Life's Greatest Teachers: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

We may be born surrounded by people and circumstances who will set us gently on our journey -- or we may have more difficult conditions. Those who, on Earth, seem to be our harshest taskmasters, may be very close to us in our soul group.

The results can often be dramatic when people start to love themselves, give up pretending, and really learn how to relax. Two processes can happen spontaneously even when you are not having professional treatment: catharsis and abreaction. It can be a little alarming, but you will feel better as a result of it.

Most of us can access a supportive voice when we speak to small chil­dren or animals. That’s your Inner Nurturer voice! It may feel difficult to access if you haven’t practiced it very often, but it’s there. If you have trouble accessing your own Inner Nurturer voice, you can...

For the family and friends of people who self-injure, as well as the doctors and services that try to support them, a key question is often: why do they do it?

How many times have you found yourself in a repetitive cycle you just can’t seem to break? Are you back to that same old situation again, the one that makes you feel powerless and miserable? It’s easy to judge yourself harshly as you think, What happened? I did all that...

Many advertisements tell us that we are stupid or broken and need intelligence or fixing. How wonderful it feels -- and how powerfully it works -- to regard ourselves and each other as innately wise and capable of accomplishing anything we choose.

Affirmations are really anything that we say or think. We say, "I don't want this in my life" or "I don't want to be sick anymore" or "I hate my job".

If we accept that life is always trying to teach us exactly what we need to learn, we can view everything that happens to us as a gift. Even experiences that are uncomfortable or painful contain within them an important key to our healing, wholeness, and prosperity.

Sadness is a natural reaction to hurts and losses. When not expressed constructively, it silently eats at your heart until joy has to pack its bags and move out.

Suicide is one of the top 10 causes of death in the U.S.There are many factors known to affect an individual’s risk for suicide. For example, people who are older, male, white, divorced, low-income, isolated or who abuse substances are all at higher risk. Psychiatric illness, mood disorders and lack of social support are also...

Getting a good night of sleep can seem like the most effortless and natural thing in the world, but when we can’t fall asleep it can quickly feel elusive and frustrating. 

At the time I was diagnosed with bipolar, I had so little awareness of my body or stress levels that I literally had to be sobbing before I realized I was sad, or be awake for three nights running before I realized I was stressed and anxious. Learning to “hear” my body and mind has been a revelation for me, and a crucial part of my stability.

Ethical discipline is really a way of protecting yourself so that your efforts in spiritual practice can flourish without getting stomped to smithereens every other day, or every other year. The guidelines are fairly simple. There are ten that are enormously helpful in a general way. Bear in mind that they are all a protection for your own well-being, in solitude or in community...

When we become aware of our story lines -- the things we tell ourselves to keep from moving forward -- we can use affirmations to make our mental chatter more fluid.

When a habit forms, it indicates that the experience has been repeated a lot. When we call addictive behaviors “habits,” we mean the addict is doing drugs and engaging in drug-related activities so much, often to the exclusion of virtually everything else, that they become automatic.

Allow yourself to feel, hear, know, see, taste, and sense the energy transfer that is happening in this moment. With your free will ask yourself this very important question, “Are you willing to experience more joy in your life?” This seems like the simplest of questions and...

A lot of people experience various degrees of depression and anxiety. Even in good times, an average of sixteen million new cases of depression occur in the United States every year, leading me to ask, What is really going on here? Some of the antidotes to depression...

You’re not being offered one side of life that seems better than its opposite. You learn the knack for living peacefully with both sides of life—divine and human, light and dark, high and low, winning and losing, suc­ceeding and failing, loving and hating, order and chaos, happiness and sorrow.

Each of us is body, mind, and spirit, and of the three, it is our minds that can limit us. While the spirit is indeed most important, it’s our bodies that communicate messages from Source, because our bodies are solid, substantial forms that only relay truth. The more we listen to them, the better we accurately understand what’s happening in our lives.

