Isn’t it an interesting theory to be able to spring clean our minds just like we do our houses? To get rid of the debris that swirls around in our minds from the past and pops up every now and then to cause trouble?

We tend to hang on to all the old patterns, insecurities, and dramas to keep ourselves so busy that we don’t look at how we could change things and make ourselves happier. The dramas and the patterns keep us occupied—perhaps too occupied to make changes.

The more we can toss away what no longer has a purpose, the more determined we will be to get to the bottom of things that need healing and make the effort to pursue that healing. By searching through the dust and debris to find our current truth—not the truth that was spoon fed to us when we were younger, we will be able to release our old selves and live life with more meaning for us personally.

I used to joke around and say that I couldn’t remember current phone numbers and names because my brain was too full of old information that I no longer needed. It was a joke, but in truth, I still remembered my childhood phone numbers and addresses that were no longer relevant in my life. I know the experts say we only use 10% of our brain so there’s no reason that we couldn’t, in theory, remember many hundreds of phone numbers and addresses, but it doesn’t seem to work that way, not for me anyway.

When we refuse to let go of old patterns, family dramas, insults, dogma, judgments, etc., we are using all that good space up in our minds to keep recreating a reality we didn’t like when it was happening and probably like even less now. So how about doing a spring cleaning and taking stock of the beliefs we have about ourselves and our worlds and see if they still fit? Do they make us happier and better people now?  Dr. Wayne Dyer says, “The more beliefs that you remove from your inner space, the more room there is for new energy.” Of course, sometimes looking at old stuff may be difficult and thinking about old hurts may be painful, but if we look at these issues in the context of bringing them up and sending them on their way, it will get easier with practice.

Engaging in spring cleaning our minds does not always have to be a painful experience. Sometimes we may discover the beginning of something brand new and shiny, a treasure chest of wonderful ideas and dreams that need to be dusted off and brought out into the light of day.

This spring cleaning of our minds could be the second chance of a lifetime, a time to remember that we once loved music, we loved dancing, we loved art, we loved animals, and to give ourselves permission to rediscover those urges we had long ago before responsibility and the judgment of others made us forget our dreams and what made us happy.

Remembering that you once loved to make cookies and now are entranced with the Food Channel, shows you that you have an interest in food and may be what is currently called a “foodie,” not in the sense of gluttony but in the sense of enjoying well-prepared, tasty and/or unusual foods and wines. Maybe hanging out in William Sonoma might be just what the doctor ordered, and preparing meals for friends and family helps to bring happiness to yourself and others.

Finding out what we once loved and set aside enables us to bring it out again and make it part of our lives. If you can’t remember what once made you happy, perhaps you could browse around a bookstore and see what books and magazines attract you. See what television stations you most like to watch. Look in the local papers and see what activities are advertised and what volunteer needs there are in your community. Sometimes you won’t get paid for what you love to do, but the payment is in the doing of it.

For instance, I know that rock climbing will never be something I’ll want to do, but working with animals in some fashion brings me great joy. I love books and words and art, but I know I’m not much into car repair or building model airplanes. Just starting with what you know about yourself already can set you off in the right direction to spending more time with the things that bring you joy.

Spring cleaning our minds should occur in every season as we get rid of what no longer fits us and make way for the things that do! In the words of poet Mary Oliver, “Doesn’t everything die at last and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” 

Get to Know Yourself: You Are the Most Important Person in Your World, a book by Sherry Kulakowski, is now available. You may purchase it at the A.R.E. bookstore in Virginia Beach or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

The greatest gift that you could ever give to another is your own happiness. When you are in a state of joy, happiness, and appreciation, anything you behold benefits from your attention.

Your emotions are a guidance system for you because they let you see just where you are and how you’re feeling. It’s important for you to figure out where you are right now in your emotional state and then reflect upon where you would like to be. An understanding of where you are and where you want to be is essential if you are going to make deliberate decisions about creating your own life.

You are surrounded by many influences in life, and often others may ask or insist that you behave differently so that they can be happy. You are inundated with laws, rules, and expectations that are imposed on you by others, and lots of people have opinions on how you should behave. But it is not possible for you to stay on track between where you are and where you want to be if you are using those kind of outside influences to guide you.

