Come as you are unto yourself and forget the rest. Let it be.

But really, there’s something terrific about all the feelings. The timbre and tone of things like Agony, like Loss, like Boredom can be strangely beautiful.

There is a fire within you. A gorgeous and ferocious barn-burning fire of desire. It roars and its flames lick every particle of your being.

I want to speak of the illness and madness of “normalcy”. If we are to be creative, we must live among the madness of the masses and not give into it.

This morning the embers within my core glowed yellow, with a smidgeon of orange.

We give permission to stay or go. And with this new arrangement comes trust and an acceptance that ‘whatever may be, may be’. We surrender to the mystery of life; we set ourselves free.

What if we could re-evaluate what we really need and free ourselves from this downward spiral of work, consumption and sickness?

After all, it's not the meaning of life that we're after but the experience of being alive. Besides, without the experience, all the explanations are meaningless.

This is life. You will move on no matter what, anyway. You just have to make the conscious choice to accept that.

I was judging myself. I was snowballing into self-criticism. Recognizing these old bad habits, I decided to coach myself -- the way I would with a client -- to remember that I am enough.

Maybe you want to go to India, so cook delicious curries and decorate yourself with henna and bindis. Perhaps Italy is your destination of choice, time to eat spaghetti and watch 'La Dolce Vita'.

I want you to look at me and question everything I am, smashing me apart into a thousand shards in a magnificent display of surrender, like a broken mirror. Only to piece me together again, with truth as the adhesive and love as the instruction.

When I love myself, I don't believe all the lies about the world being a scary place.

I must have known how revolutionary that truth would be. Somewhere inside me, I must have known that it would be the end of the world as I knew it.

The mind can be the source of the most wonderful ideas, a kind of kaleidoscope of inspiration, colors overlapping in all directions.

Modeling is like playing dress-up with intention. It is not degrading and shallow unless you choose it to be.

When you open your heart and mind, and turn on your joy and gratitude, the Universe will offer you beautiful synchronicities that fulfill your deepest desires for romance, beauty, and fun.

The door locked, the window cracked to let out the stale smell of smoke. I was extremely fragile puddling on the cold tile, sobbing my little heart out for I don't even know how long.

Yes. Because if the universe is made of 1% visible matter and 99% invisible energy, how can we expect that when it comes to finding a partner, the 1% is the only part that matters? It can't! So get ready. I will give you few suggestions how to call in the One.

Ritual, connection with our Younger Self, creating sacred space, setting new intentions, releasing old patterns, continuing to show up for ourselves. This is the only way to wake up, to deal with our pain, to get through it all.

The cycle repeated for many, many years. I'd be working for some of the most prestigious national companies, yet I was coming home crying often, praying for a miracle to get me out, or counting down the days for my next escape.

That whole thing about the more happiness you give away, the more you get... well, it works... we can make small changes that are meaningful.

So, celebrate the fact that you woke up today. Celebrate a good cup of coffee. Celebrate the person -- the beautiful stranger -- you are growing curious about. Celebrate the food piled on your table. Celebrate having enough blankets for your bed.

You are not losing yourself, but being gifted with a way to know yourself deeper than ever before.

Let it come to you in time when it is ready. Be patient but not complacent. Certainly do not give up. But you can not rush a turtle to the finish line and you can not chug a beer on a full stomach. Do not try to force what cannot move. Everything has its time.

Rushing is never faster. Look at the seeds you have planted, feed them! Give them time to grow and dance along the way.

The lock is on the inside, where your freedom sits unfazed.

You are alone for the first time in perhaps a lifetime. However, here, you find so many voices surround you. They follow you to the kitchen and the shower, from the closet to the bed. Here, you hear the voices of former lovers telling you to pick your towel up off the floor, how to crack the eggs and to wash certain dishes by hand. Every moment has led you to this space. And, it’s true: you don’t know how to do so many things. This is a new beginning, on one end. And on the other, the same story all over again. But, you want more than someone to unclog your longing-to-be-cut hair from the drain. You deserve so much more than another’s helpful hand. You can hire your honey-do’s out. You want more than someone who can wield a drill to hang up your beautiful photographs neat and straight. You no longer care about being straight. You haven’t...

