This thread is intended as a place to post wisdom gained from personal spiritual insights.
I recently had an experience that allowed me to make what I believe is tremendous personal growth.
I do not wish to go into details at this time, but I hope others will be less shy. Suffice it to say, I partook of a powerful medicine, in a proper setting, with right intention, and was taught how to let go of some anger and animosity I held for a long time. I learned how to make peace with myself.
It seems to me any such sentiment sounds kind of lame and new-agey when expressed in words, as it attempts to boil down and communicate an experience that can be universal but is in essence incommunicable in words due to its personal and transcendent nature.
It was nothing I hadn't heard before; but hearing something is a far cry from experiencing it for oneself and understanding on an intuitive (and visual) level that defies language. Indeed, the mind can create reality.
Objectively, my life is as drab as it has been, and nothing has changed but my approach and interpretation. Yet I am happier than I have been in a long time.
I don't expect to teach anyone anything, as the things I learned are things I have heard before, and I did not really learn them back then, despite being aware of such ideas. There is some knowledge that can only be described. It takes something internal to reach understanding.
Despite this, I feel really good, and I wish to share. Take it with a grain of salt, or a whole shaker, if you must.
My epiphany can best be summarized with these few conclusions:
Be like water. Water fills any vessel, forms any shape, according to the shape of the vessel. Water flows in its natural direction. Small obstructions are swept up in its path. Large obstructions, it goes around, even splits in two, but always flows in its natural direction, and every stream that is split returns to the whole sooner or later, eventually joining with other flows and returning to the source.
If you can make peace with yourself, you will be at peace with the world. Let go of anger and animosity toward yourself, and you will let go of anger against others. This does not require complacency, and it does not require one to stop resisting oppression. Principles need not change. It is natural to be upset at things like the BP oil spill and the people who allowed it. It simply means letting go of emotions that only serve to hold you back.
To that end, I have found giving thanks is a good method. It is hard to be angry when you acknowledge the things for which you are thankful. I'm thankful simply to be alive for another day and to experience this wonderful world.
It occurs to me, in my own life, the biggest obstacles to happiness have been sadness and anger. These feelings are internal and not externally imposed, though we often attribute the feelings to external forces. 'I'm upset because . . . "
I figured out in my teenage years how to deal with sadness, but I had never figured out how to deal with anger. Both are natural feelings, but they are poison if one does not let such feelings pass.
Because our minds have the power to create, we will create or draw toward us the things upon which we direct our focus. I'm not talking about the money lady on Coast to Coast. That is just another greed-based trap. I'm talking about the thoughts in your mind when you wake up in the morning and when you go to sleep at night. These come from within, not without. They matter, but you need not be slave to your thoughts. They are YOUR thoughts, after all.
The biggest obstacles to happiness are sadness and anger. It can be as simple as choosing to be happy, instead of sad or angry.
Water flows through, over, or around every obstacle.
It is easy to believe you have no choice in how you feel; but in fact, that is the only choice you have when you acknowledge your inability to control the rest of the world.
I quit my job at the end of June and spent two weeks in bliss. Then X and Y happened which triggered those negative emotions -- (nothing to do with money or employment) -- and I've struggled to get back to bliss since. You are completely correct imho that it is about attachment and old patterns. The things that happened brought back that internal dialogue that I had thought I had purged. "See?" it said, "you really are defective." So for me, X and Y led to the same things they always have led to which all revolve around plunging self-esteem.. 
