Why do we hold onto negativity? For some reason, we believe that others are affected by our experience of remaining upset, hurt or angry. Holding on to pain, anger, guilt or shame is the glue that binds us to the situation we want to escape.

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.

I realized it was happening, but most people didn't realize it was happening. I mean, because as a self-employed person, when there is a recession or a cutback in the economy, we feel it first. Because many self-employed people provide services that are nonessential.

Life doesn't actually knock you down. It does, however, provide you with many opportunities to evaluate your standing in life: what you stand on, what you stand for, how you stand within yourself and for yourself.

When you enter a new experience, all that requires healing rushes to the surface . . . You have to pause.

The event is not what you should be working on. You should be working on your response or reaction to an event. You either react to it - that means you become victimized, and you say this thing is happening to you - or you respond to it and say the solution must come through you - that's where you stay focused, not on the rightness, wrongness, fairness of the event, but on the appropriateness of your response.

Tell the truth about who you are, what you feel, what you want, what you're up to. Tell the truth about that first to yourself and then to anybody else that'll listen.