The whole purpose of my radio program is, as Augustine said, “to restore health to the eye of the heart whereby God might be seen.” That is what I am trying to do, but it is not easy. People tend to have much hardness of heart.

And there is something about hardness of heart that does not allow you to see truth about yourself, nor does it allow someone who loves you to tell you. You feel offended when they do.

But I care enough to tell you the truth, and though I could retire now and go fishing, I prefer to sit here every Monday through Friday and

look for someone who’s tried everything but has found no resolution for whatever their problems are.

Problems can be very complex but the solution to every single problem, with rare exception, is like falling off a log. It’s so simple that it’s actually hard to believe that it could be so simple. A person can be very intelligent and still miss it.

For example, I think of Tony Snow, now President Bush’s Press Secretary. He is a kind and decent human being. No question about that. He’s thoughtful, he’s bright, he’s well spoken, he’s educated, he’s sophisticated, he has values and virtues, and there’s also Neil Cavuto of Fox News.

I don’t mention people’s names too often, but I’m speaking of them in a positive sense. Tony Snow said he had cancer and Neil Cavuto suffers from multiple sclerosis.

These two men are brilliant, fine people with impeccable character, but there may be a secret conflict lurking deep within them about which they know nothing. Men such as these have often had troubled early lives.

Such as these are usually violated away from the fullness of the noble state they are now seen to represent. We all have a certain quality of virtue when we come into the world and we all lose it to varying degrees depending upon the intensity of our traumas.

Trauma often breeds frustration and resentment, and frustration and resentment, like straws on a camel’s back, accumulate and eat away at the native goodness we are born to express. In other words, daily stress met imperfectly nurtures the unresolved problem as well as it’s related compensated expression of that same brightness.

"The whole purpose of my radio program is, as Augustine said, 'to restore health to the eye of the heart whereby God might be seen.'"

But not understanding what is preventing them from bringing forth their bright nature in a right way the compensation kicks in using the energy of frustration to bring forward a facsimile expression of that bright nature.

They build a self that is very much like the self that they would have been naturally and effortlessly no different from the self you see.

Such men appear as they really are deep inside; noble, bright, sharp, intelligent, thoughtful and understanding, having all the qualities we admire in a person we love and respect. Unfortunately the reason why they are ill is due to using the wrong energies of compensation to bring that goodness forward.

The silent use of the energy of anger to achieve produces a facsimile of the self they would ordinarily have been had there been no traumatic block. Fame and fortune rewards the striving even as it compounds and covers up the silent conflict.

All people like these have this same problem – they strive for perfection imperfectly with diminishing return. What you see is the right thing said or done, but what you do not see is silent unresolved frustrations eating away at the compensated self, manifesting often as fatal illness.

The compensator, masquerading as the true self, gets eaten away inside by the very resentful energy he or she needs for the continuous show and tell. In other words, you get better on the outside but worse on the inside because of conflict, a diminishing return with everything falling apart.

You can no longer continue fooling yourself. We all have talents and their development should have been natural and as effortless as a ballerina crossing a stage.

That’s how it ought to be, but if the natural and effortless unfoldment of talent is frustrated in some way, it means that we develop instead by going forward with self will and silent resentment.

Sooner or later the compensation backfires and hopefully rings the alarm as a wake-up call.