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.

No one needs to know that you've shut the world out and are meditating as you stroll down the street. Twenty minutes to a half-hour every day is a good amount of time to restore a sense of serenity.

Often writers cast their words out prophetically, as a sorceress might cast a spell, and many times when the words return to you, enclosed between covers, your phantom is so fully fleshed out in its own persona, you don't recognize your own creation.

Today is not the day you quit. Nor is it the day you cry. Today you know that you have all the passion and wisdom to find that quiet center of solace, serenity and strength necessary to create and sustain an authentic life.

Authentic success is being so grateful for the many blessings bestowed on you and yours that you can share your portion with others.

All we need is the awareness of how blessed we really are.

Self-loathing is the silent hemorrhaging of the soul. You don't feel or see the life force fleeing until it's not longer there, and then, of course, it's too late.