I don’t know why this works, but it does. Whenever my financial affairs are looking worrisome, when greed and fear begin crooning their fetid whispers into my ear (this tends to happen right around April fifteenth), I hold a little giveaway to reverse the trend. As long as I give in a manner and amount that brings me joy, more money arrives in shor

Adam is spoiled rotten. Everyone gives him stuff, because it’s such infectious fun to watch him receive. If you let yourself respond to your own good fortune like Adam does, people will want to give to you, too.

Think of three works of art (songs, movies, images, poems, plays, books, etc.) that resonate with your current emotional state.

Step 1: Choose a Sober Moment

You can tell whether your grief is real and helpful or false and destructive by checking for feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. These two feelings move in when the circumstances warrant anger or fear—in other words, fight or flight—but we believe that we must not allow ourselves either of these responses.

The research phase of facing your fear is like making sure your parachute is properly folded and attached to its harness. But no matter how well you prepare, the second and final fear-facing step is still terrifying. It goes like this: You open the door of the airplane, close your eyes, hold your breath, and jump.

A lot of my clients get confused when I suggest that they work within the boundaries set by their social selves. Haven’t I been telling them to stop listening to social convention and trust their essential selves? Yes, but this is the way to figure out what your goals are, not to calculate the best way to achieve them.

4. Don’t mistake a Square One identity crisis for a signal that you’ve made the wrong choice. I’ve had many clients who connected with their essential selves, made major positive life changes, and then panicked when the chaos of Square One set in. These folks mistook the confusion of the liminal period for evidence that they’d made a colossal error. T

Whenever you feel trapped in a situation that your essential self knows is keeping you from your North Star, you may either lie awake night after night, churning with anger and anxiety, or sleep fifteen hours a day without ever feeling rested.