This longing to express and celebrate life is innate and quite beautiful.

When I'm attached, I find that I don't see the other person as clearly because I'm more caught up in what I'm wanting.

When we experience stress, the nervous system tries to control things. Part of waking up is discovering what we are beyond that controlling organism.

It is natural that our minds replay old stories, because that is our own mechanism for trying to work out unresolved problems. Yet rerunning those stories will be a fruitless looping until we learn how to move from the story into our body. This is why therapy alone often doesn't bring full healing and awakening.

The spiritual path is not a solo endeavor. In fact, the very notion of a self who is trying to free her/ himself is a delusion. We are in it together and the company of spiritual friends helps us realize our interconnectedness.

I speak a lot about what I call "the trance of unworthiness" which is really epidemic in our culture, this sense of "I'm not enough," or "something's wrong with me." Most of us have some level of it because our culture has all these standards (handed down through our families) of what it means to be okay.

Extend an act of kindness each day. No one has to know. It can be a smile, reassuring words, a small favor - without expecting something in return.