How do you feel when you encounter cheerful, happy people who laugh a lot and seem to find some good even in the worst of circumstances? I can recall what my reaction to these people was in the past. I would stick my finger in my mouth and act as if I was gagging.

Around the world, people are living longer than ever before, with a recent report from Public Health England revealing that the average 65-year-old man can expect to live another 19 years, while a 65-year-old woman has got a further 21 years to play with.

One of the biggest things I've discovered working with clients everyday is how extremely difficult and challenging it is for most people today to know what is best for them to think, say and do in the various situations and relationships in their lives.

When we perceive from the fragmented mind, we push life away. When we drop into the healed heart, our soul expands...we leave the false emptiness of separation and the tail-chasing, fortune cookie, nonspeak and enter the full and juicy alive-messy-perfect presence of the Whole...the Everything.

Earth is a perfect school, and daily life is the classroom. This idea is hardly new, but what follows will help you appreciate the full value of your life experience. And once this central premise penetrates your psyche, you’ll stop seeking and start trusting — because you’ll confront a higher truth.

Much of our pain comes from the emotional clutter of resisting or hardening ourselves against the way things are. For example, how often do you resist what appears before you during an average day? Suppose you’re stuck at a stoplight and late for work. Do you get anxious or frustrated and blame the red light...

Being alone has many benefits. It grants freedom in thought and action. It boosts creativity. It offers a terrain for the imagination to roam. Solitude also enriches our connections with others by providing perspective, which enhances intimacy and fosters empathy.

Are you addicted to your problems? That's a strange question I admit. Addicted to problems? How can you be addicted to something you don't like? Aren't people addicted to things they enjoy? Exactly! We do enjoy our problems, in a perverse kind of way.

How are you doing today? This is your moment to breathe in a little hope and love. I'm here for you with reminders of good things to come. Because the world seems like it's going crazy sometimes. I know.  I feel it too. We could talk about it for daaaaays, right? It's pretty intense...

"Despite the fact that most of our participants were from elite schools, they were not spared the adverse effects of sleep curtailment on their cognitive functions," says June Lo.

Have you become a wet blanket, failing to acknowledge what's working or punishing others when they say or do things you don't like? If so you are unknowingly or knowingly creating alienation and insecurity in those around you. You are not spreading joy, love, or peace.

If you feel you don’t deserve your Dream, no matter how much time and sweat you put in, how many movers and shakers you know, how many “lucky” breaks you have, or how gorgeous (or outrageous) you are, you will torpedo yourself.

Being fully alive feels like seeing the world in high definition. It makes everything taste, feel, look, smell, and sound more vivid and intense. Experiences go from black and white or analog to technicolor.

"Instead of relying blindly on advice from self-help authors about how to be happy, get to know yourself—what your brain/mind is like, how it works, and how it interacts with the world—and you'll be in a better position to decide for yourself," says Shimon Edelman.

"From an objective point of view, the present flips into the future in an instant," says Corinna Loeckenhoff. "There is the past and the future, but the present isn't really there."

I want to love, serve and remember until the very day that I die. I want to be able to look back at my life and feel that I tried in my mission. I will never be perfect in this, but I can strive to be the best I can be. In this way I will live with purpose and joy.

Thankfully, in order for us to benefit from breath and body awareness, a permanent shift in consciousness isn’t required. When we inhabit our body, even small improvements in present moment awareness can significantly reduce stress and suffering.

We all want to be enjoy the bliss of true relationship—and rightfully so. Love is our natural state. Our soul recognizes that the world we walk daily is definitely not the kingdom of heaven and we long to return to the domain of which we retain a faint but ecstatic memory.

Perhaps you have never considered that you have unrealized potential. After all, many of us have arrived at the final quarter of our lives. Aren’t we done yet? Haven’t we spent ourselves? The fortunate answer is no.

If Earth is a school, then what does graduation feel like? What’s waiting for you on the mountaintop? Could your life be more mysterious than you can see from the valley of conventional awareness?

Despite the obvious limitations, we still keep trying to do many things at the same time. Many of us believe we can do two things at once. We try it every day even though our limitations are obvious. Yet we persist, so much so that laws need to be passed to deal with our foolishness.

If we don’t like where we are, does that mean we’re condemned to stay there? Absolutely not. There’s no limit to the options, opportunities and actions we can take. If we really want something enough, we’ll find ways—comfortable, usual or astoundingly daring—to move toward what we really want.

Did you know that happiness has its own holiday? Happy people are healthier; they get sick less often and live longer. Four years ago, the General Assembly of the United Nations