I don't want to talk to her every day, but I want the option. Why? Because she was my mother. Because she became my friend. Because she was always, no matter how little she understood me, my champion.

Challenges give us choices and choices are produced by becoming aware of the larger picture that is present. In my experience, awareness comes through relaxation, love, and a willingness to be open.

Whatever you lose in the course of your life, there is something to gain. You may go through a period of "darkness," and at a certain moment, you may be able to see "light at the end of the tunnel."

The pursuit of happiness and meaning is short when we realize that they can be found when we achieve two straightforward goals: loving what we do and showing it.

Your sense of status, place in life and well-being may have come to depend upon a level of income and expenditure. Expectations dashed, disappointment and financial loss can make for deep-seated misery.

I was told that often the very rich are burdened with having so much stuff to take care of that they are not free to enjoy their lives. They lose a sense of who their friends are.

The challenge is to embrace the inevitable, unstoppable stream of life and to flow with it rather than try to swim against it.

As a perfectionist, you think of perfection as a state. As you clean your kitchen or your car or your desk, you fantasize about preserving the state of perfection that you have accomplished.

Some are stuck in downright blame while others are doing their best to make lemonade out of the lemons. The latter approach is one I call "acceptance" while the former is one I call "resistance."

Leadership expert, triathlete and mother of quadruplets, twins and three other children, DeeDee Myers is never without lipstick in her purse. She's always prepared, always presentable, no matter what.

We often perceive that acceptance or acknowledging a lack of control is a sort of failure, whereas in the Zen mind-set, acceptance is a great strength.

Myers says that we can locate virtues inside our bodies. For example, she houses courage in her diaphragm. That's where she goes to find the energy to do a handstand in Yoga.

Deep in a rustic canyon, tucked away in the bedroom of his beautiful glass home, wrapped tightly in a hospice hospital bed, buried behind the damage of another stroke, my father is dying.

Have you ever had an experience like that? Where you wanted to connect with someone, but just could not? Blame, guilt, frustration, shame, shyness are other forms of static that get in the way of communicating clearly, and produce misunderstanding.

Do you have a body part that you absolutely hate and sometimes feel ashamed of? Are you constantly finding ways to cover it up or hide it?

If I have learned one thing in my life, it is that people are not broken and don't need to be fixed and, in fact, the more I try to fix them the more they (or I) will resist.

I am examined, scrutinized and commented upon. "I didn't have lines like those on my lips when I was your age," my mother says in the bright lights of her marble bathroom.

This superficially focused yet deeply-ingrained striving for some unattainable, deprivation-based goal can easily overcome a good life, and swallow it whole. And those feelings can turn deadly for some of us, or at the very least, consistently ruin our days.

In the Spirit, we're always having a good time. Keep that in mind when challenges present themselves.

In these difficult times, all we can do is to surrender, give in, and open our hearts to one another, to receive and give. Love is the source of our survival.

How can you love another if you do not love yourself? The answer is, you can't, at least not completely. You cannot love someone unconditionally until you love yourself unconditionally,

Acceptance is one of the seven skills of a mindful eater.

Recently I watched an interview with Brad Pitt. He struck me as being modest about his achievements and the media accolades being given to him, both a...