If you’ve ever wondered what our animal friends might say to us about how we treat the planet, take a peek inside Pogo the Porpoise’s world as he puts it all on the line and makes an appeal to kids for help. He’s thoughtful and sincere but makes it abundantly clear that, in order for ocean life to continue and endangered species such as his own to survive, humans have to change. This book is a must-read for kids and a teaching tool that raises awareness about the world around us while inspiring change to the one within us.

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“Pogo the Porpoise with a Purpose” is filled with high-resolution underwater photos, many of which were taken by scientists and photographers who have devoted their lives and professions to rescuing and advocating for marine life. One of these scientists is Dr. Anna Hall of Sea View Marine Sciences in British Columbia who wrote the book’s foreword.

“Pogo the Porpoise with a Purpose” speaks directly to kids with engaging poetry and includes lots of thought-provoking discussions, resources for increased learning about the environment, suggestions for how kids can make a difference, an invitation to adopt-a-porpoise, as well as a fun puzzle to solve at the end of the book. It also carefully highlights endangerment statuses and includes a handy conservation status guide to help kids better understand what endangerment means.

This book has been officially leveled by the educational leveling company, Fountas and Pinnell, and is suitable for kids of all ages but specifically leveled for independent readers at 4th grade or higher. It’s the perfect addition to any elementary or middle school classroom focused on nature, conservation, or the environment. It’s also a wonderful book for parents and kids to read together.

“Pogo the Porpoise with a Purpose” has been lovingly dedicated to the estimated twenty or fewer remaining Vaquita porpoises whose populations are declining through no fault of their own. Yes, you read that correctly – twenty or fewer. Please join Pogo on this awesome journey by sharing his inspiring message and compassionate appeal with your family and friends. Your kids will love it, and so will you.

How can you help?

By ordering or downloading your copy today from Amazon and by posting a review once you’ve read it.

Welcome to the overview of my newly published book, “The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Conscious Living – Unraveling Your Mindsets in 21 Days”. It is part one of a two-part non-fiction self-help series. Book Two is presently under construction. Both books are built around a 21-day process where you’ll be challenged, motivated, possibly even persuaded to start paying attention to not only what you think but to how what you think affects you. Much of what you’ll discover in the process are ways of thinking you’ve owned most of your life, many of which you likely never thought of as ways of thinking and, even less likely, your ownership of them. That’s why it’s titled a “Do-it-Yourself” guide. It is self-help in its purest form. Not only does it start with the self but it also ends with the self. All I did was condense it to make it easier for you and present it in such a way that, hopefully, will make you think and want to pay attention. Be forewarned though: Some of what you will read and hear may feel a bit uncomfortable at times. I didn’t write a book about how to feel good or how to tell people what they want to hear. In my opinion, there already are far too many books and people telling us what we want to hear, and far too few nudging us to look at ourselves a little differently.  But I promise you that “The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Conscious Living” will not only inspire you to look at yourself a little differently, but it will also help you better understand your role in whatever it is that you see.

This book is not a personal memoir. It does not focus on me or my mostly unremarkable life story. Instead, it focuses on something far more remarkable which is how much we all share in terms of our lack of self-awareness. We all constantly talk to ourselves, yet we almost never pay attention to the fact that we do.  There are close to seven and a half billion people living on the planet, and we all spend most of our lives in conversation with ourselves! In our heads! And we seldom even think about it.  So perhaps this book is a collective memoir of our rather remarkable tendencies to live most of our lives engrossed in rather unremarkable discussions with ourselves without ever noticing the profound effects of those discussions.  My book focuses on some of those effects while nudging you toward some of the insights you’ll discover once you start paying attention to what you are telling yourself.

And it will be a discovery.

How do I know?

