What we have taken as being our “choices” in life really belong to a nature whose mechanical reactions leave us virtually without a voice in our experience of what happens to us.

In order to elevate the nature of our life experience we must first do the inner work of changing our relationship with those parts of us responsible for its creation. We can effect this change by making new choices for ourselves. The following 10 Simple Truths to Help You Reclaim Your Life will get us started.

Each one of the higher life lessons that follow points the way to a brighter life. By their very nature, they are empowered to bring new light into one’s moments. The spiritual “catch” here is that these truths belong to a Higher Consciousness within us, and they will work for us only as well as we are willing to remember them in the moment needed.

Our work to remember what is right and bright places us under the power and protection of the Living Light from which these powers come. Each life-transforming principle stated here is followed by a brief explanation that implies an interior exercise born of its conscious remembrance.

1. What we experience in any given moment is what we bring into it. This means our moments are mirrors reflecting the expression of our present nature, but we place responsibility for our life-experience outside ourselves. To work to remember this timeless spiritual truth — that we meet ourselves wherever we go — changes our consciousness.

2. All possessions are, by nature, temporary. Our moments pass whether we want them to or not. We resist the temporality of things because we are asleep to the nature that thinks clinging to life is the same as living it. To remember that all things pass teaches us not only to let go of our attachments, but to let go of our lower nature that clings to everything!

3. Our true future is our relationship with the present moment; it is not a time to come, but a choice that we make in the Now. When we remember that it’s what we are in the present moment that determines our destiny, that our Now is the seed of our next moment, then our awakened state not only keeps us safe in the present, but it goes before us as well.

4. Since what others may do to us is not in our power to change, we need only concern ourselves with what we do to ourselves, for this is in our power. There is no judgment the lower nature passes on another that doesn’t first serve to punish it. To remember this truth before we resent another for our pain ensures that we are not adding fuel to the fire.

5. Whenever we find ourselves in a rush of some kind, we need only remember that we can never get ahead of where we are in any given moment. This recollection helps us collect our unconscious, runaway thoughts, and lets us begin the work of consciously slowing down. Rushing is a poor man’s reason for why he can never get caught up with his life.

6. Everyone we know has a heart that has been hurt, so when we are with others, we can try to remember it’s better to work at being a healer than to be a default hurter. Such conscious remembrance helps stir us to err on the side of being more compassionate towards our friends and acquaintances, rather than looking to them to make us feel better about ourselves.

7. There isn’t a thing on earth that doesn’t shine brighter when we love it. All creatures flourish when we give them our attention for the purpose of helping them realize their potential. Praise a rose and its blush proves the point. When we remember this truth, then wherever we are gets better because we are, ourselves, better for the kindness we bring to that place.

8. Our health depends upon the health of the earth. Day in and day out, we take from life, from Mother Earth. We should never take without giving back, even if it’s just gratitude for what we’ve been given to take. That’s how simple it is. And we mustn’t waste. To remember that we are each a part of a greater whole ensures our right responsibility to one and all.

9. There is nothing in the entire universe that can stop us from starting our life over, if we will only remember to do it. Right in the middle of the lowest point of our life, in the company of the darkest thoughts and feelings, we can choose a new companion: we can remember the truth that there is always something Higher than what is hurting us.

10. Remember that the Divine dwells in each of us. When we are burdened by dark, heavy thoughts, we can remember that we are created to let go of anything that troubles our soul. Then our True Nature will naturally remember what is light and high, true and kind. Conscious remembrance of ourselves, of our God, is the choice that guarantees we never forget why we are alive.

The very act of working to remember these ten simple truths is an invitation to Truth to begin changing your life. Read through this list once each morning and once before you go to bed for one whole week. Soon you will have the wondrous new feeling that reality itself is on your side. The Truth is — you are now on the side of Real Life.