Telling a true story about personal experience is not just a matter of being oneself, or even or finding oneself. It is also a matter of choosing oneself.

Often when someone apologizes - like a parent who says to a child, "I'm very sorry I neglected you when you were a kid" - they also ask, "Do you forgive me?," because they want the other person to be over it. However, healing can take a great deal of time. And if we forgive too quickly, we cut the process short.

The more we seek exclusivity in friendship, the more it becomes obligatory and the less likely it is to fulfill the wonderful vision of what true friendship can be.

The best apology, I think, was from my husband, Steve, who slept with a close friend of mine decades back, when we were committed to being life partners but not yet married. And many of the factors that made Steve's apology so healing are universal. One important thing is that he confessed to the affair, rather than my discovering it. He looked deeply into his own history in terms of why this happened, but he never used that history as an excuse.

We'll always be disappointed if we believe that we can plan for a peak experience and make it happen. True joy can't be anticipated or planned. It just strikes.

If we only listened with the same passion that we feel about being heard.

We will be in tune with our bodies only if we truly love and honor them. We can't be in good communication with the enemy.