Then give it love. If you feel someone has contributed to your anger, sit with it. Do not direct it outward at that person; you are only spreading wildfire. Do not gift or invite hate. That said: Yes, it is okay to voice when something is not okay to you.

We can forgive our tantrums and minimize them without guilt tripping ourselves for weeks about every mistake or impatient word. And we can have compassion towards those who are unconscious and angry or scared.

“We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.”

Once you have fallen off the tightrope of perfectionism, you can never go back.

I believe it was the great Audrey Hepburn who echoed the idea that one cannot be beautiful without being kind. That kindness is not always self-directed. Personally, I think one cannot be beautiful without being brave.

After spending years working on myself and making slow shifts toward finding and honoring my true self, the universe rose up to meet me.

Life is short and if you don’t make that change now, then when? With each new year must come productive change, to help make a positive impact on the world and to better align yourself with our highest purpose. We need commitment and we need passion but above all the world needs our courage and bravery to make those changes happen.

Engage your inner core -- break the bullshit that you use as a straitjacket for yourself.

...we all stood outside watching as pretty colors and string were seduced by the wind.

"Sangry" is the cocktail of emotion that is straight up sad and a shot of angry back. I think sangry -- when you're crying in one breath and raving like a lunatic in the next -- is perhaps the most uncomfortable emotion to feel. Your own heart is really the only casualty in the war being waged between sad and angry.

However much things appear to be ‘just so,’ it pays to leave a little space for another reality to be also true, truer, or more beneficial.

...this is my life... my disease... my decision... and, I get to choose the best way to handle it. That does not make us aggressive, hate-filled ogres -- it simply means that we are human.

But some never give up imagining this world. Some continue to see magic in the mundane, extraordinary in the everyday. We call them dreamers. They bring creativity and magic and excitement to the concrete and the routine. They make things happen because they still believe they can.

I had to realize there’s a difference between being “nice” and being polite. “Nice” implies we do things for others’ benefit, while polite allows us to consider our own needs.

What voice is this within me? That guides me toward my best. What do I fear? Can love lie?

So, my love, watch me fall apart. No, more than that. Help me fall apart. Let us tease ourselves open with kisses, and let our soft caresses wear away the crumbling foundations and ancient walls that limit rather than protect us.

Sometimes things happen. Earth shattering things. Things that bring us to our knees. Things that threaten everything we think we know. Things that make us say, Oh fuck. And only oh fuck will do...

Every minute counts, every heartbeat is creation, every thought is another chance to build the kind of world you can't wait to live in, through the script of your life, and at the heartbeat of your own storytelling. The rules are yours.

Gratitude does not live in the transactional or the manipulative or the bargaining or the negotiating. I know it does not, because that is where I live

Ride your New Year's Resolution to its source and see what you find. Those desires for perfection, self-improvement, and happiness all go deeper.

Win the house. Beat the corrupt seesaw. Enable New Year’s resolutions to become life changers.

By Omy Keyes. You are Divine Inspiration You are not separate from me You are everything which Is.   You are beauty incarnate. You are a body, but you are not only a BodyBeing you are a Light Being.   You are divinity, non-interrupted. You are the Grandmothers’ singing voices creating the Sacred Song.   You are a dancer a Shiva a goddess a Festival celebrated by thousands of devotees twirling in colorful robes.   You are the Light which you see in yourself when you close your eyes and listen to the Wisdom That is come down through the ages Through the Grandmothers’ tongues.   You are Consciousness and you are stars you are the space Within the Stars You are the light that bounces from the sun to the earth and back again.   You are the kindness in a stranger’s eyes You are the gentle rain falling...

“There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.” ~ Anais Nin

There's a throbbing, pulsing, raw, and very-nearly-mad sort of optimism. The kind of optimism that's utterly, extra-rationally convinced it will meet its aim. This kind of optimism feels like a perpetual orgasm in your heart. It's saturating and nourishing. It's down-and-dirty and though it looks incredibly naive, it actually feeds you like nothing else can....