Uncertainty in these times is the only certainty. That which has a beginning will end. In my own life, many years ago, a business decision to take on a partner nearly ended in disaster. Though fear and panic gripped my heart I knew that the only way to...

Have you ever been there — knocked to the ground by a traumatic event? Woken up one morning as someone you knew and in the midst of your busy day had it all suddenly change? In my case, I unexpectedly had joined the tribe of the traumatized — women facing cancer.

One of the most radical things a person can do is to see life as a good time. To make a decision to be happy. But make no mistake. Living life with joie de vivre is a revolutionary act. It takes vigilance. Few of us believe we get to choose. We think it's a matter of fate, a roll of the dice.

How can I tell you about the importance of feelings? It's like trying to tell you of the importance of the floorboards in your home. Most of the time we never really think about floorboards, but what if your home had none? There would be nothing to stand on. The same with feelings...

There are many life-paths you can choose, just as there are many ways you can serve on a planetary level. There is a path of will, a path of struggle, and a path of joy and compassion.

At first you may notice small, subtle alterations in your life and everything appearing to flow with ease. You may find that other people start to notice a difference in you. You may even find that situations that you have always hoped for turn up. Most importantly, you will notice...

Writing in a journal is a way to discover the answers to your questions, to express yourself creatively, to find the voice of your soul, to strengthen your connection with your open heart, and to face your fears and overcome obstacles. Above all, it's a way to relax and explore...

Whenever you find yourself in a difficult or uncomfortable situation, think of three things that you’re glad about even in this unpleasant moment. They can be things that you’re glad are not happening or things that you’re glad are hap­pening. Feel...

Do certain people want more medical care than others do? And, does that matter?

Some therapists will use "dream interpretation" to help a patient understand himself, but understanding will not cure symptoms. Our goal is to find blocked memories and to cry. The more you cry, the more your mind will heal itself, and when the pain is gone, the understanding will take care of itself.

Our emotions are nothing more than an extension of the ego's opinions -- nothing more. For the most part, our emotions are theatrical manifestations of the ego's opinions. They are forms of manipulation. You have an opinion and you start cranking the emotion. So we live as prisoners of these opinions.

A young woman had a suitor who loved her very much. The suitor came to her door clutching a bouquet of daisies to give her. "Where are my roses?" she demanded. Her suitor turned and went away. The next week he was back on her doorstep with another bunch of daisies...

Storytelling is a key part of human culture. Where politics and power are concerned, stories become something not only to be told, but to be shaped and influenced

When you look at yourself through another’s perspective, you gain insights not normally available. When we are able to appreciate another’s actual experience, we don’t rely on our distorted projection of their motives; we go directly to the source...

Everyday is April Fools' Day...it doesn't only occur on April 1st. Many of us are living daily the greatest April fools' of all... and we are it! We have been living our lives as a lie, pretending to be someone we're not. We are living our lives as if they belonged to someone or something else.

Part of what I do as an archaeologist is judge between competing claims to truth. Indeed, you could say this is the entire purpose of science.

Every negative event or outburst (such as an episode of sarcasm, anger, rage, or abuse) will leave an energetic imprint in your home. If you do nothing about it, you’ll essentially be allowing negativity to accumulate in your home.

Unfortunately, life isn’t all sunshine and daisies. Here are some great thoughts from some great people for those times when life seems more like a kerfuffle with quicksand than a day at the beach.

If we want to manifest a change of heart and create a new practice, we become aware of the moment we give life to a judgment and be on the look-out for the triggers that make us judge. Paying attention to ourselves and getting to know ourselves...

Your happiness, or lack thereof, depends largely on your expectations. If you believe that only one person, job, home, or car can bring you happiness, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Even if you...

There are popular feelings: joy, happiness, love and affection, to name a few. And then there are unpopular feelings: anger, sadness, grief, hurt, and fear, among others. Most of us tend to hide the unpopular feelings and, instead, only feel and show the popular ones.

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 ...

Most survivors -- whether they've forgotten the abuse or not -- have deep anger which manifests itself in chronic health problems such as cancer, gynecological disorders, back or neck pain, migraines, hemorrhoids, heart palpitations, skin problems, insomnia, alcoholism, and obesity.

