Dress Rehearsal: Putting It All Together

Fear of Heaven isn't about reward or punishment, because there's no God who punishes us or rewards us for the way we behave. It's a personal, inner matter that has nothing to do with religion or with any particular religious institution, and it rests on understanding that every action we take comes back to us a little stronger. The universe never misses.

You focus on one small good thing that's already there, even the tiniest one, and you make it bigger with your attention, like a dot on a wall that grows the more you look at it. And then you say thank you for it.

Out of insecurity, out of wanting to prove that you're better, not out of any real recognition of your own worth. In a true consciousness of abundance there's no room for competition, because everyone has their own color and their own energy, and you can't take what belongs to someone else.

Loving ourselves is hard because it asks us to let go of every feeling of guilt and every bit of self-criticism, and those are usually an echo of the voices we heard as children, from parents or other authority figures. Instead of loving ourselves only in hindsight, by looking at old photographs, say, we need to turn that appreciation toward the present and toward ourselves as we are right now.