Altruism raises your mood because it raises your self-esteem, which increases happiness. Plus, giving to others gets you outside of yourself and distracts you from your problems.

I describe a soulmate as a 'soul-nurturing mate' - someone who nurtures your soul - thereby promoting insight and growth.

I admit that when challenging times first surface, it's not first instinct to do a happy dance. But when you take time to pause and add insight to injury, you will immediately start to feel empowered to make those majorly needed life shifts.

Stop bragging about your lack of sweat and effort in achieving your goals. Start bragging about how hard you work, how patient you've become.

Nothing in your past is in your present making you do anything you don't choose to do. You are not your past history! You are not your past failures! You are not how others have at one time treated you! You are only who you are and what you do now in this moment.

A soulmate is someone whom, when you meet, without thinking - without letting your neocortex play into the decision - you feel an instant familiarity, a sense of connection, a longing.

During difficult times, it's best to cut down on sweets like cookies, cake and candy. Satisfy your sweet tooth with fruit to help prevent blood sugar dips and spikes.

In many ways, anger is a misdirected plea for love.

Basically, Aristotle believed that every time you behaved unkind and immorally - performing actions your soul was not proud of - you tarnished your soul. The worst shape your soul became in, the worst shape your mood and spirit.

Cultivate the habit of zest. Purposefully seek out the beauty in the seemingly trivial. Especially in the trivial. The colors and shapes of the foods you eat. The shadows a vase makes on your table. The interesting faces of the people on the bus with you.

Each day, you can awake and focus on small, easy goals you can accomplish in the short term - goals that, over time, will lead you to your long-term goal.

When you have a 'solution thinking mindset' - and choose to focus 80% of your thoughts/words on solutions - you will not only be heading more speedily to long-term success, but you will immediately feel better in the moment.

All my life, my immediate response to emotional pain has been to make jokes. Lots of jokes.

Remember: You are the common denominator in all your relationship problems. Wherever you go, your pesky repeated issues go - until you shed a blazing light of insight upon them.

When it comes right down to it, whatever business you're in, you're in the people business. After all, people prefer to do business with people and companies they find likeable.

I'm a big believer in the power of visualizations. And so are neuroscientists. Numerous studies have proven how merely imagining positive circumstances sends blood flowing from negative brain regions to positive ones.

The more you believe that you deserve healthy love, the more you will conquer and attract.

It's so essential to happiness to speak your truth out loud - because this sharing of your core pain is what creates a necessary healing shift - from negative beliefs about the world - to positive beliefs - and frees you up to be able to fully view life with meaning, purpose and connection with others.

Indeed, many of life's most fun and pleasurable choices come with potential dangers. It's important for my son to grow up recognizing that what might appear exciting or inviting at first glance could also have eventual negative consequences.

I believe whoever has the most energy wins. You need energy to win at your relationship, win in your career, win as a parent, win at being your highest potential self.

I believe much of the pain of a breakup comes from having a life plan that you have fallen in love with. When it does not work out, you become angry that you now have to pursue a new life plan.

Religious people are simply following major core practices of happy people. For example, one benefits from the guaranteed social support that can be found in a church, synagogue, or mosque.

When you feel stuck in a hard time, jump-start a pro-change attitude by letting go of possessions that no longer work for you - like old clothes and old shoes.

Only allow yourself to think negative thoughts and/or complain about anything for three minutes, three times a day.

If you feel sick and tired of how things are in your life, chances are it's because you're making yourself sick and tired - by engaging in too many energy leaking things.

Marriage counselors in particular all strongly recommend divorcees try to understand their role in a divorce before re-marrying. Statistics show if you re-marry before you've clearly seen things from the biter's point of view - you're re-bounded to fail again!

I'm doing my best to mindfully raise my son to feel safe and encouraged to express himself.

Whenever you choose power over love, you will never find true happiness.

If you ever want to tame your inner demons, you must consciously choose never to become too attached to any particular life plan - and always remain open to the idea that there might be an even better life plan for you.

A lot of people love to do affirmations first thing in the morning - to keep themselves feeling peppy and positive.

Volunteering is a great way to look outside your own problems. Giving back to makes you happier by both giving you a sense of purpose and helping to put your problems in perspective.

I've come to realize I'm more spiritual than I am religious. What I mean by this: As far as praying to God goes, I'm more about looking inside for inner guidance - tapping into our own abundantly powerful inner resources - which, I suppose, is where some might say God does indeed reside.

Basically, discipline, effort, patience and courage are hugely important core values for kids to grow up embracing.

Your subconscious's goal is to recreate unresolved childhood issues and then hopefully mend them.

If your partner is angry with you, recognize that his anger is a misdirected plea for love. Your partner's simply upset because he feels something you said or did was a sign of not loving him enough.

Personally, I know how challenging it can be to find free time in today's uber-busy, espresso-chugging world to tend to our spirits, to nourish our souls.

It's not enough to just mildly want what you want. You must wildly want what you want. Nobody ever got their greatest wishes by being wishy-washy. You need to put extreme energy into your power of intention to win what you wanna win.

Every food I choose to eat helps me become more conscious of how it either moves me forward to my fab weight or backward to my flab weight.

The next time you find yourself racing quickly down the street, know that you're not only running to your next appointment, you are literally running from contact with your truest feelings, deepest needs and most valuable insights.

I believe a lot of what contributes to the sadness and downward-spiraling in our lives is a sense of hopelessness. We become resentful when circumstances aren't unfolding as we want, leading us to doubt whether we will ever get what we want.

If you're a good choice maker, you can choose the best emotional responses and choose the best new life paths, forward and upward.

Don't try to convince your partner you are right. Instead of trying to win arguments, try to have a winning relationship!

When you start to prioritize hiring likable people within your organization, these likable people will attract other likable people.

Stop allowing yourself to focus on depressing life circumstances - including focusing on being depressed about your weight. All this negative focus will only lead you to feeling bummed and wanting to pig out. Instead, consciously focus on happy life circumstances you enjoy doing, and create more of them!

Often, overeating is a way to punish yourself for the anger and resentment you're feeling - either at yourself or someone else.

I recognized that I needed to re-train my brain to stop eating like I wanted to punish myself or punish someone else. I needed to re-learn how to eat like I loved myself, and want to nourish and support myself.

Since I began my practice of Forgiveness Therapy, it's now instinctual for me to choose to eat like I love myself - instead of eating like I wanted to punish myself. Plus I've not only lost weight, I've lost the anger and anxiety I was feeling, and so I feel happier and calmer within.

Chances are you're using overeating as a way to escape yourself. It's an attempt not to feel or think about what you really need to feel and face.

I feared vulnerability more than my actual emotional pain itself!

Insight enables you make sure you don't allow negative beliefs to get permanently set in your thinking - just the same way you wouldn't want fractured bones to be permanently set into place.