Can you feel the energies bumping up against you? One minute, you feel pushed; the next minute, pulled. One minute, you’re OK, and the next minute, you’re not. It’s chaotic out there. Our world is in flux; nothing feels normal anymore.

Most people don’t know that they need to protect themselves from negative energies around them. Most people on this planet do not even think in terms of ‘energy’ at all, which is strange, because everything on this planet is a form of energy, and we use these different forms of energy all the time!

People tend to throw around a lot of words to describe their emotions and feelings. We're confused or we feel frustrated. We're hurt or we're excited. Whatever the label, deciphering feelings from emotions can be a bit perplexing. If we start by learning the difference there are big rewards.

I consider myself an expert in recovering from emotional shocks. The past six years has been a long series of extremely difficult events that were accompanied by heavy emotional after-shock for me.

As someone who was once unhappy in every sense of the word, I can personally verify that misery leads to heartless behavior, and vice versa. For years I experienced failed relationships, financial struggles, poor health, depression, and an endless stream of...

I now live my life from joy instead of from fear. This is the one very simple difference between who I was before my near-death experience (NDE) and who I am today. Before, without even realizing it, everything I did was to avoid pain or to please other people...

Personality is a broad term describing how people habitually relate to the world and their inner self. After the developmental period through childhood and adolescence, these patterns of relating remain reasonably stable through life.

When your heart opens, you access your natural sense of con­fidence. It emerges when you embrace the moment fully — no matter what is happening. When you show up, available for life just as it is, you feel fully awake and alive.

What am I doing? is the most frequent question I ask as I let go of my most recent job and relationship. The answer always comes back the same: You are being true to yourself. You are living your Truth. This is crazy, I say to myself. No job, no security, saving good-bye to someone who loves me, whom I love.

What follows are some activities from which I draw for my personal faith and mindset practice. I don't do all of these things every day but, across the span of any given month, I endeavor to do some combination of these activities or disciplines regularly. The result? For me, greater clarity, less time feeling scattered

Philosophy has been a favorite whipping boy in the culture wars since 399 B.C., when an Athenian jury sentenced Socrates to death. Nowadays, philosophers are no longer accused of “corrupting the youth.”

A new study finds that early-career doctors—and the rest of us—can be better at our jobs if we simply set aside as little as 30 minutes a day for some “me time.”

One of the biggest things I've discovered working with clients everyday is how extremely difficult and challenging it is for most people today to know what is best for them to think, say and do in the various situations and relationships in their lives.

Have you become a wet blanket, failing to acknowledge what's working or punishing others when they say or do things you don't like? If so you are unknowingly or knowingly creating alienation and insecurity in those around you. You are not spreading joy, love, or peace.

When you find the courage to do something about your low quality of life and choose to make things better you are on the right track to raising your vibration. Raising your vibration comes down to many factors and listed below are ten key steps that will definitely help towards raising your vibration immediately.

When we recognise who we are and that we’re connected at the very core, we open up the doors to changing our perspective on challenging circumstances. We start to view forgiveness with different eyes. To understand this further we need to learn more about how we function.

For me, an unrecognized, unexpressed feeling is like a persistent hand tapping on my shoulder. If I don’t give the feeling what it wants, acknowledgement and expression, the tapping gets more insistent. The feeling pulls more and more of my attention away from the present moment. 

We hold in our mind all kinds of old fears and feelings that we’ve had since childhood, some of which we are only dimly aware. The problem is that the reptilian and mammalian parts of our brains respond strongly to those old feelings, as if they were current realities. We need to work on acknowledging those outdated feelings and fears and avoid being triggered...

When we think of the word wound, we usually do not asso­ciate it with sources of wisdom or personal power, but your wounds can reveal great knowledge and self-understanding. When you have experienced suffering that splits you open, you have the opportunity to understand the true meaning of the heart of compassion for yourself and for others in your life.