Often you are pulled this way and that in an attempt to please another, only to discover that no matter how hard you try, you cannot please everyone as well as consistently move in any direction that pleases you. As a result, not only do you not please that person, you do not please yourself. And because you are being pulled in so many directions, your path to where you want to be usually gets lost in the process.

Of course, common sense says that you have to obey some rules in a civilized society, such as following speed limits and respecting your neighbor’s property and peace of mind. However, when it comes to rules and expectations placed on you by others, these expectations may deviate from what makes sense to you and the integrity you wish to project to the world.

No one else needs you to be or do things for them in order for them to be happy. Everyone has access to the same ability to create happiness as you do. Often others who do not understand that they have access to the same ability to create happiness may ask or expect you to behave in ways that they believe will make them feel better. But not only do they hold you in a place of discomfort as they try to make you responsible for their joy, they hold themselves in a place of bondage as well.

Just as it is easy for you to contemplate a successful trip from Boston to Virginia Beach, it will be easy for you to contemplate a successful trip from financial insecurity to financial security, from sickness to wellness. When contemplating a trip, you know the distance and the direction and you understand how moving in the wrong direction means you won’t get where you want to go. In the same way, you will feel with your happiness and the thoughts you offer whether you are moving closer to or further from your desired outcome. Thinking negative, fearful, and depressed thoughts will not get you where you wish to go. Having gratitude for what you have and enjoyment of what life offers you creates an atmosphere of drawing to you more of what you want.

If you depend on other influences than your own desires, you will get lost and go off track, for no others understand as you do the distance between where you are and where you want to be. Only when you pay attention to the way you feel can you guide yourself steadily toward your own goals.

The Universal Law of Attraction says that when you give your attention to something you desire and say yes to it, you are including it in your own vibration. But also when you look at something you do not want and say no to it, you are also including it in your vibration. When you give no attention to it, you do not include it in your vibration. But you cannot think about anything in your effort to exclude it because you are giving your attention to it. Your attention to it makes it part of your vibration, every time, no exceptions. So you cannot rally against war and expect peace. You must rally for peace. You cannot rally against debt and expect abundance. You must rally for abundance. It sounds simple, but it’s not always easy to do.  

Get to Know Yourself: You Are the Most Important Person in Your World, a book by Sherry Kulakowski, is now available. You may purchase it at the A.R.E. bookstore in Virginia Beach or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to order one by mail.

I recently watched a news program hosted by Diane Sawyer on prostitution in America. There are many columns I could write on this topic, but the one idea I wanted to focus on here is the fact that many girls manage to get out of that life and then eventually return to it. How can that be? You would think that once you successfully extricate yourself from the unhappiness of that life, you would never return to it.

The answer is that you eventually become your environment. If you have nothing to replace it with—such as another profession, new friends and acquaintances, and other interests—it’s understandable how you would feel lost and decide to return to the familiar life you have known. What you do, the people you’re with, and the things you say all become you. Unless you give yourself enough time and space to have different experiences and build different neural pathways in your brain, you may become trapped in a lifestyle that perhaps you would not have chosen. However, once you become enmeshed, it’s not so easy to get out. You simply lose the skill and the will to do something different, to make different choices. The habits of day after day and year after year need to be replaced with new behaviors and thoughts.

We don’t move through life in an insulated bubble unaffected by the outside world. Every experience we have molds us and becomes part of us. Prostitutes are an extreme example of being a victim of your environment. However, if we are not vigilant, we run the danger of ending up somewhere perhaps we didn’t intend. We may not realize initially the outcome of what may have seemed to be a good thing.

The bright, sunny child who becomes a lawyer was told that very hard work and many hours at the office equals success and happiness. He finds one day down the road that his only acquaintances are his employees, and he has sacrificed his personal and family lives on the altar of success.

Or consider the lovely woman who plays the corporate game at the company she works for—repeatedly condoning and being silent about business behaviors she finds unethical, behaviors that go against her true character until she’s not sure who she is anymore.

