The Path Made Clear: Discovering Your Life's Direction and Purpose

by Oprah Winfrey

MICHAEL SINGER OPRAH: What are we supposed to do when problems show up? MICHAEL SINGER: The moment it starts with that chitter-chatter, my first reaction inside is to relax and lean away. I lean away from the noise the mind is making. Because you’re going to do one of two things once it starts: You’re either going to lean into it and get involved, and let it pull you in— OPRAH: Yes, which is what most of us do. MICHAEL: Right, or relax and lean away. And once you lean away and get some space, you will learn over time that that’s the smartest thing you ever did. Why? Because you gave the noise room to pass through and it does. It passes right through. OPRAH: Why are we so afraid of change? MICHAEL: What happens is we’ve gone into the mind and said, I’m not okay. How does everything need to be for me to be okay? And then we devote ourselves to trying to create the situation that we think will make us be okay. And when things start changing and don’t match that model, then we get scared, because it looks like it’s not going to work. Fear is a thing. You can either push it away or you can let it go. You can either avoid it and be scared of it or you can let it pass right through. Fear comes up out of your heart, that’s a very natural thing; it’s human. You are watching, you see it, but you have the right to relax and let it pass right through you. If you don’t do that, you’re going to try to fix it. You’re going to try to control situations so you don’t ever feel the fear, and...