True optimism is not the prospect of control over pain or elimination of it but survival through it.

Once we understand that what happens beyond our control may be just what we need, we see that acceptance of reality can be our way of participating in our own evolution.

Humility means accepting reality with no attempt to outsmart it.

Acceptance is approval, a word with a bad name in some psychologies. Yet it is perfectly normal to seek approval in childhood and throughout life. We require approval from those we respect. The kinship it creates lifts us to their level, a process referred to in self-psychology as transmuting internalization. Approval is a necessary component of self-esteem. It becomes a problem only when we give up our true self to find it. Then approval-seeking works against us.

When we notice a connection between our present fears and their origins in early life, we are finding out how much of our identity is designed by fear. Is fear the architect of me?

Mindfulness is both a state of being and a daily spiritual practice, a form of meditation.

Once we make our relationship choices in an adult way, a prospective partner who is unavailable, nonreciprocal, or not open to processing feelings and issues, becomes, by those very facts, unappealing. Once we love ourselves, people no longer look good to us unless they are good for us.