Several of the young celebrities in our society have become victims of their own fame and are surrounded by hangers on, dishonest business people, and paparazzi. They appear to have no one with their best interests at heart. Dr. Drew Pinsky, an expert specializing in addiction, says that once someone has become enmeshed in an unhappy lifestyle that it can take one to two years totally away from that lifestyle to have the emotional space to see the big picture and decide to go in another direction that brings more fulfillment. The young celebrities need to be removed from their environment in order to clear their heads and recognize that there are other options available. What we devote our attention to is what we will have in our lives. Even more than that, what we put our attention on will be our lives.

It’s mind expanding when we realize that we do have the power to change and create better lives for ourselves. We need to make the choices that will bring us the most happiness. I once read a quote that I really loved: “Your happiness is your gift to the world.” Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, seconds that thought after taking her own year off to solve the puzzle of her own life. She says on her website. “After three years of despair and depression, I had come to believe that living my life in a state of constant misery was actually a pretty selfish act. Who would be served by a lifetime of my sorrow? How would that enrich the world? Going off for a year and creating a journey to pull myself back together, to rediscover joy, to face down my failings and rebuild my existence, was not only an important thing for my life, but ultimately for the lives of everyone around me. And it’s not just my family and friends who are better off now that I am happy; it’s everyone I encounter. Because the reality is that we human beings are constantly leaking our dispositions upon each other. When I was in such a dark state, everyone I passed on the street had to walk through the shadow of my darkness, whether they knew me or not.”

So it’s good for you and good for all of humanity to live your best life. Let’s look around and take inventory and make sure that we are using our time and attention purposefully to create the lives we most desire. 

Get to Know Yourself: You Are the Most Important Person in Your World, a book by Sherry Kulakowski, is now available. You may purchase it at the A.R.E. bookstore in Virginia Beach or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to order one by mail.

A dear friend of mine said to me the other day “we expect people to think like we do.” After I thought about it, I realized what a profound statement that was. I also realized that almost every time I had friction or a disagreement with someone, it was usually because they didn’t agree with me or think like I did.

We create our own vision of reality from inside our own minds. Our minds interpret what life reflects back to us. Our minds and our thoughts are the sum and total of all of our life experiences including our families of origin, our income level past and present, our educational level, our aptitude for sports, science music, art, parenting, cooking, and on and on. Also our minds and thoughts are driven by how much we value ourselves and have self-love and self esteem. This is not ego-based self-love but honest value that we give ourselves and our lives.

Since no two people in the world have the same life experiences and interests and talents, it’s no wonder that we all think somewhat differently and approach life in different ways. Since we view life from inside our own heads, however, we sometimes forget that.

Groups of people may have similar thoughts about certain issues. For instance, they may have a meeting of the minds about working for world peace or working for animal rights, so their minds and thoughts are similar around these issues. This is how movements and organizations evolve. However, these people may think alike regarding world peace but may have totally different thoughts on how to raise children, what constitutes a perfect marriage, or how to manage money.

How are we ever to all get along when we are coming from such different life experiences?

First, we need to realize that not everyone thinks as we do, so we shouldn’t expect them to. Second, we should try not to judge others unless, as the saying goes, “you have walked a mile in their shoes.” We can never know everything others have gone through, but we can honor their journey by utilizing the golden rule to “do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Third, we should remember there are many paths up the mountain, and it’s not important how we get there—only that we get there.

When there is a difference of opinion in a situation, there is almost always a win-win situation if we can just find it. Everyone has free will to make choices in life, and the universe (or God, if you prefer) gave all of us the same free will. As long as we do not impinge on anyone else’s free will and as long as we do not harm another, free will should always be honored. We always have choices. We may choose to leave a situation we do not agree with, for instance. And if we can’t physically leave a bad situation right away, we still have the free will to think the thoughts we choose.

I admit that in the past I often expected others to think like me and became annoyed when they didn’t. Now that I recognize that others do not always think like me, this knowledge will bring me more peace in my life.

