You can't remove that layer of pain by just saying, "Okay, I'm not going to wallow in it." The only way to remove that layer of pain is to face what it says and to recognize it as the look in the mirror that it is, reflecting the things you did that you wish you hadn't done and the things you didn't do that you wish you had done.

Just as you wouldn't leave the house without taking a shower, you shouldn't start the day without at least 10 minutes of sacred practice: prayer, meditation, inspirational reading.

Allowing the pain of personal growth to be a crucible of your spirit-the alchemical grail through which the metal of your former self turns into gold-is one of the highest callings of life. Pain can burn you up and destroy you, or burn you up and redeem you. It can deliver you to an entrenched despair, or deliver you to your higher self. At midlife we decide, consciously or unconsciously, the path of the victim or the path of the phoenix when it is rising up at last.

To be truly seen and understood - in all our innocence and glory and yes, our brokenness, too - is to be delivered into the spiritual ethers where both seen and seer are healed.

With every thought we think, we either summon or block a miracle. It is not our circumstances, then, but rather our thoughts about our circumstances, that determine our power to transform them.

There can be no darkness where I provide the light.

God heard us. He sent help. He sent you.