People are so afraid of authority figures and doctors are authority figures.
— Martha Beck
No matter how difficult and painful it may be, nothing sounds as good to the soul as the truth.
Loneliness is proof that your innate search for connection is intact.
If you want to end your isolation, you must be honest about what you want at a core level and decide to go after it.
I majored in Chinese. I was never really good at Chinese but I really, really benefited from having been exposed to Asian philosophy early in my life.
I always felt that it was my job to try to help other people get it and deal with it.
Given the eclectic and constantly shifting nature of my metaphysical inclinations, I will probably never feel certain exactly what an angel is.
Children who assume adult responsibilities feel old when they're young.
At times in my life, I have been utterly lonely. At other times, I've had disgusting infectious diseases. Try admitting these things in our culture.
Almost all my middle-aged and elderly acquaintances, including me, feel about 25, unless we haven't had our coffee, in which case we feel 107.
Absolutely lonely people have few personal interactions of any kind.
Only since the Industrial Revolution have most people worked in places away from their homes or been left to raise small children without the help of multiple adults, making for an unsupported life.
My own nature hovers between neurotic and paranoid. I've developed the habit of mentally listing things that make me optimistic about the future. I do it every day.
In one century, we've added 28 years to our average life span - a change so rapid that our brains couldn't possibly have evolved to accommodate it.
If you're religious, it gives you a perspective.
I have come to believe that there are infinite passageways out of the shadows, infinite vehicles to transport us into the light.
Hopeful thinking can get you out of your fear zone and into your appreciation zone.
Every day brings new choices.
Caring for your inner child has a powerful and surprisingly quick result: Do it and the child heals.
As much horror as we have always created, we are a species that keeps moving forward, seeing new sights in new ways, and enjoying the journey.
Allowing children to show their guilt, show their grief, show their anger, takes the sting out of the situation.
Whoever said love is blind is dead wrong. Love is the only thing that lets us see each other with the remotest accuracy.
No one else can take risks for us, or face our losses on our behalf, or give us self-esteem. No one can spare us from life's slings and arrows, and when death comes, we meet it alone.
Most of my clients don't realize that the way they look and the way they think about their looks are two separate issues.
If you're living completely on your own, break out of solitary confinement. Seek to understand others, and help them understand you.
I really do think that any deep crisis is an opportunity to make your life extraordinary in some way.
I don't believe that there are no spiritual beings around us. I don't know what to call them, I don't know how they work. But I know they're there.
Good-looking individuals are treated better than homely ones in virtually every social situation, from dating to trial by jury.
Do whatever it takes to convey your essential self.
Basic human contact - the meeting of eyes, the exchanging of words - is to the psyche what oxygen is to the brain. If you're feeling abandoned by the world, interact with anyone you can.
Although beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, the feeling of being beautiful exists solely in the mind of the beheld.
Adults under threat feel like children.