That is what life is. A blended martini of sweet and sour, icy but smooth. Silky, potent and sometimes hard to swallow.

Sit with me at the top of the iceberg? For three hours Tuesday night I sat breathing, resting, breathing and inviting the door toward meditation to open. Surrender can take a long time for some of us. Softness can take a while to grow. Hardness, tension and resistance exist. My mind dictates, creates, imagines and has so many needs. He says something like, “Let the mind run free… free to express, feel and connect to what is actually happening.” I interpret his poetic verses: I sit at the top of the gently floating iceberg so that I can see, my senses categorize the interpretation of their skills and I become familiar. It’s simple. It’s this simplicity, without control, without insisting, as he invites, when what is hidden can reveal itself. All that ice beneath the surface… can reveal itself. And, what is the point? The point, he...

And in the name of evolution, I say, let us change Christmas! To whatever you want it to be! I dare you to imagine your own version of a holiday -- honor baby Jesus if that is your bent, or meditate on faith in humanity. What kind of holiday will make you more you?

What is it that is whispering to you in the depths of your heart and soul? What do you want to do more of? What are you passionate about? What is your unique gift you could you give to the world? And what is holding you back?

And this is not advice... this is me, a recovering Type-A, sharing the love of being a mom. There is nothing like it... nothing. And if we are given the gift of being able to conceive and actually give birth to a baby, we should take on this gift with gratitude, reverence, joy, humor and, on some days, frustration and exhaustion.

What are you doing right now? Stop it. Sit down. Exhale. Let it go. You don't need to clean the kitchen. You don't need to finish that email. You don't need to do anything but give yourself over to the night.

Every problem carries within itself its own solution.

Develop a belief that everything in your life is happening in perfect timing.

I feel as though I’m being held captive by my own skin, bones, muscle and tissue.

Avoid telling people what to be, but never stop asking into who they are...

Adopting an attitude of mindfulness requires effort. We are continually programmed in many societies to reject the possibility that satisfaction can occur moment by moment. We are taught to want more, strive for more, dream bigger, and push forward toward our goals...

Thanks to the shadows of my past, I have learned that life is really as dark or as light as we want to make it. We can allow our setbacks to define us, or we can define our setbacks. If you spend your whole life looking through your rear-view mirror, you’ll miss all of the beauty that resides right out your front window.

I didn’t know how the years ahead would play out. That the Gulf war was just a preamble. That my friend’s five-year-old would commit suicide before his twenty-second birthday. That I wouldn’t study music or social work; instead, I would begin to write. I didn’t know the pervasive sadness - the black well of depression - that would swallow me during that coming decade. I thought I knew where I was headed. I thought the road before me was clear - unencumbered. I was wrong.

Remember: exercise is simply your body in motion. If you enjoyed monkey bars as a kid, who is to stop you from enjoying monkey bars as an adult? Go for it!

By Srividya Sivakumar. You have been hiding from me a long time.Perhaps in the pages of the book I left unfinished.Perhaps in the unplayed song on my guitar.Maybe you were wrapped in the words I like,like whimsical and love.Maybe you were in the sorrow that cuts me to the quick,and leaves me new and clear and hopeful.Maybe you are the L in love.Perhaps you have been lurking behind bookends.Or maybe you have been asleep in the sentencesof my favorite piece of writing.Were you in the straps of my favorite bag?Or in the ink of my pen?Or the pages of my Moleskine diary?Could it be that you are the gleam in the ring I wear,or the lead in the pencil I write with?Perhaps you are the O in hope.You have been hiding in the sense of accomplishmentthat I have felt of late.Or in the rim of my cup of coffee,once I am done with it.The foil that wraps my favorite bar of chocolatecarries...

If I was to give modern western culture a name, it would be More. Are you not entertained?

It is time for you to start writing a new story with the knowledge and skills you have now. There is nothing more gratifying than growing from our mistakes.

Gratitude is a choice. But when you’re angry, broken-hearted, grieving, or feel like everything turned out wrong, it can be very difficult to choose gratitude. So what can we do when we aren't feeling especially grateful? Use compassion as a bridge to feel gratitude.