Polite strangers often tell soothing lies about our physical appearance that prevent many of us from facing, discussing and solving our real problems.

As soon as you think you know someone else's truth better than they do, you are in deep water.

Anger elicits anger, fear elicits fear, no matter how well meaning we may be.

No one can give you anything-love, shame, self-esteem- until you give it to yourself. Today, give yourself good things.

The really potent part of love is that it allows you to carry around beliefs about yourself that make you feel special, desirable, precious, innately good. Your lover couldn't have seen [these qualities] in you, even temporarily, if they weren't part of your essential being.

Life is full of tough decisions, and nothing makes them easy. But the worst ones are really your personal koans, and tormenting ambivalence is just the sense of satori rising. Try, trust, try, and trust again, and eventually you'll feel your mind change its focus to a new level of understanding.

The part of you that is unhampered by illusion-the illusion of time, the illusion of powerlessness, the illusion of impossibility-i s waiting for you to slow down and open up so that it can speak to your consciousness. In some unguarded moment, you will hear its wildly improbable words and know that they are guiding you home.