To love yourself, truly love yourself, is to finally discover the essence of personal courage, self-respect, integrity, and self-esteem. These are the qualities of grace that come directly from a soul with stamina.

Get bored with your past, it's over!

Your spirit is the part of you that seeks meaning and purpose. It's the part drawn to hope, that will not give in to despair.

You are in the depths of despair because you locked in on something or someone that didn't belong to you. I've met many people who have lost everything, especially in these times. People who survive devastating loss have the ability to let go of what they were doing, how much they were earning, and what they feel they are entitled to right now. They may well return to their former status, but their immediate task is to assess their skills and show resilience moving forward.

Expectations are usually predicated on the idea that the everyday things that happen to ordinary people shouldn't happen to you. People hold the idea of being ordinary in absolute contempt, so when they face an illness, poverty, or any kind of catastrophe, they say, "I can't believe this happened to me." And who did you think it was going to happen to - the woman across the street? It makes them think, "I must be on the wrong path." But what if something you thought was bad was the best thing that ever happened to you? What if that was part of your path?

To feel the suffering and then to know the pain of the unnecessariness of it. That right there has me in its grip. The only way through that is serious prayer. I can't get through it any other way. I've got to believe that that's making a difference somehow. I can't see the difference, but I've got to believe it does, because in some way it lets me sleep at night. My only other alternative is to become angry, and I can't go that direction.

I'm working on forgiving myself for some not-so-hot choices I've made in my life. I neglected two people I loved dearly. They are both dead now and I obviously can do nothing to repair or change that, and I grieve every day for those choices. That grief can be paralyzing, but it has made me understand the pain of holding on to unfinished business. In my case, I had put work first. I will never do that again. Having made that choice, I find the grief in my heart finally abating. Now I teach the need to forgive yourself and others relentlessly.