As you forgive others, you are freeing yourself as well as them. As M. Scott Peck writes: 'The reason to forgive others is not for their sake .... The reason to forgive is for our own sake. For our own health. Because beyond that point needed for healing, if we hold on to our anger, we stop growing and our souls begin to shrivel.'

If you "grew up on Bible stories", you learned the "eye for an eye" concept. How is that to be put into effect in a spiritual practice that focuses on inner peace, forgiveness, and peaceful interactions with "all our relations"? Can "an eye for an eye" be interpreted in any way other than anger and revenge?

We can get side-tracked by our ego that wants to be right at any price. It doesn't care about lost friendships, or uncomfortable work relations, or families torn apart by pride -- it only cares about being right. How often do we let "being right" step into the way of peace...

Acceptance is a major theme of world religions. In modern life, however, acceptance is tension-filled and problematic. The urge to fix, change, and improve pops up at every turn. Reinhold Neibuhr summed up this tension in his Serenity Prayer, written in 1934: 'God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change...'

Albert Einstein said, “We can’t solve our problems with the same thinking that we used to create them.” I wonder what he would say today? My guess is that he would be shouting aloud while pointing to the life-threatening problems our old thinking has produced.

Each moment you cling to trauma or anger after it occurs, you cause the past to generate an entirely new sequence of thoughts, emotions, and actions. Until you can give up your attachment to the past incident, you are cursed to maintain and magnify the pain.

Many adults have a history of childhood abuse. As harmful as these early experiences can be to our psyche, an accompanying form of abuse frequently compounds them. This is the abuse we give ourselves. This form is even more widespread and affects most of us in one way or another.

Resistance not only creates physical stress but is also the determining factor in whether a person feels negative emotions. Experiencing anger, sadness, fear, guilt or grief is only possible if you resist something in your past, present or future.

In a piece on the television show 60 Minutes, Oprah Winfrey discussed childhood trauma — shining a public spotlight on the lasting effects of abuse and adversity in childhood. Oprah herself is a survivor of childhood abuse.

Years ago, I knew someone who used to say "Love is all there is". This was his "mantra" and he repeated it often to whoever was willing to listen. At the time, I was in my twenties and his statement would aggravate me to no end. After all, how could he say that "love s all there is" when there were wars, famine, murders, crimes of all kinds, etc. etc.

Our spiritual evolution depends heavily upon our recovery from our worst addiction -- our addiction to the victim archetype, which traps us in the past and saps our life energy.

"I like you, do you like me?" Isn't that how children approach one another, with total openness and acceptance? They have this pure, inno­cent way of expressing themselves, and have a completely disarming attitude like, "Hey, I want you to be my friend."

There are at least 2.6 million stillbirths a year across the world. More than 2,000 families each year suffer the loss of a stillborn baby in Australia, equating to six stillborn babies every day.

Rejection can hurt. Perhaps a person can be rejected by a friend, partner, boss, sibling, parent, co-worker, someone you work out with at the gym, or even your grown child. Scientists are discovering that the hurt of rejection can be actually recorded within your body.

Most of us think of blame as the melodramatic pointing of a long, crooked finger towards one who has done scandalous wrong. Yet we're actually into blame just about every waking moment of our days. From weather, to rude drivers, to toothpaste caps, we blame from sunup 'til sundown and never think a thing about it.

We don't always see what we're doing as complaining; in fact, we often think we're simply telling the truth about the world. What constitutes complaining? One dictionary defines it as, 'An expression of pain, dissatisfaction, or resentment.' I would add that it's a statement of...

This process takes only a few moments but it is one that literally could save you from getting totally caught up in the drama of what is happening and going to 'Victimland' for an extended stay! Our tendency is to default to victim consciousness whenever our upset...

Probably since I was an older child, I prided myself in all the things I could do, in my illusion of independence. But it didn’t stop with physical things. In my pseudo-independence, I ventured into emotional regions, and declared my lack of need for love.

Cynicism seems to have a lot going for it in the modern world. I know that I didn’t give up cynicism until it utterly failed me as a means of self-protection. As I began to understand the psychological roots of my physical collapse, it became clear that my cynical, stressful attitudes toward life had delivered me into this catastrophic con­dition.

It being the holiday season, it seems appropriate to review the emotion of love, since that is what the season is supposed to be about.

In a variety of teachings, unconditional love is the heart and soul of the spiritual life and the ultimate aim of the spiritual path – and by love is meant love in action of course (be it meditation or feeding the hungry), not discourses about love.

I have been “cleaning out my karma” for a few decades now. When I first started paying attention to the feelings of the moment, there was a collage of easy to detect feelings.

Holding onto grudges can lead to deep-seated anger and resentment that negatively impacts relationships and personal happiness. This article delves into the importance of forgiveness, illustrating how releasing these burdens can transform one's life and foster emotional freedom. By understanding the effects of grudges, readers can embark on a journey towards healing and emotional release.