I just learned of a new non-12-step program that friends tell me is fabulous

[usonian]

1. Most therapists strive to adjust people to society.

But in many ways, society is deluded and tells us stories about ourselves that are manipulative, like "You've got to be rich or you're a nobody" or the common: "You're born a failure and can never find happiness" and so on.

These really are manipulative, and we largely accept them.

The Buddha addressed not just the symptoms of our problems, but the root of our problems, such as the fleeting nature of things, while we try to cling to them, and the stories we are taught, in which we are "stamped" as weak and doomed, when in fact the story he tells is one of inner light and infinite potential. (In the Lotus Sutra)

But on a simpler plane, if the world practiced just 4 of the 8 steps on the path, it would be a much richer and happy place.

From the free book there:

1. Wise Understanding
2. Wise Intention
3. Wise Speech
4. Wise Action

Wow. Imagine. 🪷

Wishing everyone success and happiness, because we are not so isolated as society says (for profit). We're all in this world together and can join hands to pull each other up, or not.