We can never truly know what others have been through, the many things that shape their thoughts and actions. We have never had the life experience of others, so how can we judge them? One survivor of the concentration camps in WWII said that the only way he survived was that he was able to choose his own thoughts, and no one else could choose his thoughts for him or invade his mind. He was free to think as he chose and that made all the difference to him. As long as he controlled his thoughts and focused on forgiveness and peace, he was able to control the fear and hatred that caused such pain in some of the other prisoners. Something in this man enabled him to control his thoughts in this manner; however, others had the freedom to think differently as they chose.

Everywhere in life you find people who think differently about the same situation, and this is the freedom that we are born with. Sometimes thoughts change as we gain more information or mature into different thought patterns. But through it all, it behooves us all to honor each other and give each other the freedom to think differently than we do, including those who are perhaps the closest to us. 

Sherry Kulakowski lives and works in Virginia Beach and can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Each of us is made up of two parts, personality and individuality. Personality is the mask we wear in daily life, the self we show to the world. Personality isn’t inherently good or bad but consists of the strong habit patterns we have developed, some nice and some maybe not so nice.

Individuality is our soul spirit self. It bestows a profound sense of uniqueness to us and puts us in touch with all life. We may have a different personality than we did 15 years ago—our personality changes as we mature—but underneath the personality we are still the same since our individuality doesn’t change. Our individuality is sensitive. It guides us with hunches and feelings. It’s creative and sees life with fresh eyes, and it is active. The personality may not want to change, but individuality will move.

Although many of us don’t consciously recognize or acknowledge that we do have a specific purpose in life, our soul/subconscious mind knows what we are here for. It reaches out to us, sending messages through our dreams, intuitions, and innermost longings. This call manifests in our drives and abilities, shapes our relationships, and influences the quality and direction of our lives.

It is our soul that pushes us to move, that yearns to travel to distant lands, to study astronomy, to work with the dead and dying, to plant gardens, to study and make art. It’s our soul that pushes us on and makes us long for these other experiences in our lives. If it were up to our flesh, we would stay safe and warm and always satisfy exactly what the fleshy comfort yearnings are at any given time, whether or not that is in our best interests. The flesh will always take the path of least resistance. It is the flesh/personality that wants to stay in bed on Saturday morning instead of getting up to take that piano lesson. It is our individuality that will push us to get up.

It’s important to recognize that our body’s yearnings and our soul’s yearnings may sometimes be at cross-purposes. As we start to recognize the differences, we will see that if we are not in some way satisfying the soul’s yearning, we will eventually start to feel as if something is missing in our lives. There will be an underlying sense of dissatisfaction, and we just won’t be completely happy—no matter what outward trappings of success we may have. There are many ways to have abundance in our lives, and money is just one of them. Others are health, good friends, and a rich, spiritual life. When all is said and done, living your soul’s purpose, your life’s purpose is what will bring you the most happiness and satisfaction.

We need a personality to function in our life. Our personality navigates through the human connections we make every day and takes care of the minutiae of our daily lives. But our personality runs on automatic pilot for the most part. Our personality is the familiar identity we generally know ourselves to be in the world. It’s our habitual self. This is the side of us that has largely been acquired, copied, and learned by conditioning. It is the residence of many strengths and talents, but often in such a way that they’ve gotten stale or limited—because by and large our personality is controlled by habit. When push comes to shove, very often the personality will choose to follow the path of habit.

Individuality is the more essential self. It is the identity that has continuity after death. It is the side of us which still wants growth and development but which is committed and ready for that evolution. It is the place within us where the mission in life is clearly known and understood. And as we come to know our mission, we will see that we are constantly fine-tuning and readjusting our course as needed, just as a car or plane has to constantly do little readjustments to stay on course.

The individuality is where we get in touch with our purer, more authentic self. Daily meditation will help us get in touch with this most important part of ourselves. By giving ourselves this quiet time, we can come to truly get to know the inner self. Working with our dreams, which are messages from our souls, is another way to touch our individuality. Daily journaling and spending time in nature are additional ways to give ourselves the space to get in touch with our individuality. It’s worth taking the time and effort to get to know ourselves at this level and to meet that unique being who can bring to the world what no one else can. 

