Don't be careful. You could hurt yourself.

If I had a prayer, it would be this: "God, spare me from the desire for love, approval, or appreciation. Amen."

If you put your hand into a fire, does anyone have to tell you to move it? Do you have to decide? No: When your hand starts to burn, it moves. You don’t have to direct it; the hand moves itself. In the same way, once you understand, through inquiry, that an untrue thought causes suffering, you move away from it.

The nature of mind is that it loves everything once it loves itself, just as it opposes everything when it opposes itself.

So, how can we live in joy - and how can we know that we're supposed to live in joy the way people tell us to - when we're believing thoughts that bring on sadness and frustration and anger and alienation and loneliness? When we're believing those thoughts, we think that's the world, rather than what we're believing about the world. We're like lost little children.

Nothing terrible has ever happened except in our thinking. Reality is always good, even in situations that seem like nightmares. The story we tell is the only nightmare that we have lived.

That's where the fear comes from-from your uninvestigated thoughts.