Shakespeare nailed it with, “This above all: to thine own self be true.”

When we are true to self, we are true to love, true to God, and true to everybody else. We obey the golden rule (rule of all major religions). We reconcile with the light (goal of all major religions). We have self-verification, or self-esteem. And, we’re happy!… More

That depends! How quickly can you be true to yourself … YOU, without a mate, without the kids (if you have them), without the obligations, without the paper version. We’re talking about the free and unencumbered you–just maybe the one you’re still getting to know.

Are you true to that one? That’s the one that will attract “the one”!… More

From the time we learn the word “no,” we begin to get the message that what we would do naturally is “bad.”

As young children, we can’t make a distinction between our behavior and ourselves, so we buy into a lie — the lie that in order to be good enough we have to sit still and be quiet, or look pretty, or SOMETHING. But you know as well as I do that some of the demands we place on children (and ourselves) are more apt to stifle them than make them good.

“Even if you were fortunate enough to grow up in a safe, nurturing environment, you still bear invisible scars from childhood, because from the very moment you were born you were a complex, dependent creature with a never-ending cycle of needs. Freud correctly labeled us ‘insatiable beings.’ And no parents, no matter how devoted, are able to respond perfectly to all of these changing needs,” says Harville Hendrix in his bestselling “Getting the Love You Want.”

We have a fundamental motivation to be accepted, which is why you might jump to defend yourself, your parents, your children (even while reading this). Rejection used to point to a problem that needed our attention, and our survival depended on how sensitive and responsive we were.… More