Beyond Your Comfort Zone

Move out of your comfort zone. You can only
grow if you are willing to feel awkward and
uncomfortable when you try something new.
- Brian Tracy

To the degree we're not living our dreams,
our comfort zone has more control of us than we have over ourselves.
- Peter McWilliams 

Unless you try to do something
beyond what you have already mastered,
you will never grow.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future.
You must break out of your current comfort zone and
become comfortable with the unfamiliar and the unknown.
- Denis Waitley

If you put yourself in a position where you have to
stretch outside your comfort zone,
then you are forced to expand your consciousness.
- Les Brown

Further reading: Your Intuition is Your Guide

Finding Joy in Our Troubled Lives

Time to Move On

Take Charge of Your Life

Fear of Difference

Fear of difference is fear of life itself.
- M. P. Follett

We may have different religions, different languages, different colored skin,
but we all belong to one human race.
- Kofi Annan

Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation;
and this means we must develop a world perspective.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is not our differences that divide us.
It is our inability to recognize, accept,
and celebrate those differences.
- Audre Lorde

Try a new perspective on diversity.
Across the country and around the world,
we are all one.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Spirit Transcends All

Conformity

Embrace Change

Flexibility

Be Open - Welcome the New

Minds are like parachutes.
They only function when they are open.
- James Dewar

Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea,
never regains its original dimensions.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Only when we realize that there is no eternal,
unchanging truth or absolute truth, can we arouse in
ourselves a sense of intellectual responsibility.
- Hu Shih

Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches,
letting us stretch and grow and reach new heights.
- Pauline R. Kezer

Today's affirmation:
I approach life with an Open Mind,
Clean Hands, and a Loving Heart.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Perspective on Tradition: An Open Mind

Being Open to Change

A wonderful gift may not be wrapped as you expect

Cultivate Awareness

A Choice for Joy

Joy is a choice - but it isn't an easy choice.
It is nearly a certainty that some
of your expectations will not be met today.
Choose Joy Anyway.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Joy is what happens to us
when we allow ourselves
to recognize how good things really are.
- Marianne Williamson

Life is made up of small pleasures.
Happiness is made up of those tiny successes.
The big ones come too infrequently.
And if you don't collect all these tiny successes,
the big ones don't really mean anything.
- Norman Lear

Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others,
you should put a good deal of thought
into the happiness that you are able to give.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Further reading: Appreciating Today

How Can Joy be a Choice?

Enjoy Life

Fake It 'Til You Make It

Cleansing Tears

There is a sacredness in tears.
They are not the mark of weakness,
but of power.
They speak more eloquently
than ten thousand tongues.
They are messengers of
overwhelming grief ...
and unspeakable love.
- Washington Irving

The dew of compassion is a tear.
- Lord Byron

Those who don't know how to weep with their whole heart,
don't know how to laugh either
- Golda Meir

Time engraves our faces with all the tears we have not shed.
- Natalie Clifford Barney

The bitterest tears shed over graves
are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.
- Harriet Beecher Stowe

Tears are the summer showers to the soul.
- Alfred Austin

Tears and laughter cleanse the heart.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Are you holding back long-suppressed emotions? Let your feelings flow, right now.

While some of us wear our emotions on our sleeve, others keep feelings bottled up for decades. Strike a balance. If you are suffering with unexpressed frustration or grief, let the tears flow. Then find a friend to laugh with. Laughter, however artificial it feels, lightens the saddest moments and bonds us to family and friends. 

Further reading: Promise of Rainbows

Coping with Heartbreak

Missing Those We Love

Coping With Loss, Grief, and the Fear Of Your Own Mortality
 

Observing Life

To acquire knowledge, one must study;
but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.
- Marilyn vos Savant

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
- Marcel Proust

Be an Observer of Life.
Gaining wisdom from carefully observing life
is not a substitute for action -
it is a prerequisite for informed action.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Be aware of what is going on around you today - truly conscious.
Don't make assumptions. Focus on looking behind the obvious.

