How I Monk #24 - Debra's Story

May 21, 2025 Monk Manual

This is the twenty-third in our series of emails called “How I Monk.” In this series, we will be highlighting + celebrating members of the Monk Manual community as they’ve meaningfully applied our tools and resources to find peaceful being and purposeful doing in their everyday lives. If you’d like to be featured in a future “How I Monk,” share your information with us here… #HowIMonk

Name: Debra Hughes

Occupation: Civil Engineer

Location: Union, Michigan, USA

A bit about who you are and how you spend your days:

I am 63 and work full time. I live in Union Michigan, just north of the Indiana/Michigan border and work in Elkhart, Indiana. My husband, Chris, and I have been married for 20 years. It’s the second marriage for both of us. We each have two adult children from our first marriage, ages 39 to 31. I work as a civil engineer. My work creates civil engineering designs for clients who need to build a factory, office building, retail store, agriculture buildings, or to expand a facility they already have. The project will include land surveying to identify the property boundary and features. Then the civil engineering work develops a plan for the property with a building, pavement, landscape, grading, drainage, sanitary sewer and water services, and erosion control plans. We design and prepare construction plans. Then the plans are submitted to the government agencies that have jurisdiction for review and approval. After approvals, the construction plans are used by a construction contractor to build the project. Every project is different with different challenges, which keeps it interesting. I lead a team of 4 in our engineering group. We all work for a national company that provides land surveying, engineering, and other related services. I have a B.S. degree in civil engineering from Purdue University and a B.A. degree in pre-engineering from DePauw University, both in Indiana. I have done this work for 40 years and still enjoy it.

Chris and I live in the country on 15 acres of property. 14.5 acres are native woodlands. Some of the trees are over 100 ft tall. I love walking in the woods and working in the yard with my flowers and plants. I have a vegetable garden in the summer and love gardening. Working outside is a great stress reliever and offsets days in the office working on a computer.

Do you have a favorite prompt or section?

So many things are so important to me. The daily action list and daily calendar helps me plan the next day the evening before. This helps me to stay on top of the planned items each day. The looking forward to section forces me to find something good to enjoy and look forward to each day. This was important to my mental shift to finding joy again. The gratitude list on the left page are three big picture things I am grateful for the evening before the day. The highlights help me celebrate the happy, exciting, and fulfilling moments each day. I was at my best helps me celebrate myself and my daily victories. I felt unrest helps me feel the fear and anxiety that comes up each day and think about it, pray about it, and let it go. This helps my mental and emotional health tremendously.

What originally drew you to the Monk Manual?

My son gave me the Monk Manual as a Christmas gift in December 2020. It was a very low point in my life at work. He was using it and thought I might like it. He didn’t know I was struggling. I wanted to give it a try. It didn’t make sense to me, but I just filled out the pages and wanted to see if anything would happen.

Practical Monk Manual Tip:

Every day, in the one way I can improve, I write “relax and trust you God”. Fear and anxiety are daily challenges for me. I exhale and breathe in trust in God to guide, direct, and protect me. I also write the food I have eaten during the day. This keeps me accountable with my eating. I am a recovering compulsive overeater. In the To-Do, I write a longer gratitude list of the specific things I am most grateful for that day. In the dotted section on the right, I write a list of all the things I need from God today. This keeps me connected spiritually.

When you were first getting started, what part of the Monk Manual did you struggle with most?

I didn’t like that the books were made in China. After a year, I bought the pdf version. Now I print out the pages and have a three ring binder that I use every evening. The month page made the least sense to me. But I did it anyway. The daily and weekly pages I was able to put to use and saw value in right away.

How has your life changed since using the Monk Manual?

My daily life has changed dramatically for the better since starting MM.
Imagine the smallest change you could make. MM was that small change.
The most important conversation each day is with myself. MM gives me a daily conversation with myself.
Important questions deserve daily reflection. But life is distracting. MM gave me a system to ponder the important questions every day.
I need a new level of consciousness to get unstuck. MM gave me a new level of consciousness.
What is going to give me a new perspective? MM gives me a new perspective.
Flourishing comes from an environment specifically designed to bring it about. MM is designed to help me flourish.
Genius is taking something complex and making it simple. (Einstein). MM made the important questions of life simple.
I experience life through the mystery of myself. MM helped me to see myself more clearly.
Rediscovering the joy of living and working again. MM showed me the adjustments needed to find joy in living and working again.
Obligation to put myself first. MM helped me put myself first.
Cheerful relaxation and celebrate the day. MM helped me celebrate each day.
Time was passing, and I had no sense of where I was or where I was going. It was a terrible feeling. MM gave me a way to see the value of each day, week, and month and create a plan to use that time to the best of my abilities.

What suggestions would you give to new Monk Manual users?

Just do it. Trust that it was developed using safe and valuable methods. Give it a chance to see what can happen. The worst thing that can happen is that nothing changes. The best thing that can happen is that it gives you a new perspective on life and on yourself.

If you’d like to be featured in a future “How I Monk,” share your information with us here.