I wish I'd known from the beginning that I was born a strong woman. What a difference it would have made! I wish I'd known that I was born a courageous woman; I've spent so much of my life cowering. How many conversations would I not only have started but finished if I had known I possessed a warrior's heart? I wish I'd known that I'd be born to take on the world; I wouldn't have run from it for so long, but run to it with open arms.

All of us know about learning life's lessons through pain, struggle, and loss. But few of us realize that it is often the gentlest lessons that teach us most. Serendipity can instruct us as much as sorrow.

When you first awaken or before drifting off to sleep, quiet your mind, lift up your heart, muse, mull over, make discoveries. Consider, conceive, create, connect, concede that it all starts within.

Every time we remember to say "thank you", we experience nothing less than heaven on earth.

Let's choose today to quench our thirst for the 'good life' we thinks others lead by acknowledging the good that already exists in our lives. We can then offer the universe the gift of our grateful hearts.

Remember, no matter what life throws at us, we can always bake a cake!

Conscious choice is creative. Unconscious choice is destructive. That is how we end up living other people's lives.