Don't persuade, defend or interrupt. Be curious, be conversational, be real. And listen.

I'm very much a family person, and that's always my first priority.

Learn respect for the feeling function: Become aware of and undo some of your (improper) cultural training so that you grant the moods and messages of the heart the same respect that you give the thoughts and ideas of the mind.

When you feel yourself breaking down, may you break open instead.

If you have fathered a child, if you have given birth, if sex is a source of healthy pleasure, thank your pelvis and your reproductive organs for allowing you to feel the creative rhythms of life.

When the fire is over, always, in the ashes, our opportunities to repair, to move forward without vengeance being required - that's kind of the way us humans seem to live. We make massive mistakes. We do stupid things. We do things to survive. And then there's an opportunity to learn from them and move forward with grace. And forgiveness and that gracefulness are very connected.

Every day we're given a choice: We can relax and float in the direction that the water flows, or we can swim hard against it. If we go with the river, the energy of a thousand mountain streams will be with us . . . if we resist the river, we will feel rankled and tired as we tread water, stuck in the same place.