Every time you make an error, congratulate yourself, for you are seeing progress in the making. Chalk one up for yourself. This is wonderful news. Your perception has already changed. It has changed right before your eyes. You have wanted to grow. Oh, how you have wanted to grow. And now you see your growth in accelerated photographs. Splendid. You learned something. You are really charging ahead.

Congratulating yourself applies to all arenas of error, from copying a phone number incorrectly to turning your back on love. No longer clap your hand to your head and say: "What a dummy I am. How could I have been so stupid."

Now smack the palm of your hand with a kiss. Bless the hand that made a typo. The fingers of that hand have been typing tirelessly for you. Applaud them.

And if you have made a misconduct with your heart and regretted it, put your hand over your heart and tell your heart you will give better service to it next time. If your heart wants to take a leap, tell it you will give it free rein. Tell your heart if it has an impulse to greet a stranger, you will do it. Tell your heart you will no longer stop yourself. Tell your heart you will know better than to be shy any more. Tell your heart you will follow it even though you don't know where it will take you. Tell your heart: "Even if I should fall flat on my face in the terms of the reaction of the world, I am glad I followed you. I am glad I got out of the rut I have been in, and have been in for so long, I thank you, my heart, for opening yourself, and I am grateful to myself for allowing you to pull me along."

And when you don't follow your heart, clap yourself on the back just the same. Say to yourself: "Well, Joe, I am proud of you now. Now you wish you had followed your heart. You wish you had done otherwise. Now you wish you would have gone to the right instead of to the left. Now you wish you had been bold. You are wonderful for this! You are splendid for this. You have made a big leap in awareness. By golly, you are doing GREAT!"

Is there another way that's good for you to talk to your heart and to yourself?

If you fall down and break your leg, say, "Whoopee! I broke my leg! I was going somewhere, doing something, and I broke my leg! I am a wonderful person who goes forward. And so I fell. Now I am a wonderful person who will sit in a chair with my leg up for a while, and I will walk with crutches. How fortunate I am. I only broke my leg. I could have broken my neck. And my leg is mending, and it will be as good as new."

And if your leg is not going to be as good as new, congratulate yourself on that too. There is a blessing to come from this, even when you don't know what it is. Keep your eye on the hidden blessing.

Remember the tale of the lame boy who had to have great courage and face everything because he couldn't run like the other boys?

Do you think it is corny to think this way? Tell Me, please, how do you think you should be thinking? Complaining? Protesting? Blaming the curb or Me?

Come now, you fell. Now you get up. Congratulate yourself, and bless your leg, and bless your life, and bless yourself, and say: "God bless you."