Mellery fell silent for several seconds, letting his comments sink in, then continued, 'Here's what I want you to do. Make a list of people you can't stand, people you're angry at, people who've done you wrong -and ask yourself, "How did I get into that situation? How did I get into that relationship? What were my motives? What would my actions in the situation have looked like to an objective observer? "Do not -I repeat, do not- focus on the terrible things the other person did- We are not searching for someone to blame. We did that all our lives, and it got us nowhere. All we got was a long, useless list of people to blame for everything that ever went wrong! A long, useless list! The real question, the only question that matters is "Where was I in all of this? How did I open the door that led me into the room?"

[...]

'Bad things happen to good people. But those good people do not then spend the rest of their lives gnashing their teeth and replaying over and over their resentful mental videotape of the burglary. The personal collisions that upset us the most, the ones we seem powerless to let go of, are those in which we played a role that we are unwilling to acknowledge. That's why the pain lasts - because we refuse to look at its source. We cannot detach it, because we refuse to look at the point of attachment'.

[...]

'The worst pain in our lives comes from the mistakes we refuse to acknowledge -the things we've done that are so out of harmony with who we are that we can't bear to look at them. We become two people in one skin, two people who can't stand each other. The liar and the person who despises liars. The thief and the person who despises thieves. There is no pain like the pain of that battle, raging below the level of consciousness. We run from it, but it runs with us. Wherever we run, we take the battle with us".