Feelings.

I've always felt that it's important to feel your feelings and not try to avoid them. When I'm sad, I go deep—and sit with my sadness. Then I'll cry for as long as I need to until I fully surrender to the present. Then I know I have done an excellent cleansing! You let everything out, and you feel much lighter afterward. It brings peace that can only come from having taken the time to face your emotions head-on.

After the tears, though, come steady joy and enthusiasm for the day ahead. It's like a constant cycle: you cleanse yourself of negative energy by facing up to your feelings, then fill yourself up again with positive energy by being openhearted and excited about your life.

The key is getting into a regular practice so that it becomes automatic: when something happens that causes you distress or sadness, rather than avoiding it or trying to push it away (which makes matters worse), you instead allow yourself to feel whatever comes up—and then let go of those feelings by releasing them through tears or laughter, physical activity or just shaking it off your energy field.