You've got to know what your 'thing' is, and you've got to call it a 'thing,' whether it's meanness, nastiness, un-forgiveness, arrogance, ego, resistance, rebelliousness or defiance. Everybody's got a 'thing,' and once you call your 'thing' a 'thing,' we can give it a place to be or dismiss it.

You are the love you seek. You are the companionship you desire. You are your own completion, your own wholeness. You are your best friend, your confidant. 'You are,' as poetess Audre Lourde wrote, 'the one that you are looking for.' You are the only one who can do what you are looking for someone else to do.

I am now willing to forgive myself . . . for believing I could offer something to others before I have offered it to myself.

When you give to others to the degree that you sacrifice yourself, you make the other person a thief.

People may not like what you do, people may not like how you do it, but these people are not living your life. You are!

Begin within. If it shows up in your life, it's coming to tell you something about you that you're acting like you don't know. Something about yourself, or your relationship with God.

Learning to trust yourself and what you know takes time and work. You cannot expect to eradicate a lifetime of misguided information overnight. You must make a continuous, conscious effort to get on good terms with you.