Sherry Kulakowski works and lives in Virginia Beach. You can reach her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

There are some spiritual traditions that advise their students to change their identities for a while, to choose a different life and go live as that identity to see what it’s like. The purpose of this spiritual exercise is to develop understand and empathy for others, to help us remove the barriers that exist between us so that we can feel the oneness with all life.

A current example of this is a television program where a CEO of a company goes undercover (aptly enough, the show was called Undercover Boss). The CEO becomes an employee doing an assortment of the tough and stressful jobs that are part of the business. The executive has an eye-opening experience as he sees how hard some of the work is and in some cases how badly the employees are treated by their managers. After the experience there are usually positive changes that are made that benefit both the company and the employees.

Imagine a society matron spending a week as a domestic, a lawyer spending a week as a farmer, a farmer spending a week as a policeman—the possibilities are endless. If we can understand what others go through, we are on the road to developing compassion and empathy and seeing the oneness of all creation. While this would be an extremely interesting experiment, we don’t need to totally enter another’s life to walk a mile in someone’s shoes. We can and do enter different personas within our own lives.

We ourselves go through many different identities in the course of our lives—from child, to teenager, to adult. Sometimes we’re a spouse and sometimes a parent and grandparent. We are friend, student, teacher, employee, and sometimes employer. We may also have several different careers as we move through life. Which is the real us, all of them or none of them? Is the real us beyond the roles we play in life, always constant, always there as we move through our different roles?

In our own lives we seem to have more understanding and sometimes compassion for those who have gone through the same experiences we have. Those who have lost loved ones have a better understanding of the loss someone else feels when a most important person is suddenly gone from life. Victims of crime have more empathy for other victims because they have been in that position. This is true for the majority of challenging experiences but also for other life experiences. People in the military share a bond and are loyal to their branch of service. Have you ever heard a Marine yell Semper Fi? College graduates are loyal to their colleges and fraternities. Firefighters, policemen, unions, all of these and more have an understanding and loyalty to their own kind.

The loyalty is admirable and to be emulated. However, wouldn’t it be nice if we just felt connected to everyone and didn’t necessarily have to have all the experiences or belong to the same club to have understanding and empathy for our fellow human beings? What if we could go beyond the roles we play in life and get to our true spirit?

What if we didn’t have to live as a different race to see our commonalities? What if, instead of any kind of intolerance for skin of a different color, we saw the richness of different traditions? What if we saw that the variety of food, clothing, music, speech, and culture makes us a richer and more interesting species? What if we didn’t insist that everyone join the religion we approve of or have viewpoints that we approve of? What if we understood that most everybody wants the same things that we do, to be safe, to be loved, and to be valued? People are much more alike than they are different, and the similarities are what bring us closer to each other. It’s hard to point a gun at someone when you see him as yourself.

My favorite prayer, which follows, is one that Krishna Das, a much-loved singer and chant leader, says at the end of his programs. “If we know anything about a path at all, it’s only because of the Great ones that have gone before us. Out of their love and kindness, they have left some footprints for us to follow. So, in the same way that they wish for us, we wish that all beings everywhere, including ourselves, be safe, be happy, have good health, and enough to eat. And may we all live at ease of heart with whatever comes to us in life.” 

Sherry Kulakowski lives and works in Virginia Beach. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

We teach people how to treat us. This is a powerful statement and one that puts the control of our lives squarely in our own hands. How do we do this? How do we teach others how to treat us? We teach others how to treat us through the boundaries we set in our lives. A boundary is a property line that defines where you begin and end, what is allowed inside, and what must stay outside. There is one very important reason why we need to set boundaries in our lives. It’s because we don’t live in a vacuum; we exist in relationship. So boundaries are about relationship and therefore about love. Unless we live the life of a hermit, we live in relationship to others, and our boundaries need to be made visible to others and communicated to them.

