Everyone has an urge to create. Its expression may flow through many channels: through writing, art or music, through the inventiveness of work or in… - Gabor Maté

Whereas individual people can become dislocated by misfortunes in any society, only a free-market society produces mass dislocation as part of its normal functioning, even during periods of prosperity. (p288)

A therapist once said to me, “If you face the choice between feeling guilt and resentment, choose the guilt every time.” It is wisdom I have passed on to many others since. If a refusal saddles you with guilt, while consent leaves resentment in its wake, opt for the guilt. Resentment is soul suicide. Negative thinking allows us to gaze unflinchingly on our own behalf at what does not work.

We have seen in study after study that compulsive positive thinkers are more likely to develop disease and less likely to survive. Genuine positive thinking — or, more deeply, positive being — empowers us to know that we have nothing to fear from truth. “Health is not just a matter of thinking happy thoughts,” writes the molecular researcher Candace Pert. “Sometimes the biggest impetus to healing can come from jump-starting the immune system with a burst of long-suppressed anger.” Anger, or the healthy experience of it, is one of the seven A’s of healing. Each of the seven A’s addresses one of the embedded visceral beliefs that predispose to illness and undermine healing.

Whenever we ascribe a motive to the other person, as in “you are doing this because...,” we discard curiosity and immobilize compassion.