Rule Number One is this: If you’re open to learning, you get your life-lessons delivered as gently as the tickle of a feather. But if you’re defensive, if you stubbornly persist in being right instead of learning the lesson at hand, if you stop paying attention to the tickles, the nudges, the clues—boom! Sledgehammer.

Our species in general had grown accustomed to pain and adversity through millennia of struggle . . . we were only recently evolving the ability to let ourselves feel good and have things go well for any significant period of time.

Genuine love is between two people who know they are already complete. Genuine love is based on a new paradigm in which both partners are committed to the celebration of each other and their loved ones.

Arguments are often like melodramas - they have a predictable beginning, middle, and end.

One of the hallmarks of an evolved person is the ability to tell the truth with no fear of punishment or expectation of reward

Are you willing to increase the amount of time every day that you feel good inside?

One of the first things a relationship therapist learns is that couples argue to burn up energy that could be used for something else. In fact, arguments often serve the purpose of using up energy, so that the couple does not have to take the courageous, creative leap into an unknown they fear. Arguing serves the function of being a zone of familiarity into which you can retreat when you are afraid of making a creative breakthrough.