Today's Affirmation:
I am a Passionate Observer of Life.
I See the events, feel the emotions,
and recognize the difference.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Lifelong Learning

Pay Attention

What You See

New Eyes

Ways to Happiness

The best way to cheer yourself
is to try to cheer someone else up.
- Mark Twain

Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of mind,
than on outward circumstances.
- Benjamin Franklin

Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect.
It means that you've decided to look beyond the imperfections.
- Anonymous

There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way.
- Anonymous

It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are,
or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy.
It is what you think about.
- Dale Carnegie

Further reading: 7 Secrets for a Happy Life

Happiness Depends upon Ourselves

Choosing Happiness

Choose Joy Anyway

First, Have Confidence

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
- Samuel Johnson

That you may retain your self-respect, it is better
to displease the people by doing what you know is right,
than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong.
- William J. H. Boetcker

Believe in yourself. Have faith in your abilities.
Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers
you cannot be successful or happy.
- Norman Vincent Peale

If you have no confidence in self,
you are twice defeated in the race of life.
With confidence, you have won even before you have started.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero

Further reading: Be Simply Yourself

Ignore Your Critics

Making Dreams Come True

Confidence and Action

The Purpose of Our Lives

The full measure of a man is
not to be found in the man himself,
but in the colors and textures that
come alive in others because of him.
- Albert Schweitzer

The way you get meaning into your life
is to devote yourself to loving others.
Devote yourself to your community around you,
and devote yourself to creating something
that gives you purpose and meaning.
- Mitch Albom

Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
Bear with each other and forgive one another.
- Colossians 3:12

Kindness is the light that dissolves
all walls between souls, families, and nations.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

Further reading:Love Your Neighbor

Your Legacy - Making a Difference

Working Toward a Better World

Our Grandchildren

True to Your Best

Simply do your best, and you will avoid
self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.
- don Miguel Ruiz

The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.
- The Buddha

Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
- John Wooden

Success comes from knowing that
you did your best to become the best
that you are capable of becoming.
- John Wooden

Sometimes you get the results you wanted,
sometimes you don't.
What matters is that you did your best.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Step Up to the Plate

When is Your Best Good Enough?

Play to win, but be a good loser 

The Futility of Regret

Fears vs. Dreams

Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams.
Think not about your frustrations,
but about your unfulfilled potential.
Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in,
but with what it is still possible for you to do.
- Pope John XXIII

The task we must set for ourselves is not to feel secure,
but to be able to tolerate insecurity.
- Erich Fromm

People are never more insecure than when they become
obsessed with their fears at the expense of their dreams.
- Norman Cousins

It is playing safe that we create a world of utmost insecurity.
- Dag Hammarskjold

Further reading: How to Stop Worrying

Welcome the Unknown

The Edge of All We Know

Life: Mystery and Riddle

Grasping at the Shadow

Beware that you do not lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.
- Aesop  [Read The Dog and the Shadow - A Fable by Aesop]

The envious person grows lean
with the fatness of their neighbor.
- Socrates

Evil has no substance of its own, but is only the defect,
excess, perversion, or corruption of that which has substance.
- John Henry Newman

It is not the man who has too little,
but the man who craves more, that is poor.
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Of the seven deadly sins, only envy is no fun at all.
- Joseph Epstein

Further reading: This God Called Money

Attitude toward Gratitude

Discovery and Adventure, rather than Fear

The Shadow of Worry

Feeling Better about Life

Just smiling goes a long way toward making you feel better about life.
And when you feel better about life, your life is better.
- Art Linkletter

Instead of dwelling on negative thoughts,
cause your mind to dwell on peace and joy.
- Ernest Holmes

First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen?
Then prepare to accept it.
Then proceed to improve on the worst.
- Dale Carnegie

Always do the best you can,
and everything else will take care of itself.
Focus your energies on doing what you can
rather than worrying about what you can't.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Today's affirmation:
Every day in every way I am getting better and better.
- Émile Coué

Further reading:  Ten Little Tips to Feel Happier Right Now

Choosing to Smile

Giving of Yourself

Beyond Your Worries

Overflowing Cup of Tea - Zen Koan

Practice Keen Awareness

Let us not look back in anger
or forward in fear,
but around in awareness.
- James Thurber

