Today I will realize that I'm powerless over other people's expectations of me. I'll think about what I want and consider that how I respond to others' needs will affect the course of my life. I will own my own power and choose the course that's right for me.

Today I will refuse to jump into the middle of others' affairs, issues, and relationships. I will trust others to work out their own problems, including the ideas and feelings they want to communicate to each other.

Panic, not the task, is the enemy.

I gave three years of my life to take care of my dying mother who had Alzheimer's disease. Being there for her every need for three years might have looked codependent but it wasn't because it was what I wanted to do.

You don't blast a heart open," she said. "You coax and nurture it open, like the sun does to a rose.

Letting go of our ideas about how life should go is a choice that sets life's magic free.

God loves me enough to let me go through all the lessons I came here to learn, even the ones that hurt the most. His presence doesn't deny me. It's always there to help me see and understand what I came to this planet to learn.