I watched a TV special featuring Wayne Dyer, Power of Positive Intention. He asked: Can you find beauty in a cockroach? Seeing beauty in everything = Truth

After I saw this show, I stopped smashing the cockroaches that got in my house, and stopped flushing them down the toilet. I don't get a lot of them in the house, but the ones that do get in are BIG roaches--some as big as 3 inches long; when they're that big, they can fly. There is something quite freaky about having a large cockroach "buzz" you.

Now, I catch them in a cup, slip a piece of cardboard underneath, and take them outside. I walk down the street for a block, talking to the roach as it's scrambling frantically around in the cup. I reassure it that I'm not going to hurt it, that I am going to set it free, but in exchange for it's freedom it has to promise me that it and its offspring are never to set foot in my house again. Then I release it, and watch it scamper off.

I run back to my house so the roach can't follow me.

I had quite a few large roaches in the house last year at this same time. This year, there are far fewer. Can the roaches "hear" me and understand? I choose to think so.

I don't scream anymore when I see a roach in the house. I am getting to the point of being able to look at a roach for a short period of time without getting squeemish. I'm still working on seeing the beauty in them, though.

Liora Leah