Dr. Christine Hoch LLC

01/21/2026

I didn’t pick up Rooted because I was feeling especially spiritual or inspired. I picked it up on a day when the world felt loud and brittle and I was tired of being told that disconnection was normal. I expected something gentle, maybe even comforting. What I didn’t expect was to feel quietly confronted.

This is not a book you breeze through. Not because it’s dense, but because it keeps interrupting your habits of thought. I found myself pausing, not to admire the language, but to notice how often I move through the natural world as if it’s background scenery instead of something I’m participating in. That realization wasn’t soothing. It was unsettling.

Lyanda Lynn Haupt writes where science, nature, and spirit overlap, but she refuses to let any of them become decorative. The science here is real and grounded, not symbolic. The spirituality isn’t abstract or lofty, it’s embodied and sometimes inconvenient. Rooted doesn’t ask you to feel awe and move on. It asks what awe requires of you once the feeling fades.

What makes this book stronger than many nature and spirituality books is that it doesn’t flatter the reader. It doesn’t assume you’re already living in harmony with the earth just because you care about it. It gently but persistently exposes the gap between appreciation and responsibility, between saying we belong and actually living as if we do.

As I read, four lessons kept resurfacing, not as neat takeaways, but as challenges that lingered.

1. Interconnection is not poetic language, it’s a measurable reality
Haupt grounds her work in ecology, biology, and systems thinking, showing how deeply entangled life truly is. This isn’t about feeling connected, it’s about recognizing that our choices ripple outward whether we acknowledge them or not. The book makes it harder to pretend our lives are self contained.

2. The way we speak about nature reveals how we treat it
One of the more uncomfortable insights in Rooted is how language shapes dominance. When nature becomes a resource, a backdrop, or something to manage, relationship disappears. Haupt doesn’t scold, but she does make you notice how casually we separate ourselves through words, and how that separation shows up in action.

3. Belonging is not a feeling, it’s a practice
The book quietly dismantles the idea that belonging to the earth is automatic. Yes, we are part of it, but reciprocity matters. Attention matters. Care matters. Belonging isn’t claimed, it’s lived, repeatedly, through how we show up in the places we inhabit.

4. Wonder carries responsibility, not escape
This may be the book’s most challenging thread. Awe is not presented as an endpoint or a refuge. It’s presented as a beginning. If wonder doesn’t change how we behave, consume, and pay attention, then it becomes another form of passive appreciation. Rooted doesn’t let wonder off the hook.

This isn’t a book that will appeal to everyone. It’s slow. It resists urgency. It asks more questions than it answers. And for readers looking for easy reassurance or quick inspiration, it may feel demanding, even frustrating at times. But that’s also its integrity.

Rooted doesn’t offer a fantasy of returning to nature as a cure all. It offers something harder and more honest: a reckoning with how far we’ve drifted, and what it might actually take to live differently.

By the time I finished, I didn’t feel elevated or comforted. I felt more awake. More accountable. More aware of where I stand and what I participate in every day.

And in a world that profits from numbness and distraction, that kind of rootedness feels less like inspiration and more like a necessary disruption.

BOOK: https://amzn.to/3LQfZle

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01/20/2026

Some memories refuse to stay quiet, they sit at the edge of our lives, shaping how we love, how we fight, how we hide, and how we show up. That is the quiet but powerful truth beating at the heart of What Your Childhood Memories Say About You. This book does not ask you to relive your childhood for nostalgia, it asks you to listen to it, because according to Kevin Leman, your earliest memories are not random snapshots, they are emotional fingerprints. They reveal how you learned to survive, to matter, to belong. Listening to the audio book, with Chris Fabry’s warm and steady narration, felt like sitting across from someone who knows where the wounds hide, but speaks with gentleness, humor, and deep respect for the human heart.

1. Your earliest memory is a message, not a photograph: Leman reminds us that our first memories are not about accuracy, they are about meaning. What you remember is what mattered emotionally, not historically. If your first memory carries fear, abandonment, competition, or shame, it often mirrors how you learned to interpret the world. Listening to this part felt confronting and relieving at the same time. Confronting because it asks hard questions, relieving because it explains why certain reactions feel automatic. Your memory is not betraying you, it is explaining you.

2. Childhood coping skills often become adult patterns: The book gently exposes how behaviors that once protected us can later imprison us. The child who learned to please to stay safe may become the adult who cannot say no. The child who learned to stay invisible may become the adult who feels unseen even in a crowd. Leman does not shame these patterns, he honors them, while inviting growth. The narration here carries compassion, as if saying you survived the best way you knew how, now you are allowed to choose again.

