Quotes from Paul Pearsall

most of the problems we think we have stem from too much self-focus rather than too little.

Research indicates that the longest-living people in the world were distinguishable by their pessimistic outlooks.

Lasting love is more a matter of learning to look outward at the world together than looking longingly eye-to-eye.   Love Conditionally. Healthy, lasting love is conditional, not unconditional. No one, including you, is love-worthy if she or he does not behave lovingly. Love is something you earn, not something you deserve. Worry more about being love-worthy than about your own self-worth.

Don't Expect What Goes Around to Come Around. Total jerks and evil people often get all the good breaks. Being nice guarantees nothing. Good things happen to bad people. Sometimes, things just don't "balance out" or "work out for the best.

The mind-closing danger of biased beliefs occurs when we don't know we hold them. Sometimes we have to swallow our pride and engage in clear-eyed analysis.

What really drives us to seek help is an equally frightening sensation: that of being alive, yet not really living.

Some people believe they have moral choices other than to love their partners no matter what; others believe that they deserve love, no matter how they behave. I say that both are wrong.

L" energy is always within us, however, and we can become more aware of it not by trying harder but by slowing and quieting down to, as fifteenth-century philosopher Marsilio Ficino suggested, turn toward the mystery of our own nature the way a sunflower turns toward the sun.

More than seventy studies on intercessory prayer have shown the same nonlocal energetic connection effects as detected in the cheek cell experiment. One example of such a study was conducted by Dr. Randolph Byrd in San Francisco. It showed that patients undergoing heart surgery who were prayed for by groups scattered around the world did significantly better in their recovery than those who were not prayed for by these groups.9

We seldom say we love someone with all of our head, send brain-shaped candy on Valentine's Day, or tell our lover that we want to give our brain to them.

Whenever I become too busy, too impatient, and too cynical in my daily living, I stop and remember to listen and feel for my heart. I attend to it before it has to demand my attention by gripping me by my chest. During business meetings, on airplanes, or standing in a long, slow line, I place my index finger and thumb together on my left hand and feel the energetic thumping of my heart's code that reminds me to lead life and not be led by it.

As Sandra now knows, her husband, Jim, received the heart of a young woman from New York. Her family said she was prone to depression throughout her life, was shy and soft-spoken, had worked part-time in a flower shop, and had taken her own life in despair over a lost love.

The black color of the pupil results from an energy convergence and the total absorption of all of the energy waves of the color spectrum. When you look into another person's eyes at their black pupil, you are looking at what has become of you in their eyes.

The way of the heart is much less environmentally deterministic than the brain and is based on a view of the universe as essentially a friendly place. The heart speaks in the language summarized by author Elizabeth Rivers: "When something doesn't go my way, I let go of my idea of how it should be, trusting that my mind [brain] doesn't know the larger picture.