My mentor Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, author of Kitchen Table Wisdom, spends a lot of time talking about generous listening in the programs she teaches such as these and in the Healer’s Art curriculum she developed for medical schools, which I had the privilege of participating in as a practicing doctor.

I write a lot about authenticity, being unapologetically YOU, and letting your freak flag fly. In my TEDx talk, I spoke about the importance of tapping into your Inner Pilot Light and living in alignment with what’s true for you as a means of both preventative medicine and medical treatment. And in my upcoming book Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof You Can Heal Yourself (Hay House, 2013), I make the assertion that caring for your body is the least important part of your health and that expressing your true self in all aspects of your life is the most important part.

You know those perfect relationships, the ones that live in your mind but don’t actually exist in real life, the ones that are all about storytelling, the ones that break your heart over and over because they never live up to the fantasy relationship that lives in your head, the ones that leave you in tears?

In case you live in some grace-filled parallel universe from the rest of us and you’re lucky enough to have no idea what I’m talking about, I’ll give you a few examples.