Because I went through my own process of unraveling my ways of thinking, and that’s how I discovered how critical my role was in the process. Once I tuned in to what I was telling myself, I started uncovering mindsets inside of me that I never knew I had, and I began paying attention to how those mindsets were affecting my thoughts, my moods, and my mind. Quite surprisingly, I figured out that the most effective way to change my mind about one thing or another was to first change my mindset about it, but before I could do so, I had to figure out what my mindset actually was. So, since I was dealing with my mind, as well as my mindsets, I felt I needed to be front and center when it came to navigating my head. (Hence, the DIY revelation.) And that was the coolest part. I actually started watching how much time I spent thinking I was managing the busy world around me while overlooking how much more progress I could make by managing the even busier one inside me. Once I figured that out, the whole process started to make sense. I realized that not only did I need to step back to become the observer in my life, but I also needed to step forward to become the primary participant in my life. Now, having spent nearly four years doing so and writing about it, I am ready to show you how capable we are to act in both capacities.

Not only will this book encourage you to question and confront many of the ways you think and talk to yourself, but I’ll be with you the whole time pointing out things you likely never noticed. I suspect you’ll even forget that I’m there, but I guarantee that once you start looking at yourself a little more objectively, you’ll start feeling more humility and civility, and you’ll start appreciating how much more you have in common with everyone else.

And that, my friend, is how we will bring more civility to the planet. It’s a matter of coming to recognize that civility is nothing more than a mindset or state of mind. It’s just one that’s become somewhat faded with lack of use.

You see… that’s why “The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Conscious Living” is the right book at the right time, and that’s why I’m asking for your help.

How can you help?

By ordering or downloading your copy today from Amazon and by posting a review once you’ve read it.

As a special thank you, I’m including some audio narrations of the book on the PODCAST page of this website.  You can access them through Soundcloud.com.

Above all else though, please accept my sincere thanks for spreading the word. I won’t disappoint you.

Warm Regards,

Lorie

Although I didn’t set out to write a “self-help” book, I did set out to help… myself, and it occurred to me that quite often the things which help me the most are things I figure out on my own.  So that’s what I set out to do.  In this case, I wanted to help myself become more aware, especially more aware… of me, and that included becoming more aware not only of what I think, but how it’s affecting me.  I guess you could say I wanted to live… more consciously.   One of the first things I discovered was that living consciously was not as easy as it sounded.  It meant I needed to be aware of my thoughts… which quickly showed me that most of my thoughts occur completely outside of my awareness.  Naturally I’m aware that I’m thinking, but I’m seldom aware of how that thinking is affecting me.

So I decided to write about it and then organize it into chapters.  I began each chapter by asking myself why I thought the way I did about a variety of different things, and soon I realized that perhaps it was time for me to rethink a few things.  My book reflects a lot of that rethinking.  As a result, each chapter underwent multiple rewrites.  In the earlier versions, I found myself picturing other people in my mind as I wrote, but it wasn’t until I began picturing myself that the message hit its mark, and I began to connect the dots.  I suspect the same will be true for you.  Once my book is released, if you find yourself picturing other people while you read, please give the chapter another go-round picturing yourself instead.  I promise if you make an honest effort of it, the outcome will be very different the second time around.

Please note that I did not draw upon any formalized training or expertise in the field of self-help.  I do not have that type of expertise or training.  Instead I drew upon hours and hours of contemplation, isolated reflection, as well as some occasional good old horse sense.  Looking back, perhaps that was the point:  What I discovered was that it wasn’t so much the training, formal or otherwise that would be the key to living more consciously… as it would be the “re”-training.  In order to live more consciously, what I needed was to re-train myself, and that began with a realization that my ability to live more consciously would rest largely on my willingness to do so.  In other words in order for me to live more consciously, I had to commit to more conscious living.  I had to commit not only to observing and paying attention to what I was thinking, but also to figuring out how that thinking was affecting me.  In essence, I had to become aware of the relationship I was having… with myself.

So… having done so now for the greater part of three and a half years, I am convinced that of all the relationships I have in life, the one that matters most… is the one I have with myself.  Writing this book has helped me shift the relationship I have with myself by shifting the conversations I have with myself.  And yes, just like you, I have conversations with myself.  All the time.  In my head.  Just like you.  Just like everyone.

See… these conversations, the ones we are having with ourselves, are what enable us to live consciously.  It’s really just a matter of waking up to these conversations.

So maybe the work I’ve done to wake up to my conversations will inspire you to wake up to your conversations, and you’ll find yourself living more consciously, too.