ED: Hello. I'm Dr. Ellen Dickstein. Welcome to a Fireside Chat with bestselling inner-life author, Guy Finley. Today I thought we would talk about happiness. We all spend probably 99.9% of our time and energy doing things that we think will make us happy. Yet, judging by the way most people walk around, and by the state of the world, we're not doing a very good job of it. Guy, where are we goi...

There are those who avoid -- at all costs -- being tested by life. There are those who wait, in fear, for life to test them. Then there are the rare few who choose to use life to test them in every moment they can remember to do so. Of these three types, which do you think grows in courage and faith, in strength and compassion? To answer correctly, and then to act on this wisdom, is the sp...

You don't have to believe that there's a fearless world above your present mind. You can live within its perfect order any time you choose. Make this choice for your own freedom starting right now.

Do you have any words of wisdom that may help in weight loss? I am struggling with ill health, and have been questioning dietary guidelines. My dilemma is whether or not we are to eat raw or cooked food. Actually I know that raw or live food is good, and that cooked food, according to some research, may not have much nutrition in it. I think of a forest fire whose aftermath of ashes actually n...

The biggest problem facing us as individuals today is that we have all been caught up in the race of looking for relief. Our time would be spent far more profitably looking for strength. When caught in a fierce storm, why scramble to find a cave at the foot of the mountain when the same energy can be used to climb? There is a choice. You can tremble within the cave, or live above the tempests...

If anxious thoughts and feelings had any power to help us reach some place in life where, finally, we'd be released from the pain of always feeling rushed... don't you think we'd have reached there by now!...

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,...

The one who dares to go beyond what he thinks he can do will always meet a point where he has a choice to either return from where he has just come, or to remain where he is...in a world where he is without power. And yet, if he will only linger there long enough, if only he will stay true to his wish to be (made) new -- he will be given whatever power he needs to succeed where he is, a powe...

Only consistent, persistent inner-work can bring us to the threshold of the "Truth that sets us free." And yet, the following is equally true: the liberation we seek will continue to elude us until every effort to know the truth of ourselves - by thinking about ourselves - has proven useless.

Have you ever looked down at a sidewalk or parking lot and marveled at a single blade of grass that had somehow found the will and the way to break through the pavement and out into the fresh air and sunlight? When we think of a titanic struggle, we don't usually think of a little seed of grass buried in the darkness and fighting to get out in the light. And yet, even though we may...

By itself, no thought has the power to trouble us; its authority over us is equal to the extent we are deceived into identifying with its particular, temporary  character...

I understand the need to be aware of when I am thinking negative thoughts or going over in my mind past situations that didn't go well, however what do I do instead? Could it be as simple as turning my mind to something else such as an affirmation that I can tell myself at those times?