AM

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.goalcast.com/2020/12/23/self-esteem-self-love-how-to-love-yourself/amp/

“How To Practice Self-Love When You Have Low Self-Esteem”

Self help

First article

“In 2002, it was reported that, on average, we experience an interruption every eight minutes or about seven or eight per hour. In an eight-hour day, that is about 60 interruptions. The average interruption takes about five minutes, so that is about five hours out of eight”.

This quote shows that us humans don’t concentrate very well because if we get interrupted from an activity it won’t take 1 min to resume because we check what we have to check and then do other things on our smartphones.

Second article

“With independence comes the fear of rejection and humiliation. Relationships, or lack of them, cause immense stress, not least because these are busy years in terms of shaping identity. Greater fluidity around identity can bring its own challenges”.

I personally agree with this quote because as I was going into my first year high school I feared rejection because I was convinced that people wouldn’t accept me due to my opinions, behaviors or personality. I was afraid of getting humiliated by the way I looked or dressed.

Third article

“But it’s human nature to linger on those feelings of regret. We tend to look back and think that missed opportunities — real or imagined — could have set us on a different, possibly more rewarding path. Left unchecked, these emotions can become overwhelming sources of stress and anxiety.”

I agree with this quote because I feel if life for me would have turned out differently I would have a better life. I say this because I’ve done things in the past that I wish I never done and I always wished that I can go back in time and change my ways.

Presentation

Class notes 4/15/2021

– For Peoples Choice make sure you write exactly why you like your classmates posts and not “I like the post” or “it was interesting”.
– Reading and engaging in people’s post
About Event

– Asia enjoyed it because it was very educational she liked how each participant talked about their experiences during the pandemic.
– Maria didn’t know what to expect she thought the event was going to be different
– For the spoken word portion of the event Maria thought she was a singer because she was trying to rhyme. – Anil thought that the spoken word was interesting
-Reem says that she had a lot of energy and was charismatic.
Ideology- a system of beliefs
“Ideology innocent”: techniques that are presented or promoted of value neutral
When you have a pen it allows you to write
-Certain tools doesn’t allow us to do certain things, when we use mindfulness then we are being affected by the ideology it presents
– The gun is enabling a tool that allows people to blast at other people
The third part of the course is going to be our own research. The final project is going to be an individual research about any self help topic.
– Figure out what topic of self help you want to pursue and start your research , it can be something that you want to know more about or a way to improve yourself in that topic
– We would be told to do a proposal about the topic we picked and we would need to get an approval from our instructor, Find 3 self help critiques secondary sources (be creative) that deals with self help and that is challenging and critical.
We will be doing a 5-7 min presentation about what articles we chose and a summary of each(PowerPoint)

Self-Help Critiques

The three articles I was assigned to read was “The Mindful Revolution” by Kate Pickert,” The Mindful Conspiracy” by Ronald Purser and “ The Problem of Mindfulness” by Sahanika Ratnayake. These 3 books were somewhat interesting. The first article I read was “The Mindful Revolution” by Kate Pickert. What comes to mind when I hear the word mindful people ask. Well my answer to that is when I hear the word mindful I think of the phrases be aware because I was always told to be mindful but I never knew of what. The article mostly talks about her taking a curriculum course called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) where they would meet every Monday evening for eight weeks. This course was developed in 1979 by Jon Kabat-Zinn, an MIT-educated scientist. In the course she learns about meditation and mindfulness. This relates to what me and my classmates are doing. We are doing a 2 week meditation to cope with whatever we are going through and it really helps. Kate writes, “One evening, we were introduced to mindful walking. In our small meeting room, we formed a circle and paced together. “Feel your heel make contact with the floor, then the ball of your foot,” said Paulette. “One foot, then the other.” Anxious feelings about planning the week ahead and emails in my inbox that might be waiting for replies crept into my head even though my phones were off and tucked away. Mindfulness teachers say this kind of involuntary distraction is normal and that there’s no point in berating ourselves for mentally veering away from the task at hand”. I can relate to this quote so much because sometimes when I meditate I know I’m getting notifications and text messages and I just feel that urge to grab my phone and see what’s the update. My phone is so important to me that I need to be on it 24/7 although it takes me away from the outside world.

