The more we intend to uncover the parts of us complicit in creating self-defeating patterns such as addictive behaviors and codependent relationships -- and how we're always dragged down by this unconscious proclivity -- the more liberating discoveries we will make. It's a law: Ask to see the truth (of yourself) -- then do what you must to be granted that revelation...

The first step to breaking out of any rut in life is to no longer enable the parts of us that keep walking in them while wishing they weren't so deep.

Once we awaken to see that each of our lives is an integral part of an eternal turning point, and that nothing changes in this great Life without changing everything within it, then we can let go of trying to change ourselves and simply take our natural place, participating in the power of the Life Awakened. This principle is critical to us if we want to understand how we find a life greater...

In those times when we're busy dreaming up the next plan, the next love, the next thrill, aren't we really looking for a way to renew ourselves? Most of us experience "renewal" when some idea or a hope that we have gets fulfilled, filling us in turn with a sense of excitement; and then, in that feeling of being full of ourselves, comes a certain kind of pleasure that we take as being the same...

Have you ever wondered why our best intentions and the ability to accomplish them seem to live in two different universes? We intend not to do something mean-spirited or otherwise self-defeating. Yet that is often just what we do. Then we ask, "What happened... how could we?" Yet, for all of our questioning, this mystery remains unsolved. See if the following insight doesn't shed much-needed...

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...

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...

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...

As long as we have been on this planet, wise teachers have shared great truths about the real cause of the pain in our lives. And all of them pointed in exactly the opposite direction from where we've always tended to look. The enemy is not what we think it is. The real adversary in our lives, that proverbial thorn in our side that leaves us aching and angry, and then sends us looking for some...

To enter the true Now, where a timeless intelligence awaits, awake within itself, requires first that we align ourselves with the eternal principles that are its secret foundation. Let's look into one of the most fundamental of these empowering principles taught by every great teacher: We reap what we sow. In these so-called progressive times, this all but forgotten principle is as simple a...

We frequently feel ourselves to be under the power of things. We feel we are the victims of an unfair social system, economic upheavals, painful relationships -- even a lawn chair that won't unfold right. We fight these conditions, feeling ourselves to be under their "dark" influence. The fact is, however, these events do not exist as negative events except for our perception of them. The only...

Why do we accept so much unhappiness in our lives today? If you think this supposition is untrue, ask yourself why people spend so much time seeking ways to distract themselves with empty pleasures? Or why so many people push themselves along one spiritual path after another, blindly hoping that something will happen to mitigate their sense of...