Teresa Mull of Pennsylvania was not happy with what she was seeing in the world — and she suspected others might feel that way, too.
In her new book, "Woke-Proof Your Life," which is out August 15, Mull reveals how and why she decided to "woke-proof" her own life — and how others who are concerned about what's going on around them can "woke-proof" theirs as well.
Her subtitle is "A Handbook on Escaping Modern, Political Madness and Shielding Yourself and Your Family by Living a More Self-Sufficient, Fulfilling Life."
"I was inspired to write this book because there seems to be so much angst and anxiety and anger in the world, and it's not the same America that we were living in even three years ago prior to COVID," said Mull during an interview with Fox News Digital.
She is an assistant editor at The Spectator World, a policy adviser for education at The Heartland Institute and a columnist for The Philipsburg Journal.
Americans, she said, are "more overweight than we've ever been, and we're more addicted to substances. Mental health illnesses are at a crisis level."
As for why Americans are suffering this way, Mull theorized that "wokeness" is "the culmination of really what is making people so stressed out, so anxious, so miserable."
"Wokeness," she said, is "a socio-political ideology characterized by the manipulation of noble goals by which radical left-wing ideologues control America."
She added, "Basically, it is political correctness on steroids."
In writing the book, Mull said she interviewed "tons of Americans who are already living a woke-proof lifestyle" in an attempt to "harness their knowledge, their insight and their optimistic spirit."
Her book explains and expands on these and other ideas.
Her first suggestion for "woke-proofing" one's life will already be familiar to millions of faith-filled Americans.
Join a church community — of any kind — she suggests. Mull herself is a Catholic woman.
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"My No. 1 suggestion in the book is, 'Seek ye first,'" Mull told Fox News Digital.
The culprit in a woke society, she said, is "that as a nation, we are losing our faith in God and in our Judeo-Christian values," noting that polls show a decline in church attendance and belief.
"That goes hand-in-hand with the rise of wokeness," she said.
Joining a church community, as well as "seeking God in nature," is the "best place to start," said Mull.
Another easy step, she said, is cutting down on technology use, especially when feeling bored.
"I encourage people to be really aware of how they're using their phones and their TVs and what they're absorbing," she said.
"We only have so much time in this world," she said. "So if you're paying attention to what you're eating, what you're putting into your stomach and your mouth, but you're not paying attention to what's going into your eyes and your ears and your mind and your soul — that's a big problem."
Mull believes that technology and social media are the sources of "a lot of our misery."
She said, "If you're not looking at your phone and if you're reducing your screen time, then you're not letting wokeness in."
Mull also encourages parents to speak up if they believe "wokeness" is creeping into their kids' activities.
Wokeness is becoming in a sense like nose blindness, when a person stops smelling something after constant exposure to it, said Mull.
"It is a powerful poison," she said.
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It is important to remember, though, that those who are opposed to this are often not in the minority, even if it may seem to be, she said.
"We've seen through both statistics and also through just the American attitude toward things like the Bud Light controversy and the Dodger Stadium stuff to Target pushing other things that there are more Americans who are anti-woke then who are pro-woke," said Mull.
"There's not that many people, actually, who identify as woke," she said. "So the numbers are on your side."
She added, "I encourage people, especially parents, to remain vigilant. Whenever you see wokeness seeping in, stand up and say something. And chances are, if you say something and you push back, other parents will join you."
Mull said that one of her biggest surprises in working on the book was finding out how many people were already living a woke-proof lifestyle.
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"I was succumbing a little bit to that feeling of isolation, like I was the only one," she told Fox News Digital.
"But I reached out to a couple of people whom I thought would be good resources for the book, and they connected me with five people, and those five people connected me to five more people," she said.
"And next thing I knew, I was overwhelmed with the number of people who were doing all the things that I wanted to write about in the book."
This experience reinforced Mull's other beliefs about the use of technology.
"It's so important to put down the phone and to go out and actually communicate with your neighbor and meet up with people in person and talk to them face to face, because they can't cancel you from doing that," she said.
"They can't cancel you from having a backyard picnic," she added.
Teresa Mull in "Woke-Proof Your Life": An aspect of our culture I find noteworthy, but woefully underreported, is the fading significance of death in modern society.
Traditional funerals with a viewing and burial are on the decline and have been for some time. People are now more likely to hold a "celebration of life" and burial service "at a later date convenient to the family."
Scattering ashes that can't be revisited or opting for an urn that is never picked up from the funeral home are common practices.
What’s more, the blessings of modern medicine, technology and safety advancements mean we don’t experience the reality of death that was prevalent a couple generations ago — thank God — before antibiotics, automation and so many remarkable discoveries increased our life expectancy.
Sudden, sometimes tragic death was much more common 100 years ago, and when someone died, the community would be presented with his corpse laid out in the parlor of the family home, where people would pay their respects and literally come face to face with death.
Now, as our society distances itself from death and avoids the thought of mortality and eternity more and more, the less we consider how our behavior in the here and now affects what comes after — and even if there is an "after."
We’ve also become so accustomed to constant comfort that minor inconveniences vex us disproportionately (the airport is a good place to observe this fact).
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Discomforts are also, in general, much easier to allay than they’ve ever been. As our ability to "seek pleasure and avoid pain" becomes cheaper and easier, we lose an appreciation for the reward won from hardship.
That suffering could be beneficial is a foreign concept in a time in which there’s a treatment for every ache, pain, "crepey skin," receding hairline, pudgy thigh and overheating knee (seriously, how are you living without the Calming Comfort Cooling Knee Pillow?).
Sometimes it seems as if a huge swathe of our society is living inside an infomercial, obsessed with "self-care" and creature comforts.
The more entrenched this self-absorption becomes, the more we breed a soft, lazy, childish civilization hell-bent on hedonism and the types of tantrums the spoiled, woke left is always throwing.
Excerpted with permission from "Woke-Proof Your Life" by Teresa Mull, copyright © 2023 by Teresa Mull.