The second article I read was ” The Mindful Conspiracy” by Ronald Purser. Ronald used a quote from “The Mindful Revolution” by Kate Pickert and then talks about how it connects to what he was saying. In the article the author talks about reduction in stress and increases in personal happiness and well-being. The author writes,”Instead, the practice is being sold to executives as a way to de-stress, improve productivity and focus, and bounce back from working 80-hour weeks. They may well be “meditating”, but it works like taking an aspirin for a headache. Once the pain goes away, it is business as usual. Even if individuals become nicer people, the corporate agenda of maximising profits does not change”. This quote is using a metaphor to compare that “meditating” is like taking an aspirin for a headache. I agree with this quote because when I meditate I’m relieving all the stress and I’m becoming more relaxed so when I take an aspirin my head becomes more relaxed.

The third article I read was “ The Problem of Mindfulness” by Sahanika Ratnayake. Sahanika explains how mindfulness was in the air when she studied for a master degree in Philosophy at the University at Cambridge. The author writes,” One technique in Buddhism, for example, involves examining thoughts, feelings and physical sensations, and noting that they are impermanent, both individually and collectively. Our thoughts and emotions change rapidly, and physical sensations come and go in response to stimuli. As such (the thinking goes), they cannot be the entity that persists throughout a lifetime – and, whatever the self is, it cannot be as ephemeral and short-lived as these phenomena”. This quote reminds me of another self help book we have read called “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle because he talks about how Buddha uses a negative definition of mindfulness. So that the mind can choose weather to believe in or into superhuman accomplishments.

Meditation

I am looking forward to doing this meditation assignment because after a session of meditation I feel re-energized and less stressed. I have also tested out a bunch of meditating apps. I was looking through a bunch of meditating apps that I felt would benefit me but I had to narrow it down to the top three so I can pick the right fit. The three meditating apps that I felt would benefit me were MyLife, Headspace and Dare. So far these apps were the best apps that I felt would benefit me the most. With MyLife according to Google it says”MyLife Meditation is an award-winning meditation and mindfulness app that offers daily wellness check-ins and suggests activities personalized on how you feel. … Destress with a meditation guide to gain a better, calm mindspace”. When you first open the app it asks you what goals do you want to achieve in this app. This app includes a daily check in and based on what answer you chose for the check in they give you options on what meditation session you should listen to. They ask how you are feeling mentally, emotionally and physically before listening to anything. MyLife gives you an opportunity to choose whether you want to meditate with a female voice or a male voice. With headspace according to Google it says.”Headspace is an app that teaches you how to meditate”. Headspace gives you an opportunity to choose whichever teacher you would like. I feel like this app doesn’t cover that many topics of meditating. But it does help you find your sense of balance and to give up old ways. With Dare according to Google it says,” The DARE app is an evidence based training program to help people overcome anxiety, panic attacks, worry, and insomnia. You can track your progress daily with the mood journal. … Included are also a collection of meditations and sleep guides to tackle insomnia”. This app tackles on a lot of topics I tend to struggle with and that’s what I love about this app. When you first download the app it asks you what are your mains goals and whatever goal you picked they ask if you want to listen to a 10 min meditation session. You can either skip or you can listen. I chose to listen and it was very relaxing and I loved the tone of voice. It wasn’t too loud or ghetto. It was very calming. The app I chose to use for this 2 week meditation assignment is Dare because I feel that this app will benefit me. I feel it would perfectly address what I’m going through. Dare is a good reminder and a way to stay on track. I hope I am able to use this app if not I’ll go for my second choice.

Ok The power of now by Eckhart Tolle was the most interesting self help book I’ve ever read. I was reading classmates responses to this book and someone said this book was like a bible. I agree with that person because in the beginning Tolle mentions god a lot and also by the title “The Power of Now, A guide to spiritual Enlightenment”. In the introduction of this book Tolle explains his experiences that leads to how he wrote this book. He also talks about his past experience with continuous anxiety of suicidal depression. A quote he says catches my eyes. He says,” I heard the words “revisit nothing” as if spoken inside my chest. I could feel myself being sucked into a void”. This quote shows that he simply feels ‘nothing’. He is empty and mindless to everything around him. I can connect to this quote because sometimes I feel a empty void. When my grandmother passed I felt a empty void, like something was missing. It was like a big gap missing from my life that needed to be filled in.
In chapter one the author is saying it that if you allow your ego to take over then you will have more pain. Two quotes caught my attention because I can really relate to them. One quote is when he said,”You are unconsciously identified with it, so you don’t even know that you are it’s slave. It’s almost as if you were possessed without knowing it, and so you take the possessing entity to be yourself(Tolle,4)”. In this quote Tolle is saying that our minds got its mind of its own. Our heads are like machines who control how we behave or move. I can connect to this quote because I feel my mind is possessed sometimes. I overthink about so many different things, I even ask myself the ”what if’s?”. In class we have been meditating and that’s been helping me cope with my stress and it’s been working for me. It relaxes my brain and relieves my stress. It also clears my thoughts and I enjoy it. Another quote that interested me was when Tolle says, “You have probably come across “mad” people in the street incessantly talking or muttering to themselves. Well, that’s not much different from what you and all other “normal” people do, except that you don’t do it out loud(Tolle,17)”. In this quote Tolle is saying that people who aren’t normal talks to themselves out loud as if someone was there responding to them. But they think someone is there because they be having a whole conversation. Unlike abnormal people, us normal people just has this voice in our head that’s telling us what to do and what not to do. Sometimes when someone is talking to me my mind is saying “leave” a bunch a times like a broken record. Tolle says that we need to start listening to the voice in our head as often as we can. I feel if we do that certain things won’t turn out good because as I said before we have a mind of our own.

