Yin and Yang . . . and a Life-Altering Vision

Yin (noun): In Chinese philosophy, the passive female principle of the universe, characterized as female and sustaining and associated with earth, dark, and cold.

Yang (noun): Lori Anne, author of this post.

Lori Anne Yang

Literally overnight, my friend, Lori Anne Yang, experienced a profound awakening that delivered her from the darkness of depression into the light of joyous gratitude and limitless love. It’s a wonderful reminder that changing your perspective can instantaneously change everything for the better. Thank you, Lori, for sharing your beautiful story.

LORI ANNE YANG’S LIFE-ALTERING VISION

Around the time I was 35 years old, after a devastating period in my life of prolonged sorrow, I had a profound experience of rebirth. I know it is cliché to say it is always darkest before the dawn, but for me it truly was.

It was a very black night, in the midst of a painful divorce and a life in complete upheaval and pain. I believed all choices in front of me led to even more pain for myself and everyone around me. I was at a point where choosing not to live felt like a very real solution to my problems. The thought of having no future became more comforting to me than any future I could foresee. I cried myself to sleep next to all the untouched pharmaceutical bottles I had gathered on the nightstand next to me.

I will never know if I would have gone through with ending my life that night, or if it was just a step I was taking in testing this option . . . moving closer to it to see if it still felt like the answer. I will never know because I

The Doorway of Discontentment

Dan Millman

In his essay for Inspire Me Today, author Dan Millman shared a profound experience that continues to help him maintain his perspective during difficult times. It’s a beautiful lesson worth sharing.

Click here to read an excerpt from the  story Dan told me for my book, Sixty Seconds: One Moment Changes Everything.

YOUR DISCONTENT IS THE FIRST STEP TOWARD AWAKENING

In our day-to-day lives, most of our attention tends to focus on the realities of the conventional world: our relationships, perhaps raising children, going to school or work, addressing issues in the areas of health and finances.

At the same time, we each experience, from time to time or even persistently, that whispered voice of our heart or higher self, reminding us and calling us to look beyond the conventional world to a higher or transcendent reality.

Sometimes we experience a sudden wake-up call—a loss or change that forces us to consider what life is really about and what’s truly important. It shakes

Of Bonus Time and Baked Potatoes

On my way to an appointment this morning, I was thinking about how most of us have escaped serious injury or death at least once in our lives.

• One friend told me that her car spun around on a busy L.A. highway; she braced herself for impact and thought, This is it, but when she opened her eyes, all the cars behind her had miraculously stopped in time.

• Another friend of mine was standing in his yard when he was shot by

Your Old Life Is This Life

I’m reading the book, Hope Conquers All: Inspiring Stories of Love and Healing from CaringBridge, by Sona Mehring, the founder of CaringBridge. In the stories I’ve read so far, there’s a recurring theme. Here are just two examples:

Paula Coulter, who sustained serious injuries when her family’s van plunged off a collapsing freeway bridge, said, “Yes, I’m smiling. I’m here. I’m alive. But I would still give the world to have my old life back.” Mindy Fast, who was diagnosed with multiple myeloma twelve years earlier, said, “Once upon a time I had a

Doing Little Things with Great Love

In the book, The Practice of the Presence of God, the priest who interviewed Brother Lawrence, a kitchen worker in a seventeenth-century Paris monastery, recorded that Brother Lawrence told him:

That we ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.

What a powerful statement. Few of us will achieve greatness in the eyes of the world, but all of us can achieve greatness in the eyes of God simply by performing your duties with pure intention, a spirit of service and a loving heart.

If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, go on out and sweep streets like

All Is Well

Sunset in Encinitas (photo by Christopher Gray)

I just got back from standing at the ocean’s edge as darkness fell, watching and listening as the metal-blue waves rolled in toward my feet. And I thought, “All is well. The people I love are happy and healthy. I am doing the work I feel called to do. I have enough to eat and a place to live. I could not be more blessed.”

Standing there, gazing at the ocean, I also knew that the day would come when I would give everything I own, perhaps even my life, to

Three Good Things

Is this statement true:

You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

If it is, it doesn’t have to be. You can learn to consciously live with gratitude for what you have been blessed with. Starting right now.

Name three good things in your life:

• A prized possession

• Someone you love

• An aspect of

What a Gift! What a Miracle!

The next time you sit down with a loved one, challenge yourself to appreciate them like never before. Here’s how.

Imagine that earlier in the day you got the news that your loved one had passed away suddenly. If that had actually happened, you would have given all you owned to sit with them like you’re sitting with them right now—to hold

Thank You for Serving Our Country

Yesterday at the gym, I saw a man with a USMC tattoo. I approached him and asked him a question. Here was our dialogue:

ME: “Were you in the Marine Corps?”
HIM: “Yes, I still am.”
ME: “Thank you for serving our country.”
HIM: “Thank you.”
ME: “It amazes

Every Cloud Is an Angel’s Face

By definition, the circle of life demands that we experience the full range of what this life has to offer. Adversity is an integral part of the natural order of things. No one escapes its bittersweet embrace.

To round itself out, life calls not for perfection but for completeness; and for this the “thorn in the flesh” is needed, the suffering of defects without which there is no progress and no ascent.
Carl Jung

While you cannot prevent adversity from knocking on your door, you can prepare for its arrival by

Life Is Like a Game of Cards

In the chess game of life, you are faced with a particular universe of choices at any given moment.

Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play it is free will.
Jawaharlal Nehru

With every move, that universe is reconfigured, creating new possibilities and eliminating old ones.

Every turn in your life, every time you decide, you become

The Majesty of a Falling Leaf

In time, viewing every moment as a gift orchestrated by divine intelligence becomes ingrained in your consciousness. No matter where you are, no matter what is in front of you, you see the hand of God at work.

Whoever does not see God in every place does not see God in any place.
Rabbi Elimelech

Look at the world through God’s eyes and the beauty and majesty of a falling leaf will leave you breathless.

We look too much to museums. The

Everything Has Beauty

Look beyond the illusory “negative” aspects of an event and you may discover the golden nugget of divine wisdom lying just beneath the details.

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.
Confucius

Seek to find beauty in everything you look at and you

As the Magnet Finds the Iron

When you are determined to find blessings everywhere, blessings are just as determined to find you.

The unthankful heart . . . discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!
Henry Ward Beecher

While you are grateful no matter what comes to you, you continue to ask

Learning to Dance in the Rain

The law of attraction dictates that consistently and genuinely expressing thankfulness will magnetically attract even more people, things, and situations to be thankful for.

The first step in creating abundance is to receive what you already have.
Heather Madder

Gratitude inevitably produces ever more joy just as constant complaining generates ever more misery.

Being ungrateful for

I Am Thankful That Thorns Have Roses

Opening your mind and your heart to accept life’s endless stream of gifts is a priceless gift in itself.

Some people are always grumbling that roses have thorns; I am thankful that thorns have roses.
Alphonse Karr

Never again will you revert to a scarcity consciousness that whispers insidiously that you do not and will not ever have enough.

Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no