InnerSelf

by Ken Druck, Ph.D. “Live in the moment!” bumper stickers cry. “Live in the now!” self-help books declare. Movies like The Bucket List preach the importance of living life in all its fullness before your time on earth is up. And yet, “being in the now” is easier said than done, right?

by William R. Yoder. Desire and manifestation: This is clearly one of the most popular topics in the self-help and happiness literature today. The prevailing idea is that we will be really happy when all of our current desires are manifested — when we become and have everything we want. The positive or negative effect that desires have on our lives is...

by Dr. Joe Dispenza. By your mid-30s or 40s, you wake up every morning and you feel like the same person. Your environment, which you relied on so heavily to remove your pain or guilt or suffering, is no longer taking away those feelings. This is the midlife crisis that most people know about...

by Brooks Palmer. Giving yourself permission to let go of what doesn’t serve you is very powerful. You will become highly energized. People who have done clutter busting on their own have told me about how they were enjoying the feeling of openness and freedom. Then suddenly, it became too much, and they stopped the clutter bust.

by Robert L. Leahy, Ph.D. Problematic ways of seeking support -- acting like a victim, rejecting help, getting angry at people “for not understanding,” pouting, and escalating your complaints so that they sound like reports of catastrophes -- are likely to backfire and drive people away. However, you can learn to ask for help in a reasonable way.

by Karen Pine & Ben [C] Fletcher. Do you have a favourite coffee mug and get a bit miffed if a guest inadvertently uses it? Do you have 'your' side of the bed? We all have an affinity with repetition and habit, often when there's no good reason for it. It's just familiarity, our comfort zone.

by Marie T. Russell. Many times we seem to experience life as if we have no power to make changes -- no power to make a difference. If you don't feel powerful, or if you feel that power is unavailable to you, take a look at where, in your daily life (and in your past), you have relinquished your power.

by Starhawk. Mediation is appropriate in cases of miscommunication or misunderstandings, to clear up hurt feelings and hurtful interactions. Mediation implies that we can find a win-win solution, that no one is either completely right or completely wrong and that both parties can come to share a mutual purpose.

by Mary Anne Radmacher. I knew the joys were there but I'd opted out of readily seeing them. For a period of six months every time I was aware of something drawing a literal YAY out of me, I wrote down whatever it was that caused it...

by Bronnie Ware. When I left yet another 'good job' to go and live on the island, confusion reigned. 'Why would she do that? Where is she going to this time?' And through all of this I was just thinking with excitement, 'I'm going to live on an island!'

by Imre Vallyon. Most of us find it difficult to change things. If you look at ordinary life and ordinary people, you will discover that they also find it very difficult to change things. Some people haven’t changed since they left school. At eighty years old they are still the same as when they left school...

by Alan Cohen. I recently painted a deck on my house. I enjoy painting, a meditation in being present that doesn’t require much thought but lots of attention. Your hands may get dirty but your mind will stay clean. With just a few planks left to color I noticed I was almost out of paint...

by Mary Anne Radmacher. Complain­ing draws attention away from all the good things that unfold. It's as if complaint puts a mask over our sight: too busy identifying what is wrong, all the things that are right march on by. While there are so many motivations behind complaining...

by Lisa McCourt. What if the things you hate most about your current situation are your greatest blessings in disguise? What if everything that’s ever unfolded in your entire life has been the precisely necessary thing to bring you to this mysteriously perfect moment? If that...

by Ashley Davis Bush, LCSW. When you catch yourself complaining about the weather, stop. Sim­ply say, “Really? I love this weather.” Usually that produces a shock effect. Remember that all kinds of weather are necessary to keep this earth healthy. So...

by Roy Holman. Be yourself. Just be yourself. Well, maybe this is not so easy. Does the thought of being yourself, speaking your truth, and expressing your passion stir feelings of confusion or frustration? Does it bring up fear or anger? Were there times in your life when...

by Napoleon Hill. People who do not succeed have one distinguishing trait in common. They know all the reasons for failure, and have what they believe to be airtight alibis to explain away their own lack of achievement. As you read the list, examine...

by Julia Cameron. There are few emotions as uncomfortable as resentment. An old say­ing sums it up well: "We drink the poison and then wait for the other person to die." Resenting others, we do poison ourselves. When our energy is spent on...

by BJ Gallagher. In her wonderful book, The Wealthy Spirit, Chellie Campbell describes how, when she was a girl, her mother taught her to play “The Glad Game.” “The Glad Game” is another name for a Gratitude List and helps you focus on what’s right in your world today, instead of what’s wrong...

