Before we can hope to shatter the pattern of familiar conflicts in our relationships, we need a new level of understanding to take with us into those same moments.

Here are just ten small places in our lives where we are trying to do the impossible -- struggling to do what cannot (and need not) be done -- and where, because of our misunderstanding, we unknowingly hurt ourselves.

Behind every bitter disappointment lives the presence of a sweet light whose power can turn any unwanted event into a new kind of victory not yet imagined.

The reason perfect love casts out fear is because any unwanted condition willingly embraced loses its power over us.

Any wave of resentment, anxiety, or fear that comes to wash you away is nothing more than a kind of psychic residue left over from who you once were.

How many of us look out ahead of ourselves at some unwanted event that looms too large, and find ourselves feeling out of control... headed for what seems an unavoidable collision? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to reach down inside of ourselves, grab hold of the controls of our own consciousness, and pull ourselves up? To quietly watch that would-be mountain of a problem, whatever it is, jus...

There is nothing in the universe that can stop us from growing, except our habitual, mechanical nature.

I'm sure we can all agree that no intelligent, conscious person would ever intentionally hurt themselves. No one would choose to ache. Yet the fact remains that all of us do hurt ourselves every day with bursts of anger or fits of depression or anxiety. Even at the simplest level, there can be no doubt: fear and worry take an immeasurable toll on our health and well-being. So, then, knowing in...

When you begin to doubt everything you believe about your suffering, you will see that you never had to remain in the path of those destructive storms at all.

It's well known that storm-tossed waves often expose new treasures along the shoreline; there is unexpected wealth to be collected by those who know the secret value of rough seas. And yet, even though most of us have little tolerance for anything that "rocks our boat," the truth of the matter is self-evident: *Unwanted moments introduce us to parts of ourselves that would otherwise never get...

Once we start to see, to know in our innermost heart, that life itself is already complete, we can let go of whatever -- or whoever -- would have us believe otherwise. Old attachments and their long-standing aches are now seen for being what they have always been: appendages of days gone by, worthless to the Higher Self we have agreed to become and by whose stillness we realize this need for a...

Whenever we find ourselves in some "unwanted" part of ourselves, perhaps reliving an old heartache or caught in the throws of some irrepressible anger, old fear, or unyielding worry, part of this unwanted moment includes our certainty that we're trapped in this condition. And compounding our confusion over feeling ourselves captive in this way are all of the attending negative inner voices. Th...