3. Birth order and family roles leave emotional footprints: Kevin Leman is well known for his work on birth order, and in this book, he weaves it seamlessly into memory interpretation. Oldest children, middle children, youngest children, and only children often remember different emotional climates even within the same home. One child remembers pressure, another remembers neglect, another remembers being adored. This lesson hit deep, because it explains why siblings can argue over the same childhood and both be right. We were not shaped by the same experience, we were shaped by the same house differently.

4. Your memory reveals what you feared losing most: One of the most tender insights in the book is this, your earliest memory often reveals what you feared would be taken from you. Control, love, safety, approval, attention. When Leman explains this, it feels like someone gently lifting a veil. Suddenly the anxiety, the overworking, the withdrawal, the emotional walls, they make sense. We guard what once felt fragile. This lesson invites grace, toward yourself and toward others.

5. Awareness is the doorway to healing, not blame: The book is clear, understanding your memories is not about blaming parents or rewriting the past, it is about reclaiming responsibility for your present. Leman’s tone, beautifully echoed by Fabry’s narration, is firm but hopeful. You cannot change what shaped you, but you can change what shapes you next. This lesson carries quiet power. It does not rush healing, it simply opens the door and says, you are allowed to walk through.

6. You are more than your memories, but never separate from them: Perhaps the most emotional lesson of all is this, your memories explain you, they do not define you. Leman repeatedly emphasizes choice, growth, and intentional living. Your story is still being written. Listening to this part felt like being reminded of dignity, that even with wounds, misunderstandings, and unmet needs, you are not broken. You are becoming. The past has a voice, but it does not get the final word.

Book/Audiobook: https://amzn.to/4a1cRw6

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01/20/2026

There's a moment most of us have had, usually in the middle of an argument, when you say something you can't take back. Not because you meant it. Because you were flooded—anger took over, logic left the room, and your mouth moved faster than your brain could stop it.
And afterwards, sitting in the wreckage of what you just said, you think: why did I do that? I knew better. I'm smarter than this.
Daniel Goleman wrote "Emotional Intelligence" because he realized something that changed psychology forever: IQ isn't the best predictor of success. EQ is. Your ability to understand and manage emotions—yours and other people's—matters more than how smart you are on paper.
The book isn't about suppressing feelings. It's about not letting them drive the car while you're locked in the trunk.

1. Your Emotions Hijack Your Brain
Goleman explains the amygdala hijack—when your emotional brain takes over before your rational brain can intervene. Fight or flight kicks in. You react instead of respond. You're essentially a very intelligent reptile for about ninety seconds.
Most damage in relationships, careers, and life happens in those ninety seconds. Learning to pause, to notice you're flooded, to wait before you speak—that's emotional intelligence. Not being emotionless. Being aware enough not to let emotions make decisions you'll regret.

2. Self-Awareness Is the Foundation
Goleman says most people go through life on autopilot. Reacting to feelings without noticing them. Mood swings they can't explain. Patterns they can't break because they don't see them.
Self-awareness means knowing what you're feeling while you're feeling it. Recognizing: I'm anxious. I'm defensive. I'm projecting. That awareness creates a gap between stimulus and response. And in that gap, you get choice.

3. Empathy Isn't Agreement
Here's what surprised people: Goleman defines empathy as understanding someone else's emotions, not necessarily sharing them or validating them. You can understand why someone's upset without thinking they're right.
This matters because most conflicts happen when people feel misunderstood. You don't have to fix it or agree. You just have to show you get it. That shift alone de-escalates most situations.

4. You Can Learn This
Goleman's most hopeful point: emotional intelligence isn't fixed. You're not born with a set amount. You can develop it through practice, feedback, and intentional effort.
Notice your triggers. Name your emotions. Pause before reacting. Ask what someone else might be feeling. Small skills that compound into completely different relationships, careers, lives.

BOOK : https://amzn.to/3LkzcLO

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01/17/2026

I opened Rooted without fully realizing what kind of book it was, and then I found myself slowing down, reading paragraphs twice, not because they were difficult, but because they felt true in a way that asked to be absorbed. This is one of those books that doesn’t rush you. It settles into you.

Lyanda Lynn Haupt writes at the meeting point of science and reverence, and she does it without forcing the two to compete. Facts breathe here. Data hums quietly alongside wonder. She shows, again and again, that modern science is not dismantling mystery, it’s confirming what ancient cultures, poets, and mystics have always known: nothing lives in isolation. Not trees. Not animals. Not us.

Lessons that took root:

1. Interconnection is not a metaphor
Science now confirms what wisdom traditions have long taught: every living thing shapes and is shaped by everything else.

2. Language shapes relationship
The words we use for nature reveal whether we see ourselves as participants or conquerors.

3. Belonging is reciprocal
The earth sustains us, but it also responds to how we show up, care, and pay attention.

4. Wonder is a form of responsibility
Awe isn’t passive; it changes behavior. What we revere, we protect.

5. Rootedness is an ethic, not a location
To be rooted is to live with attentiveness, humility, and presence, wherever you are.

Rooted is a quiet, necessary book for this moment in history. It doesn’t offer easy answers, but it restores something more valuable: a sense of place, responsibility, and hope grounded not in escape, but in deeper connection.

BOOK: https://amzn.to/4qS4hFy

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01/15/2026

01/13/2026

Finding Joy

01/12/2026

In a world that equates success with gregariousness, visibility, and constant stimulation, the introvert’s natural disposition can feel like a liability. The pressure to "put yourself out there" and "speak up" often leads to exhaustion, self-criticism, and a sense of being fundamentally out of sync with a loud, fast-moving culture. You may find yourself drained by social demands, yet also feeling guilty for your need for solitude, creating a cycle of depletion and stress. This is the quiet crisis of the modern introvert that Dr. Arnie Kozak’s The Awakened Introvert: Practical Mindfulness Skills to Help You Maximize Your Strengths and Thrive in a Loud and Crazy World meets with profound insight and gentle guidance. This book is not a manifesto to convert introverts into extroverts, nor a simple celebration of bookishness. It is a practical, Buddhist-inspired framework that marries the science of introversion with mindfulness practices, offering a path to not just cope, but to thrive by harnessing introverted qualities as superpowers for a more conscious, centered, and authentic life.

Kozak’s approach is that of a clinical psychologist, mindfulness teacher, and self-identified introvert. He blends neuroscience, personality theory, and Buddhist psychology (particularly the concept of the "Five Aggregates") into a coherent system for self-understanding and skillful living. The book is structured to first validate and explain the introverted brain's unique wiring—its sensitivity to dopamine, preference for deep processing, and tendency toward overstimulation—before introducing specific mindfulness techniques tailored to its needs. It is grounded in the empowering principle that introversion is not a flaw to be fixed, but a way of being to be skillfully managed and celebrated. The introvert's path to thriving is one of strategic engagement and mindful withdrawal. Kozak masterfully moves between explaining the physiological basis of introversion, offering simple yet potent meditations (like "Mindful Walking" and "Body Scan for Overstimulation"), and providing practical strategies for navigating draining situations like meetings, parties, and small talk. It provides not just solace, but a toolkit: how to use "Introvert Intervals" to recharge during busy days, how to practice "Mindful Listening" to transform conversations, and why the Buddhist concept of "non-self" can liberate you from the exhausting task of maintaining a rigid, social persona. The tone is calm, knowledgeable, and deeply reassuring—the voice of a wise teacher who understands the inner landscape from the inside out. This book argues that mindfulness is the introvert’s natural ally, a practice that turns innate traits of reflection, sensitivity, and depth into sources of resilience, creativity, and peace.

Core Truths from The Awakened Introvert

1. Introversion is a Neurobiological Reality, Not a Preference.
The introverted brain has a higher level of internal activity and is more sensitive to external stimulation (like dopamine). This isn't a choice; it's a wiring that requires respectful management, not judgment.

2. Your Energy is a Finite Resource to Be Budgeted.
Introverts operate with a "limited social energy budget." Thriving requires becoming a conscious energy accountant—planning for depletion, scheduling recovery, and spending your social capital wisely on meaningful interactions.

3. Overstimulation is the Primary Cause of Introvert Stress.
The pain of social situations often isn't the people, but the sensory and cognitive overload—noise, chatter, multitasking demands. Mindfulness practices that anchor you in the present (like focusing on the breath) can directly dial down this overwhelm.

4. Solitude is a Required Nutrient, Not a Luxury or a Flaw.
Alone time is not antisocial; it is the essential condition for an introvert to process experiences, recharge the nervous system, and connect with their own thoughts and creativity. It must be prioritized without guilt.

5. Mindfulness is the Bridge Between Your Inner World and Outer Demands.
Meditation trains the very skills introverts need: observing without reacting, creating inner space amidst chaos, and responding thoughtfully instead of impulsively. It makes the gap between stimulus and response a place of power.

6. You Can Engage Socially From a Place of Authentic Presence.
Instead of forcing a performative "extrovert mask," you can learn to engage through mindful listening and speaking. This allows for deeper, more satisfying connections that are less draining because they are real.