Sometimes we might fear setting proper boundaries because we fear not being liked, not being loved, loss of approval, loss of connection, and perhaps receiving anger. These are all failures of love, and we are here on earth to learn about love and how to love. These fears of setting boundaries and of confrontation might be because we were taught at a very young age that confrontation was not safe for us, and a pattern was formed in us to avoid boundary setting or confrontation at all costs. If we have this pattern, we may not even be aware that this pattern exists within us, but it is still constantly affecting all our relationships whether we are aware of it or not.

Because of these fears, we might try to have secret boundaries. We might withdraw passively instead of communicating an honest no to someone that we love. We secretly resent someone instead of telling that person that we are angry about how he or she has hurt us. We will endure others’ irresponsibility instead of telling them how their actions affect us—information that would help that person grow spiritually. We might instead indulge in passive/aggressive behavior—perhaps withdrawing our love and attention, giving the silent treatment, or by exhibiting little neglects or meanesses. This type of behavior is toxic to relationships.

Such withdrawing and resenting doesn’t go away or evaporate; it stays stuck in our bodies until one day we explode. The “nagged” husband will suddenly file for divorce; the “nice” employee will suddenly blow up over a seemingly inconsequential event; parents of the “spoiled” child who constantly pushes for more, more, more will avoid spending time with that child. In all these instances, relationships suffer because of unexpressed boundaries.

Extremely important to remember is that our boundaries exist whether or not we are aware of them, and they will affect us whether or not we communicate them to other people. If our boundaries are not communicated directly, they will be communicated indirectly—through withdrawal, resentment, passive/aggressive behavior, and eventually loss of relationship.

Appropriate boundaries actually increase our ability to care about others and to have others care about us. When we honestly communicate how we expect to be treated, we can welcome others into our lives with open arms, knowing that our wishes will be respected. And if they’re not, we can make the decision whether or not we will continue in a relationship where our wishes are not respected.

Deciding to move on from a relationship that has ended to other relationships that “fit” us better is not a failure; it’s a sign of our growth and a sign that we value ourselves. Those we may leave behind are not bad in any way, but they have their own road to follow and we can wish them well and on their way.

Other people welcome our boundaries; it gives them a clear-cut map of their relationship with us, so they know how to treat us—just as we enjoy relationships with others when we know how to treat them. There’s stability and comfort in knowing where we stand. With this type of honest relationship we are on firm footing and can relax and enjoy the time we spend with others.

In order for us to have real relationship with each other, we must express and relate our true boundaries, what we will and will not stand for. This is how we teach people how to treat us and how we learn how to treat others. This is the path to true loving relationships, the only kind worth having. 

Sherry Kulakowski lives and works in Virginia Beach, you may contact her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Ever notice how good it feels to love? When you’re in love, the world seems a brighter, shinier place. You wake up with a smile on your face and can’t wait to get your day going and perhaps connect with the object of your bright, shiny love. That’s what we usually equate with love, a significant other on which we project our desire, and we only feel half of a whole without them. It’s that feeling of the love that loves through you that feels so good.

But what about those folks who don’t have a particular person on whom to lavish their bright shiny love at the moment, does that mean that they are denied this great feeling?

All is not lost. I love the saying: “You never run out of people to love.” It’s so true. Since it’s the feeling of the love flowing through you that feels so good, you can spend this love however you like in many different ways. There are so many people in the world to love, so many people that need and want love. Every day at work, at play, or shopping, we run across people who want and need love. In your friendships, there is an absolutely wonderful opportunity to love and to be loved. There are pets to love, there are gardens to love, there is music to love—the list is endless. In fact, whatever your particular interests in life are—art, teaching, health, healing, nature, cooking, or kayaking—in pursuing what you love, you will find opportunities to love.

It’s funny that the more you love, the lovelier you become. We all know people, who perhaps did not fit People Magazine’s 100 Most Beautiful People requirements for beauty, but they are absolutely beautiful nonetheless. You wanted to be around them and spend time with them because it felt good. They seemed to have these beautiful waves of joy coming off them. These folks have the answer: it’s the loving that makes us lovely. It’s the loving of who we are, what we are, and what’s around us that makes us attractive and draws others to us.

