The moment you accept responsibility for your reactions to anything that is happening around you, you have no way back. The moment you recognize that you are the one choosing your reactions, the blame and complain game ceases to have power over you.

Are you expecting any joy in your life today? If so, you may be setting yourself up for disappointment. However, if you can shift your attitude to one of anticipating joy, you may find that you are on a better road toward experiencing more of what you seek in life.

When I can hold the difference in my consciousness, when I can recognize the Divine in the other as independent from the choices the personality might make, I find my life is easier, characterized by more grace, acceptance and loving.

Blaming others for being upset seems about as normal as the sun coming up in the morning. However, if you are willing to look, and to look deeply, you just might find that upset carries with it a blessing, a signpost pointing toward your next life lessons of self-improvement.

Don't let anyone judge you for your past, least of all yourself. You may have made choices, even right up to today, that have led to needless suffering. All that is in the past if you choose to respond differently today.

The first rule of overcoming any kind of adversity or fear that comes upon you is acceptance. Acceptance does not mean liking what has happened or entering into some kind of Pollyanna-like pretense that all is well.

Listen closely and you will become captain of your ship, master of your destiny. Turn a deaf ear to that quiet inner voice of your soul, and you may wind up shipwrecked instead.

Everyday, run-of-the-mill negativity abounds, from greed and corruption to negative emotions, judgments, and plain old nastiness. And yet some part of us keeps on getting up one more time than we stumble and fall.

Who you truly are requires nothing abstract, nothing conceived in your mind. Rather, who you truly are stems from your depth of being, from your soul.

What's the alternative when your negative emotions take center stage? The simple answer is to use them to get back on course.

This week, I want to examine an apparently-small pebble that is actually the biggest rock you have in your rock pile -- the energy you have with which to live your life.

Living in a world of always connected but never connected has become an epidemic form of reality out there. Anxiety and stress seem to be rising everywhere, and yet most people are responding as though there's no choice.

The problem with the spiritual path is that there is no path to spirit because there is nowhere to go. You're already there but may not have yet awakened to that fact.

Who you truly are is alive and well deep within your heart. All you need to do is listen past the noise of the world, past the noise of your own self-critical mind. If you do, you will notice the quiet voice of your soul encouraging you to step into a brighter reality.

Do you ever find yourself getting just a little irritated with people who can be so darned self-righteous? You know the people I mean -- the ones who are so far beyond being right that there's just no room for anyone else to even have a thought on the subject?

True courage takes many forms, few of them characterized by bravado and none of them insensitive or unkind. That doesn't mean true courage can't appear to be insensitive or unkind

Surely you have had someone give you a half-hearted apology that left you feeling cold inside. In fact, haven't you been the one giving that "I'm-kind-of-sort-of-sorry" apology yourself?

Are you slowly dying in your own self-made poisonous rut of upset and resentment and calling it life instead? Are you drinking the poison of continuous upset hoping the other person will change?

How much upset have you experienced in your life so far? How much more upset would you like to endure going forward? Bizarre questions, perhaps, and yet if you are willing to dig into them a bit, you might be able to dig out from under all that hurt and upset in your life.

Taking that first step is what allows the miracle to kick in -- the more steps you take, the closer you get to your impossible good coming true. And the closer you get, the more choices you are likely to discover.

The absence of peace can be experienced in any number of ways ranging from stress, anxiety and disturbance to upset, anger and hostility. Sure, there are all kinds of disruptive events in life, and yet some manage to walk through the disturbances relatively unperturbed, while others are much more agitated.

Whenever I pause and connect to the part of me that truly cares, I usually find that I can share criticism in a way that allows the caring to come through.