Life’s challenges are universal and eventually will find us. Whether you're moving to a new city, leaving for college, or experiencing a divorce in your family, having life throw a major curve ball our way can leave us longing for the way things used to be.

Values are simply your ideals and your beliefs about what matters to you and what will make your life the best it can be. Even if you choose to do something that feels unpleasant, if you examine the situation closely, you will see that your choice likely stems from your desire to live in accordance with your values.

Every religious discipline teaches it. Every culture values it. Self-control or self-mastery is a key to power. "Though one should conquer a million men on the battlefield, yet he, indeed, is the noblest victor who has conquered himself."

I always had a feeling inside that there was something more to life. In a sense I had a great life—two wonderful kids, a husband, a successful business, a house—but even with all the trappings of what one might call “success” I found that life felt empty and meaningless. Often I would ask God, “What am I doing here? What is the point of all of this?”

Resisting is a tensing-against something. It gets revved up via some kind of mental handling (complaint, story-spinning, denial), leading to emotional distress. Whatever difficulty you’re experiencing in the presence of something you’d prefer hadn’t happened, resistance compounds the challenge...

Do you remember the 1970s hit by The Temptations, "Just My Imagination"? The refrain goes: "It was just my imagination running away with me". And this morning as I was reflecting on certain events in my life, I realized that a lot of times we create problems in our head...

Connecting to the true Self gives me access to information and knowledge way beyond anything I have ever learned in a book or the limited amount stored in my memory. I know if I can tap into my true Self I will have access to all the information I need.

You may be in very churning times and situations in your experience. You may simply desire something more out of life—out of your self? This isn’t a time for facades, pretentious talk, and ego-mania. Such behavior will reveal...

It's time to start talking to our Self -- not our small self, but our Higher Self, the wise one, the one with the "higher" perspective on things. At first you may not know what the difference between the small self's voice and the Higher Self's voice. Here's some clues...

Someone once said to me they didn't feel that being happy was a choice. They felt that no one decides to have a bad day. That everyone starts the day choosing to be happy, but that things happened along the way that were out of their control. While I agree that things do happen that are out of our control...

What makes people happy? Finding a definitive answer to this question could certainly make someone very rich (but whether that would in turn make them happy is another matter). The problem is that happiness is especially slippery.

I remember being a very compassionate child. But by the time a boy reaches five or six years old “he’s learned to repress every emotion except anger, because anger is the only emotion society tells a boy he is allowed to have.” It is obvious men need to transcend this conditioning to become compassionate.

The ability to look on the bright side when times get tough — and, conversely, always expecting the worst — may be hardwired in the brain. “It’s the first time we’ve been able to find a brain marker that really distinguishes negative thinkers from positive thinkers...”

Economists at the University of Warwick have found happiness increases productivity by around 12%. Andrew Oswald, Eugenio Proto and Daniel Sgroi carried out a number of experiments to test the idea that happy employees work harder.

Besides our worry thoughts about the future, there is another type of story we are telling ourselves which gives us a lot of anguish. These are the ‘if only’ stories: ‘If only he’d listen, I’d be happy. If only the sun was shining, I’d be happy. If only I had a little more money in the bank..."

If we simply pay attention to all that happens to us throughout the day, we will be astounded by the love and care given to us every moment. But if we don’t pay attention, we can easily miss the sometimes disguised touch of...

One of my favorite quotes is, “If you have room in your heart for one enemy, your heart is an unsafe place for a friend.” I do not know who originally spoke or wrote that statement, but I do know it contains a volume of wisdom. My New Year’s vow this year is to clear my heart and make it a safe place for all beings...

"My son is three years old. The doctor says he's too short for his age." I wondered how that statement affected the child. Would this be the beginning of a lifetime of perceived inadequacy? Would he forever feel "less-than" about something he could not change...

Does happiness arise by attaining a certain status, or by finding the love of your life? If you chase happiness in the things of this world, you will become disillusioned. No matter how much stuff you acquire, how much you are admired...

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.

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.

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.

