insight, not specific behavioral techniques or prescriptions, is what will set you free. Behavior takes care of itself when you see a deeper truth.

perhaps what was in the way is the way to a richer life for you as well.

the outside-in misunderstanding

The belief that our outer conditions are responsible for how we feel is unbelievably pervasive, but it is a misunderstanding. Our experience of life is not created from the outside in. How we feel cannot possibly come from the things around us. Rather, we experience life from the inside out. We feel our own moment-to-moment thinking, and those

Falling back into habitual behavior is the rule, not the exception, and it means absolutely nothing. It is a reflection of the fact that your mind got very full and busy—nothing else. Although I have no concerns, my clients, on the other hand, are typically mortified. They want to know what happened and why their change didn’t stick. They become

large portion of the relaxation and pleasant feelings that come from your habit—no matter what your habit is—is the release of the tension created by the urge. That means that once the urges are gone, there will be less tension to release. You will still experience stress and tension in your life, of course, but those feelings will come and go—as

You’ve been using your habit to quiet your mind, but in the absence of your habit, you will have the opportunity to let your mind quiet itself naturally, the way it is designed to—especially now that you understand that your mind has a self-correcting mechanism built in. That clarity can become your new normal.

Thought is vaporous, like a cloud. From a distance, clouds look solid and substantial. But as you get closer—as the airplane you’re on flies through the middle of one—you realize there is nothing solid or stable about it. The same is true of thoughts and urges. They are vaporous, far less solid and significant than they appear. The problem is that

As you’ve seen thus far in this book, the mere presence of thought is not a problem. Thoughts and urges are part of being human. It’s only what you make of those thoughts or urges—what you believe about them and how you relate to and interact with them—that matters.