Beholding beauty: The key is to acquire the ability to alter our negativity. To do this we use our capacity to project, but in a healthy way. Instead of expelling negative feelings and thoughts onto the world, we project good ones. Envisioning beauty and love in our mind'S eye accomplishes this end. Then we create a lighter psychological paradigm....We have the power to elevate our thoughts, feelings, and images, and when we teach ourselves how to behold beauty, we become increasingly sensitive to it.

When we encounter a friend who's depressed or afraid, we automatically try to take that distress away and to cheer the person up. While we may be operating with the best of intentions, this Band-Aid approach only reinforces the condition. Unless people experience their pain completely and begin to undrstand it, they will not only fail to overcome it, they'll also lose the opportunity of using it to advance their own growth. Pain can get you somewhere, and that somewhere can be a life-enhancing experience. We all tend to forget that pain can signal change. Alleviating the symptoms of pain in someone, without helping them to get at its underlying source, robs them of an important to for self-exploration. It's also a way of placating that reinforces the person'S need to cave in and succumb to another. This attitude undermines healthy character development and contributes to psychospiritual, moral, and ultimately social decay.