Pay attention. Cultivate awareness.
Life cannot be lived fully or joyfully if
our thoughts are focused on regretting the past,
preoccupied with anticipating the future,
or lost in the mind-fog of unconscious habitual behavior.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It is the Consciousness with which we participate
in activities that makes the difference.
- Michael Beckwith

Your big opportunity may be right where you are now.
- Napoleon Hill

What is necessary to change a person is
to change his awareness of himself.
- Abraham Maslow

Today's affirmation: I practice keen awareness,
and make my choices with consciousness, courage,
and compassion toward all.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Assumptions are Dangerous

Letting Go and Accepting This Moment

Prejudice

Conscious Action

Responsibility, Not Blame

A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure
until he begins to blame somebody else.
- John Burroughs

The impulse to blame something or someone is foolishness.
There is nothing to be gained in blaming,
whether it be others or oneself.
- Epictetus

When you are impeccable, you take
responsibility for your actions,
but you do not judge or blame yourself.
- don Miguel Ruiz

It is an act of great Courage to forsake all Blame.
Take responsibility for your whole life -
regardless of circumstances.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past.
Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.
- John F. Kennedy

Today's affirmation:
I accept that no one else has ever been to blame
for either my joy or my suffering.
The entire cause of all my joys and all my sufferings
is my own emotional response to the events of my life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Someone to Blame

Creating Your Masterwork

Anger is a Killing Thing

Why I Choose to Believe that Others are Never the Cause of My Unhappiness

Confession of Sins

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins
and purify us from all unrighteousness.
- 1 John 1:8-9

Don't let your sins turn into bad habits.
- Mother Teresa

The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.
- Saint Augustine

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye;
and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
- Matthew 7:5

Three conditions are necessary for Penance:
1. Contrition, which is sorrow for sin, together with a purpose of amendment;
2. Confession of sins without any omission; and
3. Satisfaction by means of good works.
- Saint Thomas Aquinas

While in a religious context, "sin" is defined as "violating God's will,"
a more universal definition might be "harming others."

Further reading: Your Own Darkness

Hypocrisy

Love One Another

Judge Not
 

This World, Our Legacy

The true meaning of life is to plant trees,
under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
- Nelson Henderson

This land, this water, this air, this planet -
this is our legacy to our young.
- Paul Tsongas

If future generations are to remember us more with gratitude than sorrow,
we must achieve more than just the miracles of technology.
We must also leave them a glimpse of the world as it was created,
not just as it looked when we got through with it.
- Lyndon B. Johnson

Consider seven generations in the future when making decisions that affect the people.
- Wilma Mankiller

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet.
We all breathe the same air.
We all cherish our children's future.
And we are all mortal.
- John F. Kennedy

Further reading: Our Grandchildren's Planet

Your Legacy - Making a Difference

Reverence

For Our Children

Forgiving Sets You Free

Forgiveness is an act of self-love.
- don Miguel Ruiz

To err is human, to forgive divine.
- Alexander Pope

Forgiveness is unlocking the door
to set someone free
and realizing you were the prisoner!
- Max Lucado

I can only have peace of mind
when I forgive rather than judge.
- Gerald Jampolsky

It is not easy to forgive,
but make the effort again and again.
Nothing else you can ever do in life
will repay you as richly as forgiving
and loving those you have called enemy.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Forgiveness Releases the Past

Treat ALL with Goodness

Are You a Prisoner?

The Futility of Regret

Overcoming Difficulties

Only when life is difficult, are we challenged to become our greatest selves.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Fall seven times, stand up eight.
- Japanese Proverb

It is not because life is difficult
that we do not dare.
Life is difficult
because we do not dare.
- Seneca

All things at first appear difficult.
- Chinese proverb

Further reading: Difficulties Offer Opportunities

Why is This Happening?

Choosing to be Positive

Beyond Failure

Living Your Principles

Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.
- Alexander Hamilton

Ability without honor is useless.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero

All the great things are simple,
and many can be expressed in a single word:
freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
- Winston Churchill

You will never do anything in this world without courage.
It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.
- Aristotle

The most gullible are those who are blown about by the latest popular fad.
Those who think for themselves are protected from deception.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Aesop's Fables: The Miller, His Son, and the Ass

Your Choices Determine Everything

What is Honor? Is there a place for Honor today?

Tell The Whole Truth

What You've Always Done

If you do what you've always done,
you'll get what you've always gotten.
- Anthony Robbins

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life repeats itself mindlessly.
Unless you become mindful, it will go on repeating like a wheel.
- Osho

As long as habit and routine dictate the pattern of living,
new dimensions of the soul will not emerge.
- Henry Van Dyke

I am persuaded that the world has been tricked into adopting
some false and most pernicious notions about consistency -
and to such a degree that the average man has
turned the rights and wrongs of things entirely around
and is proud to be "consistent," unchanging, immovable, fossilized,
where it should be his humiliation.
- Mark Twain

Persistence only takes you so far.
Then you need to try a different approach.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Our Habits

Your Whole Toolkit

Flexibility is Key to Progress

Cheer for Endings

A Better Plan

Be Humble

Talent is God-given; be humble.
Fame is man-given; be thankful.
Conceit is self-given; be careful.
- John Wooden

We come nearest to the great
when we are great in humility.
- Rabindranath Tagore

There is no respect for others without humility in one's self.
- Henri Frederic Amiel

Real excellence and humility are not incompatible one with the other,
on the contrary they are twin sisters.
- Jean Baptiste Lacordaire

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.
- Rick Warren

Further reading: Humble Yet Confident

Ego versus Self Respect

A Little Help from My Friends

Zero-Based Gratitude

Give Thanks and Celebrate

Ritual is the way you carry the presence of the sacred.
Ritual is the spark that must not go out.
- Christina Baldwin

Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,
And into His courts with praise.
Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.
- Psalm 100:4

When you celebrate,
the whole existence participates with you.
Only in celebration
do we meet the ultimate, the eternal.
Only in celebration
do we go beyond the circle of birth and death.
- Osho

Celebrate! Celebration is an expression of Gratitude.
Gratitude is like the prayer, while
Celebration is the hymn and sacred dance.
Celebration is its own road to happiness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Let Each Day be a Thanksgiving

The Universal Sacrament of Compassion

Breath by Breath

Pause to Wonder

Harmony of the Soul

The Cleansing Power of Forgiveness

Forgiveness is the cleansing fire that burns away old regrets and resentments.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There is no love without forgiveness,
and there is no forgiveness without love.
- Bryant H. McGill

Forgiveness is the key to happiness.
- A Course In Miracles

The practice of forgiveness is our most important
contribution to the healing of the world.
- Marianne Williamson

Today, I say yes to forgiving.
I commit to being for-giving love
and for-giving compassion in all areas of my life.
– Sheri Rosenthal

Today's affirmation:
I accept everything that ever has been,
with no regrets, no resentments, and no call for vengeance.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Finding Peace in Forgiveness

Forgive Others for Your Own Sake

How to get over regrets and resentments

Forgiveness is Essential to a Great Relationship

Burned by Your Own Anger

Love and Kindness

Love and kindness are never wasted.
They always make a difference.
They bless the one who receives them,
and they bless you, the giver.
- Barbara de Angelis

Let us be kind;
The way is long and lonely,
And human hearts are asking for this blessing only --
That we be kind.
We cannot know the grief that men may borrow,
We cannot see the souls storm-swept by sorrow,
But love can shine upon the way to-day, to-morrow --
Let us be kind.
- W. Lomax Childress

The whole worth of a kind deed is
in the love that inspires it.
- The Talmud

The greatest impact we can have on our family, our friends, and our world
is our kindness and love.
Your love is more powerful than your words or your actions.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Offering Comforting Words and Support

Do a Kindness Today

Giving Unconditional Love

Offering Comfort

Challenge of the Unknown

We all have a fear of the unknown.
What one does with that fear will make all the difference in the world.
- Lillian Russell

Have no fear of moving into the unknown.
Simply step out fearlessly knowing that I am with you,
therefore no harm can befall you;
all is very, very well.
Do this in complete faith and confidence.
- Pope John Paul II

The challenge before us is to savor the unknown
and delight in the taste of possibility.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Fear of the unknown is
the greatest fear of humankind,
and death the greatest unknown.
Acknowledging these doubts and fears
is a powerful beginning.
It is liberating to say,
"Yes, I don't know, and yes, I am afraid."
Beyond that, the path to happiness
lies in living in the moment -
enjoying what you are doing today.
You don't need a reason to be happy,
just a choice.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Choose to Soar

A Life Without Fear

The Edge of All You Know

Spread Your Wings

Welcome the Unexpected

We will only understand the miracle of life fully when
we allow the unexpected to happen.
- Paulo Coelho

Sometimes the things you really want sneak in the back door. Notice.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates.
You never know what you're gonna get.
- the movie Forrest Gump

Unexpected events can set you back or set you up.
It's all a matter of - perspective.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Mostly, it is human to dislike surprises -
often with great intensity.
Be open to new ways;
sometimes newness just knocks on your door;
welcome it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Finding A Way

Appreciate the Unexpected

Addicted to safety?

The Edge of All We Know

Stay Adaptable

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.
- Lao Tzu

Change always comes bearing gifts.
- Price Pritchett

Life is not always as it seems.
What you have wished for is not always best.
What you have feared may become a blessing.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Change of any sort requires courage.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Zig as Life Zigs and Zag as Life Zags.
Stay Adaptable, Stay Joyful
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Todays affimation:
I choose to adapt to the circumstances in which I find myself.
I choose to be flexible in my dealings with those around me.
I understand that my way is not the only way -
that inner peace comes from respecting the ways of others,
and that, if I am open, I may gain great insights and happiness
from the ideas and traditions of others.

Further reading: There is a Way

Go With the Flow

Be Flexible

Enjoy the Journey

Love Allows Freedom

Love allows your beloved the freedom to be unlike you.
Attachment asks for conformity to your needs and desires.
Love imposes no demands.
Attachment expresses an overwhelming demand - "Make me feel whole."
Love expands beyond the limits of two people.
Attachment tries to exclude everything but two people.
- Deepak Chopra in The Path to Love

If you love something, set it free;
if it comes backs it's yours,
if it doesn't, it never was.
- Richard Bach

The greatest gift that you can give to others is the
gift of unconditional love and acceptance.
- Brian Tracy

Love is the absence of judgment.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama  

True love is a process of co-creation
in which neither feels ownership or superiority.
Jealousy is a highly destructive force
for love and relationships.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The next time you say, "my wife," "my husband," "my children," or even, "my friend," pause for a moment and ask yourself whether there isn't just a tiny bit of possessiveness in that statement.

Further reading: Generous Love

What is Love?

Our Loved Ones

Can You Make Them Change?

Redeemed by Cooperation

Your mother really did know the secret to a better world:
"Play nicely together. Don't fight."

The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.
- Bertrand Russell

When we seek to discover the best in others,
we somehow bring out the best in ourselves.
- William Arthur Ward

Most of us think about succeeding in terms of someone else failing --
that is, if I win, you lose; or if you win, I lose.
Life becomes a zero-sum game.
... [In contrast,] Win-win sees life as a cooperative arena, not a competitive one.
Win-win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks
mutual benefit in all human interactions.
Win-win means agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial and satisfying.
- Stephen R. Covey

Today's affirmation:
I feel unity with Spirit and with all that is.
My life is richer for sharing my being with all those I meet.
Each experience, however it appears at the time,
highlights and strengthens the fabric of my life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: A Shared Dream

Our Shared Humanity

Helping Others

Caring for Others

Dealing with Troubles

Happiness is not the absence of problems,
but the willingness to deal with them joyfully.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

A cloudy day is no match for a sunny disposition.
- William Arthur Ward

Count your blessings - not your troubles.
- Dale Carnegie

If I feel depressed I will sing.
If I feel sad I will laugh.
If I feel ill I will double my labor.
If I feel fear I will plunge ahead.
If I feel inferior I will wear new garments.
If I feel uncertain I will raise my voice.
If I feel poverty I will think of wealth to come.
If I feel incompetent I will think of past success.
If I feel insignificant I will remember my goals.
Today I will be the master of my emotions.
- Og Mandino

Further reading: Life of Storms

Positive Affirmations

Serenity in Times of Crisis

The Storm of Life

Release the Struggle