At a small seminar, Donna reported she had been told she had physical issues she needed to address--she was out of balance and her body was filled with parasites. Seminar participants offered lots of advice for Donna. Donna was also dealing with a weight issue, which elicited plentiful recommendations from the group. As I listened, I was uncomfortable with the general tone of the conversation. Everyone meant well, but the theme  was, “There’s a lot wrong with you, and we are going to tell you how to fix it.”

The apparent goal of a journey is simply the carrot the universe dangles before you to call you to the adventure and learn the lessons the journey yields. Martin Buber declared, “All journeys have destinations of which the traveler is unaware.”

The secret of healing is the same as the secret of all success: What you think is what you get.  As Henry Ford noted,  “Think you can, or think you can’t, and either way you’ll be correct.”  Healing doesn’t ask whether you have been in pain for 30 minutes or 30 years. It is always available in the now moment. Consider two rocks that have sat underwater in a streambed; one has been submerged for 10,000 years and other for 10 days. If you place both rocks in the sun, they will take the same amount of time to dry off. Likewise, if you turn on a light in a dark room, it matters not whether the room has been dark for five minutes or five years; the room is just as light the moment you flip the switch.

At some point each of us must decide which is more powerful: love or fear. This can be a difficult decision in a world that worships at the altar of fear.  Turn on any newscast, study financial reports, or listen to conversations at the water cooler, and you will hear a pervasive agreement that things are bad and getting worse. Yet if you do not go into agreement with such a dire belief, you do not inherit its results. You have the power to live in a love-based universe even while others pander to one that seems fear-based.

I saw an inspiring video about a young man with Down Syndrome who worked as a bagger in a supermarket. In addition to enjoying connecting with customers, Michael wanted to contribute to their day. So he wrote down his favorite inspiring quotations, had them photocopied, and each day he slipped a different quote in each customer’s bag as they were checking out.

When Fiorello LaGuardia was mayor of New York City, he created a unique reputation for his unorthodox playfulness and generosity.  LaGuardia walked beats with cops on the street, rode on fire trucks, and sponsored orphanages to attend professional baseball games. During a newspaper strike, he went on the radio and read the Sunday comics for kids.