I have never been contained except I made the prison
-Mary Evans

Sometimes when we try to make significant changes in our lives, we find ourselves drifting back to our old behaviors time and time again. This can be extremely baffling. We have a goal that we know we want to achieve, but for some reason, we keep sabotaging our plans. It’s as if there’s a force [...]

Humility is the only true wisdom by which we prepare our minds for all the possible changes of life.
-George Arliss

Humility makes us teachable and wiser. It makes us better listeners and friends. It helps us examine ourselves without judgment. Here’s how we get there…

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This is not a political post nor an endorsement. Instead, I am sharing ideas on how to remain inspired and spiritual at a time when passions and negativity rule the discourse around us.
Here are five ideas on how to be inspired voters:
1. Practice Tolerance
The core of our political stance lies in our values and beliefs. [...]

Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before, how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever.
-Isak Dinesen

When we are inspired, the world around us looks different. Negativity around us does not affect us. But sometimes, negativity brews within us. Never ending responsibilities, failed dreams, difficult relationships, illness, death and money problems may leave us feeling dissatisfied. Anger, grief, frustration, shame, intolerance, fear and even hopelessness are all part of our experience [...]

"I was six when I saw that everything was God, and my hair stood up, and all," Teddy said. "It was on a Sunday, I remember. My sister was a tiny child then, and she was drinking her milk, and all of a sudden I saw that she was God and the milk was God. I mean, all she was doing was pouring God into God, if you know what I mean."
-J.D. Salinger
Teddy

God is everywhere and everything. We often fail to recognize God when we focus on things we find displeasing, when we lack gratitude and when our thoughts are loud and busy.
Here are a few tips we can use to remove the obstructions to our view of God:

Be still and silent whenever you can. Make a [...]

Man could not live if he were entirely impervious to sadness. Many sorrows can be endured only by being embraced, and the pleasure taken in them naturally has a somewhat melancholy character. So, melancholy is morbid only when it occupies too much place in life; but it is equally morbid for it to be wholly excluded from life.
-Emile Durkheim

The countryside here in Wisconsin right now is a barren desert of snow. The trees are leafless, dull, brown and dismal. During a two hour drive home from a client visit last week, I found myself experiencing the bleakness that often comes to many of us in the North this time of year. It has [...]

There is only one real deprivation... and that is not to be able to give one's gifts to those one loves most.
-May Sarton

My son, Tristen, is at an age where he uses the phrase, “I want” frequently. At the same time, he’s also learning to share and do nice things for people.
Unlike most grownups, toddlers express their emotions openly. It is much easier to tell what they are feeling inside. Because of this, I can clearly see [...]

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