Chapter 1

The sun is shining. It's a brand new  day. Everything is a blessing. Even those things that seem like obstacles are actually blessings. There is a divine plan unfolding in your favor. There are powerful forces at work in your life that are fighting for your happiness. The grand plan of our destiny belongs to our higher power. Truth, beauty and greatness are not the domain of the ego. In order to trust the path ahead and know which way to, you need the power to discriminate between truth and untruth, between the eternal and the temporal. If one road closes, it's often because a better one is waiting for you. Don't rush or you might mess up all the moving parts. You know when it all works out, when like magic things seem to fall effortlessly into place, when all the cards fall into your favor. These moments happen not out of will, but out of surrender. Set your mind to any situation and take no action until you can discern what is the best course. Wait for guidance, listen with your heart, then follow it. 

I'm a fighter. Tenacious to a fault. I don't walk away, back down, or quit. I can also be rebellious, willful and stubborn. I thought strength meant sticking to your guns. But sometimes walking away is the strongest and bravest thing you can do. Sometimes letting go is way harder than sticking it out. I remember trying some yoga arm balances 15 times in a row, demanding my body get into the pose. People suggested that I stop, but I kept going. I never stopped to ask my body how it felt or what it wanted to to. I just posted through. Did it serve me? Not really. I got tired, exhausted and left feeling defeated. Then one day it was like another path just started to be revealed. Instead of fighting for the poses I could ease my way into them. All it took was surrender. I had to let go of my attachment to doing the pose that day or any day. Then I had space to listen to the body, wait for guidance and follow the path being presented. How many times have you heard a voice offering gentle guidance only to turn away from it in favor or your personal preference? How many times have you heard the body ask for mercy but push through only to end in pain? Listening to the inner voice of wisdom also comes with the responsibility to follow the path as it is revealed. 

The path to lasting peace means that you're willing to surrender, that you're willing to let go. Drop the struggle, drop the ego, drop all attachments. Discover the transcendent peace that comes from trusting the divine plan that is specially designed for you. Blinded by ambition, anger or anxiety you will never find your true self. Let it all go so you can become who you already are. You are strong. You are filled with an imperturbable peace. You are a beautiful shining star.

Meaning is personal. You can be expressing love to someone but they never understand because it isn't in their language. It's not the difference between linguistics that matters, but how our emotional body processes, expresses and understands love. We all speak our own individual language of love. Gary Chapman's five languages of love show that we all speak, express and understand love differently. For one person a small gift carries meaning. For another it's a kind word that makes a difference. Still others want nothing more than a hug. It could be just spending quality time and being intimate. Or finally some people understand love through devotion, acts of service as small as emptying the dishwasher. The first step in loving someone is to know them. If you give someone a gift but what they really want is a hug it won't make the deepest impact. If you demand quality time from someone who really just needs to hear positive, affirming words it will hit just off center. If you feel unloved by the people in our life you may be reading their actions all wrong. Take time to learn what your language of love is. Then learn how your friends and family express love. So often when you meet someone who "gets" it, it may just mean that they speak your language of love. Learning to speak the love language of the people you care most about means that you will meet at the spiritual heart more often. What's your love language? Mine is acts of service. 

If you've got to roll around in the mud you may as well have a good time doing it Do the best with what you've got and don't waste another second wishing you could be someone other than who you are. You are perfect and worthy of love just the way you are. Life is too short to focus on what's missing with the idea that someday when you collect a bunch of things or accomplish a series of goals that you will be happy. The only happiness you have is a reflection of the love in your heart right now. If you wait to be happy some day out in the future, that mythical day may never come and you may wake up to find that you have missed the chance to enjoy the ride of life while you were on it. Cherish every second of your life right now because you don't when it will all change. Appreciate all that you have, all the love and blessings that surround you. If you can't see the love in your life right now then no matter how much success, money, fame or worldly things you go out and get, they will always leave you empty inside. Train the mind to see reality clearly and when you do you will see the basic truth that only love is real. Like the Beatles song, Can't buy me love ... because love is free and priceless and it's everywhere and no one owns it, but love belongs to every single one of us as our birthright and spiritual inheritance.