In chapter two Tolle introduces the concept of the emotional Pain-Body. Tolle says, “ As long as you are unable to access the power of the Now, every emotional pain you experience leaves behind a residue of pain that lives on in you. It merged with the pain from the past, which was already there, and becomes lodged in your mind and body.(Tolle,36)”.When Tolle says this he means that emotional scars we carry truly are negative energy created by our ego. I have experienced emotional aspects in my past and I can never forget about it. It’s like it’s stuck in my head forever and it can’t go away. We have to be aware of our emotional pain, while also being a watcher. If we can do that without identifying pain then we can be free.

Pandemic Prossessing

Before the pandemic everything seemed to be going real normal. But then I’m February there was this news saying that someone got COVID 19 in China. In my head I’m like that’s way too far from us so I didn’t even pay it no mind. But everyday I would watch the news the locations of where people were getting COVID was getting closer to me so I was getting scared. When it finally hit New York it wasn’t all that bad. I was still commuting to school and then to work like I normally do. Things were still open. Every day the news would say something new. For example people had to start buying and wearing masks I didn’t wear it first because I felt I would look weird with it on so I didn’t buy one or put one on. A bunch of people didn’t put one on. One day early in the morning I was watching the news and they were saying that we would be going on lockdown and that we would have to stack up on me and supplies in order to stay safe because we were not allowed outside unless we were essential workers. Me and my family went to the supermarket and tried to grab hand sanitizer, Clorox and etc, but they were all ran out. All supermarkets were empty they barely had anything we were lucky to find some supplies before the lockdown. Then we finally shut down.
During the pandemic it was very difficult for teachers to figure out how are they going to switch to remote and
continue teaching us. It took a while for them to switch because they had to download different apps and test them out to see which one works best. Most teachers picked zoom and most picked collaborate ultra on blackboard. For the submitting work was also difficult because teachers also had to test out which one best works and gives no problems. For work we had to switch to remote also we used Google meets for our meetings and sometimes zoom. Working from home was stressful for me because I felt that at home i did more than I would usually do. Here and there I would step outside keep a 6ft distance and wear a mask. I feel the pandemic was also a benefit to many people because I barely can hang with my family because we was always working and then we come home go straight to bed. So the pandemic gave me and family the opportunity to hang out more and spend more time with each other. We would watch movies, play games and etc. My father had got COVID and I think I may have gotten it but I didn’t get any symptoms so that was weird to me. Neither did my dad we was acting normal and everything. But COVID has been the worse disease to ever come and I hope one day we can throw away all of our masks and go back to normal.

Class notes March 4th

Predatory- the method and practice of teaching
– the way we go about teaching the way we teach
– think of self-help as education
Curriculum- what is taught
– materials that are produced
Scaffolding- process of teaching
– teach students to the point where it is not overwhelming
-giving people different tools to complete their goal
Thoughts about the book
– combination of the secret and self help
– Courtney- trying to encourage his son to play baseball and then says he is on his own and she thinks it was a little controversy.

Questionnaire: a set printed or written questions with a choice of answers
Self- assessment: assessment or evaluation of oneself or ones actions and attitudes
“The examined life”
Self help is not just about books it’s about publishing, marketing and etc.
-“There are more natural laws”
Natural laws: a body of unchanging moral principles regarded as a basis for all human conduct.
“User interface”
– structures how we interact with someone and access materials
-Aristotle had a concept of happiness
Eudaemonia- conductive to happiness
Virtue: a behavior showing high moral standards
– personality ethic
– positive psychology
Announcement
– no new reading
– continue to understand the context
– homework- do self care and take notes

Author: Niyomi