Every day we are attacked by a multitude of pains, so frequent and so familiar we don't even question them. In fact, we accept them as friends, as something to occupy us. These pains can range from petty irritations to the anxiety we feel every time we write a check and see our bank balance decrease, to concerns about our health. One of the major sources of pain involves other people and our relationships with them.

In a thousand different ways, we are meant every day to begin to realize that it’s so easy to just run on automatic. Everything just goes on, doesn’t it? It just goes on. Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it’s bad. But it just goes on. We are meant to understand that as long as we live from...

Every one of us knows -- from somewhere deep in the heart of us -- we were not created to spend our lives contesting whatever dominates us in the moment. And yet, we can see how each unwanted state that washes over us is replaced by another state of some similar ilk. It's pretty clear: we're never truly in possession of ourselves, unless we believe that not wanting to be...