There are several Greek words for love, as the Greek language distinguishes how the word is used. The Ancient Greek had at least four distinct words for love. Agape is love of all of mankind. Philia or Philos is brotherly love of friends, family. Eros is romantic, sexual love. Lastly, there is one called Storge, which applies to situations like old friends connecting after a long time  when things appear to pick up exactly where they left off, even if many decades have intervened. Just as the Eskimos have many words for snow, the Greeks thought that love needed to be categorized, that it was just too big an emotion to be contained in one word.

The very best kind of love is unconditional love. Unconditional love means there are no conditions attached to the love you love. You love others just as they are. Others don’t have to behave in a certain way, look a certain way, or do a certain thing in order to be loved. It’s what we all yearn for, to be loved without condition. I feel that if we can learn to love others unconditionally, we will come closer and closer to being loved that way ourselves. The universal law of like-attracts-like will demand it. But once again, the joy is not in being loved (although we can’t deny that it feels very nice); the joy is in feeling the unconditional love flowing through us.

The greatest power known to man is that of unconditional love. Unconditional love is an unlimited way of being. There are so many ways to apply love in our everyday lives. This magnificent planet if filled with opportunities to experience love. When we, as individuals, realize our potential to love unconditionally, we transform ourselves and the planet at the same time. Such is the power we wield every moment of every day. Every moment of every day is a new beginning, for us to choose and choose again. The wonderful energy of unconditional love is available merely by use of conscious recognition. When we choose to love one another, we transcend the lower personality and rise to a higher truth.

As noted author Deepak Chopra says, “Love is considered the most basic emotion that human awareness can feel; therefore, it is the closest to the source of life. The burst of well-being you feel when you fall in love is due to the fact that you unconsciously open the channels of awareness that allow more Prana (Life Force) to flow.” And this is why it feels so good to love.

Sherry Kulakowski lives and works in Virginia Beach. You may reach her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

I stopped getting annoyed at other drivers when I realized that many people just don’t know how to drive that well. Split-second decisions such as deciding when to pull out or pass and how close to follow require experience, and some drivers are just not that skilled. Also, a driver’s state of mind and physical well being changes from day to day, so if you are stressed or tired, you may not be as conscientious as the next driver.

Perhaps this is true of other aspects of life as well. Maybe I should be more willing to give the other guy a break in other areas of life, such as work habits, grooming habits, courtesy, and compassion. Maybe other folks have not had the experience to do those things well either. Most of the time it doesn’t pay to get upset at what we perceive as thoughtlessness. All that happens is that our peace gets stolen, and as therapist Dr. Phil says, “How’s that working for you?” For most of us it doesn’t work very well.

People don’t know what they don’t know. Sometimes people don’t know that they have a choice. It’s harder for people to emerge from bad situations if they don’t know they have a choice to do things a different way. Or perhaps they haven’t had the experience or an example of how to do things in a way that will bring them the most benefit. Sometimes people’s choices are temporarily taken out of their hands especially if decisions are made at an early age that will affect their lives for some time.

Recently, after a Miss America was crowned, old videos surfaced of her doing very un-Miss America like things. There was talk of removing her crown. However, the promoter of the pageant wanted to give her a chance to have a fresh start. As it turned out, there were reasons for her behavior that started when she was a child when decisions made by her parents and herself culminated in the actions shown on these tapes. Because the promoter was willing to give her a break, she went on to do a stunning job, and she was able to help a lot of people along the way by telling her story. She didn’t know what she didn’t know, and because someone gave her a break, she was able to learn.

Sometimes in my own life, I have rushed to judgment: “How could that person say that to me? How could he expect that of me? How could she do that to me?” and on and on. My peace was being stolen every step of the way. Then invariably I found out down the road that that person didn’t know the procedures or didn’t know the correct way to go about something or the right words to say. Instead of giving people a break, I started judging them and became a victim in the process. It’s a funny thing about victimization. When you feel like a victim, you invite victimization or you see it where no victimization is intended. The more you feel like a victim—a victim of bad drivers, a victim of a co-worker, a victim of someone’s perceived persecution—the more you don’t give someone a break, and the cycle begins again.

