To believe that we’re only as worthwhile as others agree to see us burdens us with feeling that winning the good opinion of others is somehow our responsibility. Such a mistaken mindset leaves us the perennial victim of our relationships, and never the victor in them. The only way we can be released from any painful sense of false responsibility is to see that it is based in a false belief...

"Do you know why you want freedom? To know why you want freedom, you must know what you want freedom from. And most of us do not know that idea of 'freedom from' -- other than when we're in a bad relationship. What you want is freedom from pain. You want freedom from fear. Freedom from self-doubt. Freedom from feeling inadequate. Freedom from being alone...."

I'm sure we can all agree that no intelligent, conscious person would ever intentionally hurt themselves. 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, knowing in...

We have within us a new, higher vantage point -- a very special part of ourselves within which we may be at peace regardless of what goes on around us. This yet-to-be realized state of ourselves may be called conscious self-awareness. Through its power, instead of being pulled down into painful identification with the passing shadows of life, we can discover a life in a peace far above the rea...

Ask yourself: how many times have I won the object of my desire, only to find out that it wasn't enough? How familiar do the following statements seem to you? "This is the greatest thing that's ever happened... but what if..." "I love you... but..." "This moment is almost perfect... all it needs is..." The prize won, whatever its name, doesn't end the feeling we have of needing...

Can we see how, in one form or another, everything in creation longs to touch and to be touched? Flowers and trees stretch their leaves and limbs up to the sun, just as it reaches down to touch them. After all, to what end the timeless nature of such radiance, if not to grant life to whatever forms it temporarily animates?

In this answer to a viewer's question, "letting go" author Guy Finley talks about the difference between observing a particular psychological condition -- such as feeling a lack of energy -- and resisting the condition.

Think about all the finish lines you've managed to cross in your lifetime where you thought you were an uncontested winner. Let's name a few: "They said I was great!" "She said she loved me!" "I made the deal!" "At last I own what I've always wanted!" "The crisis is over at last." "I beat the odds!" "Now I know I'm a good and wise person." Then comes that untimely, unkind, or unexpected...

The more clearly we can see that it's impossible to reach a place of rest by rushing to get there, the sooner we'll arrive at the true solutions that allow us to relax, slow down, and realize the relaxed pace of an inwardly liberated life.

Far more important to our inner success than coming upon so-called secret "how-to" practices -- or those who would teach them -- is the work to awaken our awareness of our need to be more awake. It is this awareness alone that remains our true friend and ally upon the path. Here is why: Our willingness to remain in the emerging awareness -- this Light in the darkness of ourselves -- helps t...

As we are coming to see, within each of us dwells a Light -- an awareness capable not only of observing the host of invisible forces that forge life itself, but whose conscious interaction with them changes them as it will. It is through this higher order of ourselves that we are empowered to learn the truth about ourselves. And here the word truth means not just intellectual self-knowledg...

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,...