A delicious self-esteem exercise I love is called a Helpless Day, a teaching in Sondra Ray’s Loving Relationships Training. It’s a day you’ll laugh, cry, and feel like a king or queen.

I find her fork fetish amusing. After all, to paraphrase Gertrude Stein, “A fork is a fork is a fork.” Right? Well, maybe not. The more I think about it, the more I find her fork thing charming and conscious. The woman loves these forks. And love, as Lennon and McCartney sang, “is all you need.”

The first time, she’d suddenly, and mysteriously, developed an itchy rash within 20 minutes of my appointment. When I asked why she didn’t call my cell while I was en route—my trip took 20 minutes--she said she was hoping it would disappear as suddenly as it had appeared.

This is the kind of desire that’s critical to awaken in yourself for the duration of the Great Recession that we’ve been living through these past few years.