Allow

"In the midst of great anguish it must seem impossible that it should play a useful part in your life – and yet if there is one lesson to be learnt from the lives of those who have overcome obstacles and reached peace, it is that they have allowed the processes within their life to complete their cycle, for unless the underlying dynamic of the problem is dealt with it will recur.
"Metal is fashioned into sharp or useful forms by being forged and tempered in fire. Amid the flames can it see any point? No, the point emerges as a result. We create whatever happens in our lives – albeit involuntarily. It may not be what we 'want', but it will be what we need if we're to grow. (We can of course choose not to.)

"If you are alone after a relationship has ended, especially if you have children to care for, it must seem as if the sky has fallen in. Each day is an unending weariness, followed by a night of worry. Remember the story of Alexander the Great who sent soldiers to a hermit /philosopher in order to seek understanding of life’s events. The philosopher made no reply but drew characters in the sand, and what he wrote spelled ‘this too will pass’.
"Thinking over what occurs in our lives the images blur like a film in fast forward – so many things that seemed important at the time, so many demands, so many worries. What we remember most are the good times, they seem like gifts. And out of the good times comes a sense of something we have always known – a happiness to which we feel we have a right, and which makes us anguished when we are denied it.
"When those times came they came so easily, the laughter was unforced, the companionship so natural. But nobody is now denying it to us except ourselves – & one of these ways we do this is to make certain conditions before we can be happy – usually we need a specific person or thing, eg money. Actually, happiness is what we are – if we can allow ourselves it. All too often we have an image of ‘happy’ that involves these other ingredients and so we say “I cannot be happy because I haven’t got X or Y.” Not so!
"Finding happiness without our prime ingredients is scary because it demands we allow our whole operating system to be remade from within. But stick with it, because when it's done it'll be the one you really wanted all along.

"One of Buddha’s stories is of a person pursued by wild dogs who falls into a pit, but in the pit s/he sees vipers. To escape s/he attempts to climb up a hanging creeper. Above hir appear two mice, one black, one white, who gnaw at the creeper’s stem. At that moment s/he sees a small cluster of wild strawberries directly within hir reach. Mmm, how sweet they taste."