by Linda Star Wolf. Daily dedication and a willingness to heal our past will automatically move us forward on the spiral path of transformation. When we let go of old, outworn patterns that no longer serve us, we can energetically free up space in our psyches so that learning from the future becomes not only possible but the most...

by Alan Cohen. Considering the challenges facing humanity, one might wonder if it’s time to put less emphasis on activity and more emphasis on awakening. Less what and more why. The form of life is the chalice through which we drink the essence of life.

by Bruce Weinstein, PhD. It’s easy to be kind or loving to someone you like. The challenge is to do so when you have to deal with someone you can’t stand. Why should you bother to be loving toward the contemptuous, the hateful, the miserable, or people who are simply annoying?

by Agapi Stassinopoulos. For years, I looked at myself through the prism of trying to “fix” myself. It was subtle, out of sight, like a current underneath the smooth surface of a river, but it was altering the flow of my life...

by Julia Rogers Hamrick. It is vital that we learn to tell the difference between a prompt­ing from our Spirits and one coming from the fearful ego — our own, or those of others. Any call to action not coming through your Spirit as inspiration can probably be labeled as a should, an...

by David Ian Cowan. When Lynn Grabhorn was asked, “What is one simple thing I can do now to help prepare for the Shift?” her reply was, “Learn to be grateful”. She suggested the practice of extending gratitude for all the little things we take for granted and of developing an “attitude of gratitude.”

by Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo. What does Buddhism mean by non-attachment? Many people think the idea of detachment, non-attachment, or non-clinging is very cold. This is because they confuse attachment with love. But attachment isn’t genuine love — it’s just self-love.

by Dr. Susan Bauer-Wu. Living amid the busyness of our high-tech and low-touch society takes us away from fully experiencing our day-to-day lives. We often live on autopilot, doing without experiencing. We can be quick to judge, react, resist, run away, or retreat when things don’t...

by Marie T. Russell. Many of us have been holding back and storing unfelt emotions. What's the purpose? Unfortunately, the reason behind suppressed emotions is self-defeating. Holding back from "feeling your feelings" is usually how we try to protect ourselves from being hurt. However...

by Thubten Chodron. In order to stop pointing out others' faults, we have to work on our underlying mental habit of judging others. Even if we don't say anything to or about them, as long as we are mentally tearing someone down, it's likely we'll communicate that through...

by Barbara Berger. Ask yourself what is actually preventing you from being happy right now, right this very moment? If you are honest with yourself, you will probably say it's because you don't have what you want. This could be ...

by Daphne Rose Kingma. One process for attaining clarity used by the Quakers is called the clearness committee. In it a person convenes a group of at least four people to ask him or her questions on an issue about which he or she wants clarity.

by Marie T. Russell. Many of us find it hard to forgive. Yet, what if we had to forgive the killer of our son, or wife, daughter, husband... Would we be able to forgive in that situation? Would we want them to be sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of parole?

by Alan Cohen. It is becoming clear to me that the way most of us have lived our lives has not been in harmony with the way the universe intended. It seems that we have somehow lost touch with the loving flow of life, our rhythm of being, our sense of peacefulness about ourselves and satisfaction with what we are and what we are here to do.

by Robert L. Leahy, Ph.D. Self-criticism takes the form of blaming yourself (It’s all my fault), labeling yourself (I can’t believe how stupid I am), hating yourself (I can’t stand myself at times), doubting yourself... What is self-criticism good for?

by David Ian Cowan. I think this is as good an explanation for the Shift of Ages as any. As the 1960s poster said: “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” Bringing this reasoning back to the personal sphere, doesn’t it make sense to...

by Paulo Coelho. When asked how he had become so successful, he replied, that until days ago he was living as the “Other”. “What is the Other?” asked Pilar. “The Other believes that the obligation of man is to spend a lifetime thinking about how to have security...

by Nicola Phoenix. Feeling accepted seems to feature so highly in our lives. We set such great store by how others perceive us. Even amongst people you would count as close acquaintances, do you let them see the real you?

by Marilyn J. Sorensen, Ph.D. People with low self-esteem have believed the worst about themselves so strongly and for so long that they readily discard any feedback that contradicts their belief. They are unable to trust compliments and praise and often unknowingly twist such comments to mean the opposite.

by Caroline Myss, Ph.D. Often in my readings I was simply validating the suspicions, insights, or intuitions that they already had about themselves and the changes they needed to make in their lives. Sometimes these readings ignited an inner physical and spiritual healing process.

by Ashley Davis Bush, LCSW. Look at the people in other cars in front of you, behind you, passing around you, and recognize that each one of them is just like you: They want happiness and they want to be free from suffering. To each person you focus on say or think something like...