It’s easy to like some people and it’s not very easy to like others. They don’t smile back! So it has to go deeper. If we continue to judge people on the basis of appearances and behavior, the endeavor is hopeless. Instead we have to return to a very simple truth...

The idea that we create our own reality — that is, the concept of the mirror universe — often seems to ring true, but it also raises some troubling questions. Sometimes it’s easy to see this principle at work in our lives, but other times, especially when things aren’t going very well, it can be...

Finding peace in your lives and relationships, especially if you feel stressed with financial, health, or relationship challenges, can sometimes seem almost impossible. And yet finding that peace is essential. There is a story of a king who offered a prize to the artist who could paint the best picture of peace...

by Alan Cohen. I recently made a pilgrimage to the ancient Mayan temples at Chichen Itza and Tulum in Mexico. At one pyramid our tour guide informed us that the Mayans regularly offered human sacrifices to appease their gods. While we would regard such offerings as primitive and even abhorrent, the mindset of sacrifice is still...

Just What Is a Feeling, Exactly? That was a question a client asked me, with an emphasis on the "exactly." It's a great question because it is so direct, to the point, and so difficult to answer exactly and correctly. But because it is so important, and because...

When you open your life to the rest of our world, it can be daunting. It is easy to become hypersensitive to the violence and suffering around us. Maybe you cannot tolerate the extreme violence of many movies and TV shows, or even the news reports on the radio. Emotions may run high on all accounts.

by Marie T. Russell. Every now and then I come across an affirmation that really 'hits home'. One of these is "I think and speak only words of love". I found this one in Louise Hay's book "Heal Your Body." When I started using this affirmation, I immediately saw and felt its power-full effects.

The inner child waits patiently for the adult to notice it, to talk to it. It asks itself: "How can I get her attention? How can I get her to talk to me, to listen to me?" It thinks back of its past experience with parents and teachers and remembers that...

by Marie T. Russell. We repress a lot of our emotions, whether they are considered 'good' or 'bad' ones. Sometimes we hold back on expressing our love for fear of being misunderstood, or perhaps thinking the timing is not 'right'. Most commonly, we have been taught to hold back on our 'negative' emotions — fear, anger, sorrow, pain, etc.

How many times have you made a decision to change something in your life and then found yourself slipping off the path you had chosen? Have you found yourself repeating past behavior even though the higher side of your consciousness knew better than to be caught in that same old trap? Is it that you were insincere in your choice or rather that you stumbled on old programming?

by Marie T. Russell. How many times have you been hurt by what someone said about you? How many times have you doubted your self-worth because someone criticized you, either to your face or 'behind your back'? Why do we react with such self-doubt or indignation when someone...

by Sylvia Browne. If you give energy to something that is negative -- such as worry, anxiety, or fear -- then you build it to such a state that it becomes worse than any action directed toward you. Make yourself like a funnel or a sieve...

by Dr. Paula Sunray. We can't be feeling what we are feeling unless we are "thinking" it. First we have to think and then we feel, so whatever we are feeling is a result of our thinking. If we are feeling fear, then we are having a fearful thought...

by Richard Carlson. Worrying about things we have no control over is counterproductive. It makes you tense -- which, in turn, ruins your judgment. When you are worried, you live in a state of fear. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, to be loving, helpful, and kind on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis.

by Dhyani Ywahoo. Affirmation is a skillful means for transforming energy, and it begins with the deletion of negative statements about self and others. A negative statement freezes one in time and space without room for harmonization. Affirmations need to be unambiguous, simple and clear statements of one's intentions.

by Brian Weiss, M.D. For several hundred years, people have mistakenly believed that technology, once fully developed, would solve the ills of mankind, that science would provide the path out of the woods, away from illness, poverty, misery, and pain. We now know that...

by Carolyn Godschild Miller, Ph.D. It may surprise you to learn that your ego doesn't believe that love really exists, but it's true. Just think! When you allow your ego to direct your search for love, you are actually asking the only thing in the universe that doesn't know what love is, to find it for you.