Sometimes we feel discouraged because our past efforts to meaningfully change our lives have not prevailed over what challenges us. We think, why bother to try now? Perhaps we are disheartened because one of our main hopes for happiness suddenly proves hopeless. Maybe we get downcast some days because our body, or our mind, is no longer capable of doing what it once could in our younger years...

Before you can step out of the rush and into your own life, you must first see that while anxious, hurried feelings often lend a temporary sense of self-importance, these same racing emotions actually rob you of the power you need to be self-commanding. A brief investigation will confirm this finding. Self-command begins with being able to choose your own direction in life. And whether you're...

The next time you run into some familiar blockage or begin to feel unsuited to face some new and difficult personal challenge, don't do what you've always done before. Don't try to think your way around it. You no longer want a way around your troubles because what goes around, comes around! What you want is to grow beyond the level of that disturbance. And to do that, you must not act from...

The following key lessons are taken from 365 Days to Let Go. Use their insights to help free yourself from the self-inflicted punishment of complaining. Until we become conscious of how many more times a day we complain about our life than we feel gratitude for the gift of it, we not only miss the taste of life's secret sweetness, but we continue to sow the bitter seeds of our own sorrow.

All creatures in life are created to reach their natural fruition. The Great Life generously provides all of them with everything they need to fulfill their promise. This same abundance holds true for our spiritual awakening as well. Everything we need to succeed is forever raining down upon and within us. The spiritually awakened life is not something that one achieves, like an award for fin...

We find it natural to seek relief from the world around us, a world appearing to be one stronghold atop another of stressful conditions and anxiety-producing events. Accordingly, we seek relief from these contentment-crushing states by struggling to change those circumstances we see as being responsible for their cause. Think of all the ways we've attempted to escape those unwanted pressures...

It is impossible to change the relationship that you have with the world around you without changing the relationship that you have in yourself, with yourself. Before you can become the kind of human being who never again hurts another -- either in thought or deed -- you must change the relationship you have with yourself. This is the secret teaching of the ages. Inside of it, we learn about...

We are made to be self-correcting, so that each real correction effected in us elevates us above the dark and limiting influences we have been living under all our lives. Like moving from a hot desert to a cool mountain retreat, each discovery of what darkens our path in life moves us toward higher, happier ground. And though we may not yet understand how this works in us, each time we catch a...

"I want to be brave when it comes to cutting myself loose from self-destructive situations, but each time I even get close to letting go, I get really scared. And when I get scared, I seem to hold on to everything even tighter! Is there a way to get past this fear? I loathe the idea that I may be too frightened to find freedom." "Yes. There is a way past this part of yourself that would rathe...

I'm sure we can all agree that no intelligent, conscious man or woman would ever intentionally hurt him- or herself. 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,...

What about you? Are you sure you have to go down with that ship called an abusive relationship, substance abuse, or the self-pity that always attends these punishing states of self? Do you see yourself as someone addicted to something, and believe this sinking condition is the way it has to be? Does it feel as though there is no way out from under that barrage of negative thoughts and feelings...

As we all know, there are trying times when states of discouragement literally dog us -- following us around as if they're waiting for us to fall down, never to rise again. On these days, our own lackluster emotions are hounded by thoughts barking at us that nothing is right with our lives. Sound familiar? On these same days, even our smallest wish to part ways with these painful states gets p...