Topics covered: Real self-transformation requires self-knowledge; Certainty is nothing but masked uncertainty that is really the wish to be secure; Be more interested in observing your reactions than you are interested in what those reactions say you need to do in order to be free from the disturbance. See what reactions tell you is true about the moment; Challenging the mystery of your reactions is the same as challenging the mystery of yourself...

Self-realization author Guy Finley talks about how the unattended mind is the breeding ground of self-defeat. The unattended mind always goes into thought, hoping to reconcile the disturbance that thought created in the first place. Observing this dynamic as it takes place in the mind is how we rise above everything that has defeated us in the past.

There is a simple, self-evident truth, a certain kind of insight that is the ground of self-realization. It is actually the ground of a person's gradual entrance into a new level of being. Using a simple analogy, the more still the waters are in a lake, the truer the reflections from that body of water. If the surface is rippled, you see nothing. If it's just barely rippling, you see just some of what is being reflected from above.

Self-observation is the key to a higher order of awareness; it is how we learn to become inwardly vigilant to our own thoughts and feelings, even as they pass through us. To observe yourself means that you can't be self-absorbed. Higher awareness through self-observation increases your field of choices, because this elevated inner position places you high above the game and lets you see all...

To go quiet, you must go within and become an impartial witness to the life of your own thoughts and feelings.

Imagine for a moment you're driving home from work, and that you've just come from having a pretty rough day. As you drive along, your eyes see the road before you, but your mind is in the past. It's very busy re-running all of the day's unpleasant events. Over and over again, you feel that painful stab of some thoughtless remark someone cruelly blurted out, or the embarrassment of that stupi...

When you want to know the powers that circulate through a quiet mind, you must take yourself to that place where this silent strength can make itself known to you. To go quiet, you must go within.

Too frequently we feel as though our lives are under the power of things outside of us and beyond our ability to deal with: prisoners in one way or another of an unfair social system, impossible work conditions, an unforgiving past, or a failed relationship. Even trying to assemble a build-it-yourself bookshelf that doesn't know it "goes together with ease" can lock us away in the "house of pain."

In this answer to a viewer's question, "letting go" author Guy Finley shares some insights about staying present as the observer of fast and furious thoughts, as opposed to getting pulled down into their world.

Negative states are not mandatory; believe it or not, they are voluntary! Proving this to ourselves is the first step in walking out of the psychological prison created by our current misperception of reality. Imagine for a moment you're driving home from work, and you've just come from having a pretty rough day at the office. As you drive along, your eyes see the road before you, but your...

In this short video, Guy talks about the difference between observing thoughts versus identifying with every thought as if it were your own.