“It’s better to be kind than to be right” is a popular saying now, and I couldn’t find out definitively whom to attribute it to, but it’s beautiful. Since the Dalai Lama has been quoted as saying his religion is kindness, I’ll bet some equally wonderful thinker thought this up. And you know what? It is better to be kind than to be right. By being kind and giving someone a break, we might in turn receive a break ourselves. I’ve never met anyone who didn’t need a break every now and again.

Of course, there are limits, and I’m not condoning abuse of any kind. We still need to keep our boundaries strong and take care of ourselves. But maybe sometimes, if someone cuts us off in traffic, forgets to wear deodorant, doesn’t pull their weight at work that day, or gives us a grouchy answer, is it really all that important to get upset? Maybe giving someone the benefit of the doubt is the kindest thing we can do for that person and for ourselves. By taking this approach and giving others a break, we move away from victimization and toward co-creating a kinder world. 

Sherry Kulakowski lives and works in Virginia Beach, you can reach her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

I think we are meant to do many things in this life, to have different experiences, and to find new ways to bring ourselves joy. We run into trouble when we get stuck in a loop in which one particular thing becomes so important that we get trapped and there is no way out. We can get stuck in jobs, relationships, or perhaps fulfilling someone else’s dreams instead of our own.

We have to be vigilant in birthing our lives. Sometimes in order to do this we have to make mistakes. I loved it when a friend of mine said his favorite teacher told the class at the start of the semester, “There’s one thing I want you to do; it’s to make mistakes.” That was one smart teacher since he realized that the way we learn a lot of the time is by making mistakes. Mistakes are not really mistakes at all, but simply finding out what we don’t want. In other words, we try something, and if it doesn’t work for us, we try something else.

We get clarity by knowing that we are the culmination of all of our experiences and only we can decide what we want. If we don’t like the experiences we’re having, we simply choose again. The first step in finding out what we want is visualizing our goals. When we have a clear picture of what we want and spend time focusing on it with purity of intention, it comes to us as the universe lines up to accommodate our wishes.

Get a picture in your mind of what you want your life to look like and allow the universe to respond to it. The energy of our thoughts, which is magnetic in nature, helps to bring forth what it is we desire. Life is so full of variety that there is indeed something here for everyone. We just have to find out what it is that brings us joy and take the steps to get there, one step at time.

In the past (and still today in some places) many women were stopped by laws and by society from creating the lives they desired. Today, in most of the world, women have achieved almost equal status with men and can strive for almost any life they want to live. Women can choose to live married lives, single lives, or serial partnership lives.  They can choose to live however they desire without being ostracized or persecuted. Today women are free to pursue and create just about any career that interests them without constraints. They are as free as men to go after high profile careers.

One of the biggest traps we might face in allowing ourselves the freedom to create the lives we want is getting stuck in one loop and feeling that particular path is so important. For example, we may be afraid to leave a job since we feel it’s our security, yet each day we dread going to it and it brings us no joy and no fulfillment. Are we really doing ourselves or the people we contact every day any favors when we feel like that about what we do for a living?

Before we spend years doing something that will shorten our lives we should probably take a thorough inventory and honestly see if the job is serving us and if we are serving the job. No job or career is perfect all of the time, but we should feel good about going to work, at least more often than not.

Staying in relationships—whether they are partnerships or friendships—out of habit or fear is guaranteed to bring us unhappiness. Our interactions with others tell us a lot about ourselves and what we expect out of life. As we grow through life, maybe relationships we had earlier no longer fit us since we all grow in different ways and have different needs.

Perhaps the sneakiest obstacle to living a fulfilled life is choosing a path in order to fulfill someone else’s dreams. Each of us came to earth for a purpose and to feel joy and to fulfill that purpose for which we came. We are here to enjoy everyday life and to have peace of mind. Each person has the choice to create this for herself and shouldn’t live her life in someone else’s shadow.

Take advantage of the variety of life and create the life you want! Life’s waiting!  

Sherry Kulakowski lives and works in Virginia Beach. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it