“Four steps to wisdom. The first thing you need to do is get in touch with negative feelings that you’re not even arware of. – The second step is to understand that the feeling is in you, not in reality. – The third step: Never identify with that feeling. It has nothing to do with the “I”. – The fourth step: How do you change things? How do you change yourselves?”

Anthony de Mello in “Awareness”

On expanding the third step; never identify with negative feelings:

P. 80 “If you want to say depression is in there, that’s fine; if you want to say gloominess is in there, that’s fine. But not: I am gloomy.”
P. 80 “Your depression and your thrills have nothing to do with your happiness. Those are the swings of the pendulum.”
P. 81 “You don’t even need to be in love. Who told you you do? What you need is to be free. What you need is to love. That’s it; that’s your nature. But what you’re really telling me is that you want to be desired. You want to be applauded, to be attractive, to have all the little monkeys running after you. You’re wasting your life. Wake up! You don’t need this. You can be blissfully happy without it.”

The 4 Steps to Wisdom repeated again on P. 89: “Put this program into action, a thousand times: