Chicken Soup for the Soul with Amy Newmark

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and I want to share a couple of stories with you today from our new book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Pets, Pets, Pets. This is such a fun book. I haven't counted but I think there are at least 40 kinds of pets in this new collection, every kind of furry, feathered, scaly, flying, walking, swimming, slithering, indoor or outdoor, tame or wild, tiny or gigantic pet imaginable. No matter what kind of pet people have, their stories are all about how their pets provide them with companionship, comfort, understanding and lots of life lessons. Plus a lot of laughs and entertainment. And so much good stuff for kids, who really bond with their pets, often using those pets to help them through whatever tough times they are facing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and I want to share a couple of stories with you today from our new book about The Spirit of Christmas. This collection is the perfect way to get your holiday spirit going in time for Hanukkah and Christmas and all the other winter holidays that we enjoy while it's getting darker and colder and we need to bring light into our days. And what I love is all the big and small miracles that see in this book, two of which I'm going to share with you today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and I want to share a couple of stories with you today from our new book about The Spirit of Christmas. We're in full holiday mode now, but maybe you're still looking for that holiday spirit, and for me, I have to say that the most important part of that spirit is the joy of giving. That's what seems to get people excited the most. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and I want to share a couple of stories with you today from our newest book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Pets, Pets, Pets. This is the first time in decades that we've done a book about pets that is not just about dogs or cats. I haven't counted but I think there are at least 40 kinds of pets in this new collection, every kind of furry, feathered, scaly, flying, walking, swimming, slithering, indoor or outdoor, tame or wild, tiny or gigantic pet imaginable. No matter what kind of pet people have, their stories are all about how their pets provide them with companionship, comfort, understanding and lots of life lessons. Plus a lot of laughs and entertainment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and I want to share a couple of stories with you today from our new book about The Spirit of Christmas. This collection is the perfect way to get your holiday spirit going in time for Hanukkah and Christmas and all the other winter holidays that we enjoy while it's getting darker and colder and we need to bring light into our days. And since it's Wednesday that means I'm sharing miracle stories with you today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and I want to share a couple of stories with you today from our new book about The Spirit of Christmas. The holidays are always filled with moments of triumph and also many moments of defeat, like when there's a total gift failure or a kitchen blowup. And often those disasters involve turkeys, which many of us make no more than once a year, for Thanksgiving or for Christmas Day, or maybe even only once in a lifetime. They may be once in a lifetime events, but they sure do create long-lasting stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul, and today I'm going to share two stories with you from Chicken Soup for the Soul: Time for Christmas. The holidays—Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year's Eve, etc. are a great time for family bonding and that's what today's stories are about—a couple of great ideas for how to do that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul, and today I'm going to share a couple of stories with you from our new holiday book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Time for Christmas. I don't know about you, but when it comes to the holidays I'm a lot more accepting of cutesiness, and shininess, and a lot of decorating approaches that I wouldn't accept at any other time of year. And that's why today's stories are about the theme “Can You Really Be Too Tacky at Christmastime?” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul, and today I'm going to share two stories with you from Chicken Soup for the Soul: Time for Christmas. There's something about the holiday season that sends parents into overdrive, with all the planning and moving parts, and strategizing about gifts and hoping that children who are grown and gone will still come home for the holidays. And that often involves a little motherly scheming, which is what our two stories are about today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and I'm pleased to share new stories with you from Chicken Soup for the Soul: Let It Go, which is our latest best-selling self-help book. The subtitle of the book talks about Forgiveness and Freedom, because that's exactly what you get when you use the power of forgiveness—you get freedom. You're really only hurting yourself when you don't let go of the bad things from your past – the hurt, the disappointment, the resentment. Usually, the person you're mad at doesn't even know and is happily leading his or her own life… while you sit there stewing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and it's Wow Wednesday, which means it's time for a couple of miracle stories. Today's stories are about miraculous healing – of a horse in one story and a kestrel, which is a bird of prey, in the other. These stories are brand new to us and are from our latest book, out just in time for holiday shopping, which is all about pets – every kind of pet you can imagine, whether it lives inside or outside your home, and whether it walks, flies, swims, or slithers. I think we must have about 40 different kinds of pets in this new book, and of course a bunch of dog and cat stories as well. It was really fun to read the thousands of stories that were submitted and choose the 101 that made it into the book and be able to present such a wide variety of pets and pet experiences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and I want to share a couple of stories with you today from our new book about The Spirit of Christmas. This collection is the perfect way to get your holiday spirit going in time for Thanksgiving and Hanukkah and Christmas and all the other winter holidays that we enjoy while it's getting darker and colder and we need to bring light into our days. These stories are about what happens when you think that Christmas is ruined but then you come around to finding the true spirit of Christmas after all. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and I want to share a couple of stories with you today from our new book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Pets, Pets, Pets. This is the first time in decades that we've done a book about pets that is not just about dogs or cats. I haven't counted but I think there are at least 40 kinds of pets in this new collection, every kind of furry, feathered, scaly, flying, walking, swimming, slithering, indoor or outdoor, tame or wild, tiny or gigantic pet imaginable. No matter what kind of pet people have, their stories are all about how their pets provide them with companionship, comfort, understanding and lots of life lessons. Plus a lot of laughs and entertainment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul, and it's Wow Wednesday, which means that today I'm going to share a couple of awe-inspiring stories with you. These are from our latest book about Hope, Faith & Miracles, and they're about how listening to that little voice inside you can be exactly the right thing to do even if you don't understand why you are having that impulse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and I want to share a couple of stories with you today from our new book about The Spirit of Christmas. I know we haven't even gotten to Thanksgiving yet in the U.S., although it already happened in Canada, but before you know it we'll be thinking about putting up those Christmas trees. So in our new book, after we spend chapter 1 talking about turkeys, we move on to trees in Chapter 2. Because there are so many ways to “do” a tree, as it turns out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and some much needed comic relief. We have it for you in the form of our latest humor book, because if laughter is the best medicine then this is your prescription. I know some people think that Chicken Soup for the Soul is all about self-help or heartwarming stories but no, this is the eighth humor book that we've published since I became publisher in 2008. It's filled with funny stories from 100 different writers, many of them making fun of themselves and sharing their most embarrassing moments. We've got stories about domestic disasters, wedding snafus, wardrobe malfunctions, words that came out wrong, marital mishaps, and all the other ways in which we find humor in our daily lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul. I've got more funny stories for you from Chicken Soup for the Soul: Laughter's Always the Best Medicine. And today we're talking about husbands and wives, and with wedding season coming this seems appropriate. Couples love to tell those slightly embarrassing hilarious stories about each other, and so do their kids. So let's get started with a story by Sharon Pearson about a mistake that her father made that has become one of her family's favorite memories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and I would imagine if you've been watching the news you might be looking for some comic relief. Well, if laughter is the best medicine then we have your prescription in the form of our latest humor book. I know some people think that Chicken Soup for the Soul is all about self-help or heartwarming stories but no, this is the eighth humor book that we've published since I became publisher in 2008. It's filled with funny stories from 100 different writers, many of them making fun of themselves and sharing their most embarrassing moments. We've got stories about domestic disasters, wedding snafus, technology traumas, wardrobe malfunctions, words that came out wrong, mistaken identity, and all the other ways in which we find humor in our daily lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your daily dose of Chicken Soup for the Soul. Today is Halloween, and I've been saving one of my favorite stories all year to tell you today. It's from Chicken Soup for the Soul: I Can't Believe My Dog Did That! and the story is called “Trick or Treat.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul, and it's Wow Wednesday. I always try to share awe-inspiring or surprising stories with you on Wednesdays, and I have a whole new collection of them in a fun book we just published called Chicken Soup for the Soul: Hope, Faith & Miracles. We see a lot of stories about truly miraculous life-saving events that are really hard to explain, so I'm going to share a couple of those with you today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and I'm pleased to share new stories with you from Chicken Soup for the Soul: Let It Go, which is our latest best-selling self-help book. I didn't really understand the power of forgiveness to change my life until I started doing this editor-in-chief job at Chicken Soup for the Soul 18 years ago. I always thought that the word “forgiveness” meant that you were excusing the person who hurt you, saying that it was okay. But it turns out that “forgiveness” doesn't mean that. What it actually means is that you have decided not to keep reliving all the negative feelings associated with whatever bad thing happened to you. You may even come to understand WHY it happened and what drove the other person to act that way, which enables you to NOT take it personally. Because it was never really about you. It was about themselves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and I want to share a couple of stories with you today from our new book about The Spirit of Christmas. I know it seems a bit early for a Christmas book, but this is all about Thanksgiving too, and you know how retailers are—the moment Halloween is over the Christmas merchandise comes out, and they want our books in the stores by the middle of October. That's okay because many of us love Thanksgiving almost as much as we love Christmas, so we always devote a lot of pages to Thanksgiving and turkey disaster stories and creative cooking ideas, and lots of other around-the-table stories that will get you ready for the holidays in general. And of course, we have to start with a turkey disaster story because that's a holiday tradition for almost everyone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul, and it's Wow Wednesday. I always try to share awe-inspiring or surprising stories with you on Wednesdays, and I have a whole fresh crop of them for you from our latest bestseller, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Hope, Faith & Miracles. I made this new collection by going through tens of thousands of the stories in our library and picking out the ones I wanted to put together for this new anthology, just in time for holiday shopping. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and I'm pleased to share new stories with you from Chicken Soup for the Soul: Let It Go, which is our latest best-selling self-help book. The subtitle of the book talks about Forgiveness and Freedom, because that's exactly what you get when you use the power of forgiveness—you get freedom. You're really only hurting yourself when you don't let go of the bad things from your past – the hurt, the disappointment, the resentment. Usually, the person you're mad at doesn't even know and is happily leading his or her own life… while you sit there stewing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and in these unsettling times that means you need a big dose of laughter. We have it for you in the form of our latest book, because if laughter is the best medicine then this is your prescription. I know some people think that Chicken Soup for the Soul is all about self-help or heartwarming stories but no, this is the eighth humor book that we've published since I became publisher in 2008. It's filled with funny stories from 100 different writers, many of them making fun of themselves and sharing their most embarrassing moments. We've got stories about domestic disasters, wedding snafus, technology traumas, wardrobe malfunctions, words that came out wrong, marital mishaps, and all the other ways in which we find humor in our daily lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul. There's a lot going on out there right now and it's confusing and divisive and no one is sure how it's all going to work out. So it's the perfect time for our new humor book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Laughter's Always the Best Medicine. Just go ahead and turn off the news, shut down your social media, and return to one of the most basic, and most healthy, skills that we have—and that is humanity's ability to laugh at itself. Our new collection of funny stories documents the mishaps and misadventures of daily life, as shared with us by about 100 different people. What I want to share today is two stories about mistaken identity, but not of the human variety. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and in these unsettling times that means you need a big dose of laughter. We have it for you in the form of our latest book, because if laughter is the best medicine then this is your prescription. I know some people think that Chicken Soup for the Soul is all about self-help or heartwarming stories but no, this is the eighth humor book that we've published since I became publisher in 2008. It's filled with funny stories from 100 different writers, many of them making fun of themselves and sharing their most embarrassing moments. We've got stories about domestic disasters, wedding snafus, technology traumas, wardrobe malfunctions, words that came out wrong, marital mishaps, and all the other ways in which we find humor in our daily lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark, and I'm excited today to introduce you to our latest coloring book for kids and adults. This one is called the My Very Good, Very Bad Cat Coloring Book. It's our second coloring book about cats and it's a full-fledged, super-high-quality adult coloring book that ALSO contains 37 full-length Chicken Soup for the Soul stories! We looked at all the popular high-end coloring books on the market and we made ours the same as those – with high quality paper, perforated pages so you can frame them, and art that has the just amount of complexity for coloring. Then we added in those 37 stories, and 37 coloring pages with images that go with the stories. You can find the coloring book at all the online merchants as well as in some big box stores that have coloring book sections, including Kroger and Meijer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul, and it's Wow Wednesday. I always try to share awe-inspiring or surprising stories with you on Wednesdays, and I have a whole new collection of them in a fun book we just published called Chicken Soup for the Soul: Hope, Faith & Miracles. We see a lot of stories about truly miraculous life-saving events that are really hard to explain, so I'm going to share a couple of those with you today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and I'm pleased to share new stories with you from Chicken Soup for the Soul: Let It Go, which is our latest best-selling self-help book. I didn't really understand the power of forgiveness to change my life until I started doing this editor-in-chief job at Chicken Soup for the Soul 18 years ago. I always thought that the word “forgiveness” meant that you were excusing the person who hurt you, saying that it was okay. But it turns out that “forgiveness” doesn't mean that. What it actually means is that you have decided not to keep reliving all the negative feelings associated with whatever bad thing happened to you. You may even come to understand WHY it happened and what drove the other person to act that way, which enables you to NOT take it personally. Because it was never really about you. It was about themselves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and I want to share another couple of stories with you today from our book about why Self-Care Isn't Selfish. We talked about self-care all summer… and now we're looking forward to the holiday season when you will probably be way too busy and not necessarily taking the best care of yourself. So this is a reminder that you need to treat yourself once in a while, and not just save all the good stuff for everyone else. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul, and it's Wow Wednesday. I always try to share awe-inspiring or surprising stories with you on Wednesdays, and I have a whole fresh crop of them for you now, because we've just published a new book called Chicken Soup for the Soul: Hope, Faith & Miracles. I put this new collection together by going through tens of thousands of the stories in our library and picking out the ones I wanted to put together for this new anthology, just in time for holiday shopping. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and I'm pleased to share new stories with you from Chicken Soup for the Soul: Let It Go, which is our latest best-selling self-help book. So, you may have heard about the book by Mel Robbins called The Let Them Theory, which repositions how we should handle our lives, by letting go of things that aren't worth trying to control or are impossible to control. Why waste energy on those things? This life hack has been a big part of our messaging over the years, because it really works. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul. There's a lot going on right now and it's confusing and divisive and no one is sure how it's all going to work out. So this may be the perfect time for our new humor book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Laughter's Always the Best Medicine. I suggest you turn off the news, shut down social media, and return to one of the most basic, and most useful, skills that we have—and that is humanity's ability to laugh at itself. Our new collection of funny stories documents the mishaps and misadventures of daily life, as shared with us by about 100 different people. And one of the places where a lot of those funny things happen is in marriages, and I love the stories we get about spouses pranking each other or reporting on each other's various mishaps. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and in these unsettling times that means you need a big dose of laughter. We have it for you in the form of our latest book, because if laughter is the best medicine then this is your prescription. I know some people think that Chicken Soup for the Soul is all about self-help or heartwarming stories but no, this is the eighth humor book that we've published since I became publisher in 2008. It's filled with funny stories from 100 different writers, many of them making fun of themselves and sharing their most embarrassing moments. We've got stories about domestic disasters, mistaken identity, wedding snafus, technology traumas, wardrobe malfunctions, words that came out wrong, and all the other ways in which we find humor in our daily lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul. There's a lot going on right now and it's confusing and divisive and no one is sure how it's all going to work out. That makes it the perfect time for our new humor book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Laughter's Always the Best Medicine. So turn off the news, shut down social media, and return to one of the most basic, and most useful, skills that we have—and that is humanity's ability to laugh at itself. Our new collection of funny stories documents the mishaps and misadventures of daily life, as shared with us by about 100 different people. And one of the places where a lot of those funny things happen is in the kitchen, and while we're entertaining. We have a whole chapter of what we call Domestic Disasters in this new book, and I'm going to share a couple of those stories with you today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and I want to share another couple of stories with you today from our new book about why Self-Care Isn't Selfish. We've been talking about self-care all summer… because what better time than to reorient your life and remind yourself that self-care is not selfish; it's part of what you have to do to remain a functioning human being. So making a commitment to yourself should be a priority, at least for some amount of time each day or week. And you might say, well I'll do it later, when such and such thing happens… But when is the time ever going to be right? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul, and it's Wow Wednesday. I always try to share awe-inspiring or surprising stories with you on Wednesdays, so I went back to one of our older books and found a couple that I really love from one of our past bestsellers, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Miracles and the Unexplainable. That book is filled with stories of miracles, and healing, and insightful dreams, angelic intervention, divine timing, and just plain cool coincidences. And there are also lots of stories about answered prayers, including two very magical ones that I'm going to share with you today about a couple of mothers who prayed for their children and pulled off miracles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and I'm pleased to share new stories with you from Chicken Soup for the Soul: Let It Go, which is our latest best-selling self-help book. I didn't really understand the power of forgiveness to change my life until I started doing this editor-in-chief job at Chicken Soup for the Soul 18 years ago. I always thought that the word “forgiveness” meant that you were excusing the person who hurt you, saying that it was okay. But it turns out that “forgiveness” doesn't mean that. What it actually means is that you have decided not to keep reliving all the negative feelings associated with whatever bad thing happened to you. You may even come to understand WHY it happened and what drove the other person to act that way, which enables you to NOT take it personally. Because it was never really about you. It was about themselves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul. I'm continuing to share stories with you from our new book Chicken Soup for the Soul: Self Care Isn't Selfish. We all know that we need it, and that self-care is super important, but somehow we all put other things first. So how you do enable yourself to put aside that time that you need, that me time that helps you be the best version of yourself? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul, and it's Wow Wednesday. I always try to share awe-inspiring or surprising stories with you on Wednesdays, so I went back to one of our older books and found a couple that I really love from a fun read, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Listen to Your Dreams. You may think that dreams are divinely delivered into your brain. Or you may view dreams as your brain telling you stuff you should know but somehow are ignoring. Your brain gets a chance to tell you what you already know while you are asleep and more likely to pay attention. Whichever camp you're in, from all the thousands of Chicken Soup for the Soul stories I've read about dreams, I AM sure of one thing… that we should listen to our dreams. They are often a wonderful source of guidance… a kind of GPS for our lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and I'm pleased to share new stories with you from Chicken Soup for the Soul: Let It Go, which is our latest best-selling self-help book. You know, I always thought that the word “forgiveness” meant that you were excusing the person who hurt you, saying that it was okay. But it turns out that “forgiveness” doesn't mean that. What it actually means is that you have decided not to keep reliving all the negative feelings associated with whatever bad thing happened to you. You acknowledge that the bad thing happened, but you decide to stop having those same negative feelings over and over again. Forgiveness also means understanding WHY something happened. I can't tell you how many times I've realized that something bad that someone did to me wasn't about me at all. It was about something else going on in that person's life and there was no deliberate intent to hurt specifically me. When you learn not to take those bad things personally, and understand where those actions are coming from, it's much easier to move on and not carry any resentment forward with you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and I want to share another couple of stories with you today from our new book about why Self-Care Isn't Selfish. Why is self-care not selfish? Because it not optional. It's a necessary, powerful commitment to making yourself a priority. And one of those priorities is following your heart and doing what's right for you, even if other people are disagreeing with you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul, and it's Wow Wednesday. I always try to share awe-inspiring or surprising stories with you on Wednesdays, so I went back to one of our older books and found a couple that I really love from one of our past bestsellers, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Listen to Your Dreams. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and I'm pleased to share new stories with you from Chicken Soup for the Soul: Let It Go, which is our latest best-selling self-help book. I didn't really understand the power of forgiveness to change my life until I started doing this editor-in-chief job at Chicken Soup for the Soul 18 years ago. I always thought that the word “forgiveness” meant that you were excusing the person who hurt you, saying that it was okay. But it turns out that “forgiveness” doesn't mean that. What it actually means is that you have decided not to keep reliving all the negative feelings associated with whatever bad thing happened to you. You acknowledge that the bad thing happened, but you decide to stop having those same negative feelings over and over again. Because if you let the bad thing replay over and over in your mind, you're letting it – or the person that did it – occupy space in your mind. And that's not cool. You need to take back that space in your mind for yourself, not let someone else control it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and today we're talking about positive thinking because after all, it's the new year and it's time for some new perspective. Our book about 101 ways to think positive will give you lots of great ideas for adopting a new attitude, a new more optimistic approach to the ups and downs of life—and how about this?—motivation to reach out and make new connections. I don't know about you, but I always feel like I should be working on making new friends and expanding our social circle or at least remembering to keep up with existing friends. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul. This is the time of year when we are already re-examining our New Year's resolutions and deciding which ones are actually do-able. I want to share one today that is an all-year resolution for me and my husband, and that is to face our fears and have more fun as a result. We are constantly fighting off that tendency to NOT do something new, usually for some dumb reason like we don't know where to park there. But we've gotten way better about doing new things, eating new things, going to new places, having new experiences. So when you're thinking about your New Year's resolutions, you might want to add one about facing your fears or insecurities. And that's what I'm going to talk about today, with two stories from our new book about 101 ways to think positive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and today we're talking about positive thinking because after all, it's the new year and it's time for some new perspective. Our new book about 101 ways to think positive will give you lots of great ideas for adopting a new attitude, a new more optimistic approach to the ups and downs of life—plus it just happens to be very fun read. There are so many ways that our writers found their path to a happier life and their stories about how they got there are pretty entertaining. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul. It's that time when all those New Year's resolutions start looking a little less do-able than they did on January first. I've learned to be more reasonable and go for incremental changes in my habits. And one kind of resolution that I love is the resolution that you can do inside your mind, one that can work instantly… with no sweating or hunger pangs. So while you're improving your fitness or organizing your home, you can also do something that will make an immediate difference. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and today we're talking about positive thinking because after all, it's the new year and it's time for some new perspective. Our new book about 101 ways to think positive will give you lots of great ideas for adopting a new attitude, a new more optimistic approach to the ups and downs of life—plus it just happens to be very fun read. There are so many ways that our writers found their path to a happier life and these stories about how they got there are pretty entertaining. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul. It's time for all those New Year's resolutions and besides the obvious ones that most of us have every year – eat less and exercise more – I like to throw a couple of painless ones into the mix--resolutions that you can do inside your mind, ones that can work instantly--with no sweating or starving. And what we find is that positive thinking is one of those new things you can do right away, and a resolution that will make an immediate difference. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices