You might not understand why you've been called to do the thing you feel called to do, but you do it anyway because it just feels right. It's only in hindsight that you see how it all connects.

The reality is, your mind was just as wild before. It's just that you're finally noticing it.

What shifts if you drop the illusion that some perfectly packaged "Here's what you're meant to do with your life" bundle with a bow will arrive at your doorstep and you accept that whatever you're exploring or struggling with right now is your life's purpose?

Appropriate guilt is a useful call to action. It's a flare going off to call your attention to an area where you might want to alter your behavior to get back on track toward being the kind of person you want to be and living more in alignment with your values.

You don't have to believe it fully for the seeds of possibility to start to germinate. You just have to keep the door of possibility open, and acknowledge that even slightest sliver of what's possible.

All we need to do to get unstuck from a sticky moment - aka a sticky thought - is to: Pause. Step back. Take an objective look at what's actually happening (not in your mind, but in reality). And get curious about what's under the microscope, with no clinging to or pushing away whatever you discover.

But there’s a much friendlier way to view jealousy: As a reminder that what you see in the person you're jealous of is something you want to turn the volume up on in yourself.

Every time you let a should trump a genuine desire, you're telling your big “S” Self — your natural core of love and kindness — to get out of the driver's seat so your little “s” self — your control-loving ego — can take the wheel.

Yes, long-held beliefs have layers. But if you chip away steadily and with heart-centered intention, you'll get to their core, and you'll uncover what's actually always been true: That you are 100% whole. That there is nothing you need "out there" that you don't already have "in here."

When we align our actions in a committed way with our most sincerely heartfelt desires, the universe tends to step in to support us in some way, even if not in exactly the way we'd envisioned. But we have to meet the universe halfway.

You never know whose life you might be changing for the better right this second by just showing up. There's no different way, no "more” you need to be to positively impact someone's life right now.

When the landlord opened the door to the apartment I now live in, my first thought was, Wow, this is tiny. My second thought was I know I'm gonna live here. I just knew in my gut this space was for me. And the past 3 years have proven that intuitive hit to be right on the money. Sometimes intuition comes clearly like that. But when fear is involved, intuition can feel fuzzy.

I thought there was something defective about me that I hadn't been able to figure out how to kick these maddening, self-defeating eating habits.Then one day this question crossed my mind and really hit my gut: "I wonder what I'm using food to distract myself from?"

Don't sweat the details at first. They'll clarify as you go. Start with just the ONE thing you know from deep in your being you want - and you see - in your ideal future day. Keep that one thing front and center in your vision; trust it and build on it.

You are not in your way. Only your judgments of yourself are. Let the self-judgment go and you're free.

Sitting around focusing on my heart and repeating that I wish myself and others well, and expecting it to actually change anything? Please. I felt way too far gone for that. But its simplicity is precisely why the practice of loving-kindness is so brilliant. It's like a backdoor into self-love.

Once we acknowledge what's really up for us in this moment, we can appropriately address it and clear it through that awareness. We keep the channels clear by staying as honestly and objectively aware as possible of what our energy and emotions are up to in the present moment.

In 2009 when I moved from San Diego back "home" to the Bay Area I was sad. In more grief than I'd ever known I could be, in fact. The move took place after the first man I'd ever really opened up to loving and being loved by died in a car accident. And I had no clue what I was going to do next. All I knew was that just "being" was the only right thing in that moment.

When you stay plugged into your sense of what really feels right for you, when you stay open enough to be willing to try out just this one little shift, you can have those breakthroughs. You don't need to wait for some gigantic shift in outer circumstances to break through your inner barriers.

Worry is a subconscious way of keeping ourselves comfortable - aka (emotionally) safe - aka small. But if you stay aware, you can use worry to your advantage. You can start to view it as a signal that you're about to step into some sweet, new, expansive territory.