Today I am amazed at the things our children have done and their wide range of interests. They are all living their lives and not the ones I would have planned for them. But I have learned that their lives are theirs, not mine, and in living their own lives they have given me experiences and an education I would never have had if I'd been fool enough to make them do what I thought they should do.

The tree doesn't die, nor do I when you cut off a branch or a finger, we both heal so we don't lose all the sap or blood. That to me is total shock. Also that water defies the laws of physics by becoming less dense when frozen. Life really is a miracle and all the things that are been built into us through it.

I was born an ugly duckling due to my mother's ill health. She wasn't supposed to be pregnant, there were all kinds of complications, she couldn't survive a cesarean section etc. She said, "They didn't hand me a child, they handed me a purple melon." I heard that when I had grown up and had no idea of the whole story because the family album had pictures of a covered carriage and my mother smiling so I assumed I was asleep.

People have taught me what most doctors don't learn, in other words, when somebody does better than expected, the doctor will tell them they're doing very well and to keep it up. I learned to say, "You didn't die when you were supposed to so what's going on?", and they always had a story to tell me.

Do not go looking for problems to feed your soul. Just let life be your teacher. It will nourish you with its inevitable difficulties. How will you know whether you are letting life teach you and nourish you? If your physical senses become more sensitive to the beauty you see, the words of love you hear, and the life you feel touching your body and soul, then you know you have discovered the great value of misfortune.

My view of addiction, whether it's drugs, food, alcohol or any list of other things, is the same reason I asked my mother why I wasn't a drug addict or alcoholic, which is because when you're not loved, often people become an addict and self destructive. Now the opposite of love is indifference and even worse is rejection and abuse, and I meet those people.

When guilt rears its ugly head confront it, discuss it and let it go. The past is over. It is time to ask what can we do right, not what did we do wrong. Forgive yourself and move on.