7. The "Five Aggregates" Model Explains Your Experience.
Buddhist psychology's model (form, feeling, perception, mental formations, consciousness) provides a brilliant framework for deconstructing moments of social anxiety or overstimulation, allowing you to see them as impersonal processes, not personal failings.

8. Your Sensitivity is a Form of Intelligence.
The depth of processing, attention to nuance, and emotional receptivity that can lead to overwhelm are also the sources of empathy, insight, and creativity. The task is to protect and channel this sensitivity, not numb it.

9. Setting Boundaries is an Act of Self-Compassion.
Learning to say "no" to excessive social demands, to leave events early, or to ask for quiet is not rude; it is a necessary form of self-care that honors your neurobiology and preserves your well-being.

10. The Goal is Integration, Not Isolation.
The awakened introvert does not retreat from the world. They learn to move between the inner sanctuary of solitude and the outer world of engagement with intention and grace, using each realm to enrich the other.

The Awakened Introvert is an indispensable, validating, and practical guide for any introvert seeking to navigate an extroverted world with less stress and more joy. Arnie Kozak provides the unique alchemy of scientific explanation and ancient contemplative practice, offering a path that feels both intellectually sound and soulfully right. This book is for the overstimulated professional, the socially anxious student, the creative who needs solitude but fears missing out, and any introvert tired of feeling like they need to be "fixed." It offers no tricks to become someone you're not, but it delivers a powerful, mindful operating system for becoming the most centered, resilient, and authentically engaged version of your introverted self.

BOOK: https://amzn.to/49rzMiR

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01/11/2026

Take the extra few minutes

Try this shower meditation...

01/11/2026

Yes you can!

You are never as trapped as your mind tells you.

🌱 You can completely recreate yourself.
Not slowly. Not someday. But the moment you decide.

Nothing in life is permanent — not pain, not fear, not failure, not who you used to be. Everything changes. And that includes you.

🧭 You are not stuck. You have choices.
Even when circumstances don’t change, direction can.
Even when the past is heavy, the future is still unwritten.

🧠 You can think new thoughts.
Thoughts are habits — and habits can be replaced.
What you repeat becomes your reality.

📚 You can learn something new.
A new skill. A new way of seeing. A new way of responding.
Learning is how the old self dissolves.

🔁 You can create new habits.
Tiny changes done daily can rebuild an entire life.
You don’t need motivation — you need commitment.

🔥 All that matters is this moment.
Not yesterday. Not ten years ago.
Today is powerful because it’s the only place change can begin.

🚪 Decide today.
🚶‍♂️ Walk forward.
🪶 Stop carrying what no longer belongs to you.

You don’t have to go back and fix everything.
You just have to move forward with awareness and courage.

🌄 Rebirth doesn’t need permission.
It begins with a decision — and the refusal to look back.

Start now.

01/08/2026

Thank you Dr, Glowacki for this research synopsis.

01/08/2026

When I stumbled on this book, I realized how easily we underestimate the quiet power of our thoughts. Every belief we hold — about love, success, or self-worth — quietly writes the story of our lives. And yet, most of us never stop to ask: What kind of story am I telling myself every day?

You Become What You Think reminded me that the mind isn’t just a place where thoughts happen — it’s the soil where destiny grows. What you feed it becomes who you are. What you repeat becomes what you believe. And what you believe becomes what you live.

About the Book

You Become What You Think distills centuries of wisdom — from psychology, philosophy, and spiritual truth — into simple, practical reflections on how to shape your life from the inside out.

The author explores how thoughts shape emotions, actions, and ultimately, results. It’s not just about positive thinking; it’s about conscious thinking — about becoming aware of what you nurture in your inner world and choosing to think in ways that support your highest potential.

The book feels like both a mirror and a mentor — it doesn’t preach, it awakens.

8 Profound Lessons from You Become What You Think
1. Your outer world mirrors your inner dialogue

Every situation in your life is shaped, in some form, by your inner conversation. When your thoughts are filled with fear, doubt, or scarcity, life echoes that vibration. But when your mind is rooted in gratitude, confidence, and purpose, life bends in your favor. Change doesn’t begin with action — it begins with awareness.

2. What you focus on expands

The mind doesn’t distinguish between what you want and what you fear — it simply magnifies what you pay attention to. This means every time you replay your worries, you’re feeding them energy. Every time you visualize your goals, you’re watering them into existence. The universe grows what your mind nurtures most often.

3. Thoughts are seeds — choose them wisely

Each thought is a seed, and your mind is the garden. You can’t grow roses if you keep planting thorns. The author reminds us that negativity isn’t harmless — it’s a silent gardener that shapes the world around you. Cultivate faith, gratitude, and possibility, and watch your external world begin to bloom in their image.

4. Belief is the bridge between thinking and becoming

It’s not enough to think — you must believe in the truth of your thoughts. The book teaches that belief gives thought its power. You can think “I’m capable” a thousand times, but if you don’t believe it, your actions won’t follow. Real transformation happens when belief aligns with purpose — when your mind and your heart finally agree.

5. Your self-talk is your most consistent teacher

Every day, you are teaching your subconscious who you are through the words you speak to yourself. When you call yourself lazy, unlucky, or unworthy, your mind adjusts to prove you right. But when you speak life, even in uncertainty, your brain begins to rewire toward confidence. Talk to yourself as someone you love — because your mind is always listening.

6. Emotions are feedback, not identity

Your emotions are not who you are — they are signals showing where your thoughts have been. Sadness, anger, or fear are not failures; they are invitations to look deeper. Instead of fighting how you feel, the book encourages you to trace the feeling back to the thought that created it. Healing begins when you stop judging emotions and start understanding them.

7. The subconscious creates what you repeatedly imagine

The subconscious mind accepts repetition as truth. Every time you visualize success, joy, or healing, you are programming your inner world to expect them. Likewise, constant worry trains your subconscious to look for danger. The author urges you to rehearse faith as much as you rehearse fear — because what you mentally rehearse, you eventually live.

8. True power is inner mastery

The highest form of success isn’t control over others — it’s control over your own thoughts. Life will always be uncertain, but peace belongs to those who can calm their inner storms. When you master your mind, you stop reacting to the world and start creating from it. Every challenge becomes a classroom, and every thought becomes a brushstroke on the canvas of your life.

Final Take

You Become What You Think is more than a book — it’s a quiet revolution. It doesn’t promise quick fixes; it invites you to take full responsibility for the energy you bring into your world.

It’s the kind of book that makes you pause mid-sentence and whisper, “So this is where it all begins.”

It reminds you that peace, success, and happiness don’t start when life changes — they start when your thoughts do.

Because every great transformation — every healed heart, every renewed dream, every reborn soul — begins the same way:
With a single, conscious thought that says,
“I choose better.”

Book/Audiobook: https://amzn.to/4jrrFY6

12/31/2025

December has a way of stripping things down. The noise softens, the year exhales, and you’re left alone with the truth of how you actually lived, not how you meant to. That’s where this book found me. Not in a season of ambition, but in a season of honesty.

The Let Them Theory isn’t loud or complicated. It doesn’t demand reinvention. It offers something far more unsettling and far more freeing: permission to stop managing everyone else’s emotions so you can finally live your own life.

Mel Robbins names the exhaustion many people carry without realizing it has a source. The constant calculating. The overexplaining. The self editing. The quiet habit of choosing what keeps the peace over what tells the truth. Over time, that habit doesn’t just drain energy, it erodes identity. You forget where your preferences end and other people’s expectations begin.

The idea at the heart of this book is deceptively simple. Let them be disappointed. Let them misunderstand. Let them form opinions that don’t include the full context of your heart. Not as an act of rebellion, but as an act of self respect. Because the truth is, they were always going to feel what they feel. The only difference is whether you sacrifice yourself trying to prevent it.

What makes this book powerful is not the concept itself, but what it exposes. How often “being kind” is actually fear. How often “being flexible” is self abandonment. How many promises we break to ourselves while keeping everyone else comfortable. Mel doesn’t frame this as selfishness. She frames it as maturity. You are allowed to choose alignment over approval. You are allowed to disappoint others without disappointing yourself.

There’s a quiet shift that happens as you read. You begin to notice how much mental space is reclaimed when you stop rehearsing reactions that aren’t yours to carry. Decisions become cleaner. Boundaries become simpler. Not easier, but clearer. And clarity, unlike motivation, lasts.

This book doesn’t promise that life will suddenly become calm. In fact, it’s honest that choosing yourself may temporarily make things messier. Some people won’t like the version of you that no longer explains, negotiates, or performs. The point is that their discomfort no longer gets to be the deciding factor.

The Let Them Theory is not about detachment from people. It’s about attachment to yourself. To your values. To your limited energy. To the life that keeps asking for your participation instead of your permission slips.

This is a book for anyone standing at the edge of a new year or a quiet breaking point, realizing that effort has never been the problem. Control has. And release might finally be the answer.

Not let go of your dreams.
Not let go of your standards.
Let go of the belief that you are responsible for how everyone else feels about you living fully.

Let them react.
Let them talk.
Let them be confused.

And notice what remains when you stop shrinking.

That’s not selfishness.
That’s your life, returning to you.