We all grow up with a set of experiences and lessons that shape our value system and create our foundation in life. In housing construction, the stuff that holds the foundation together is called mortar. In life, that mortar is called integrity. Similar to houses, foundations in life can either start with cracks or develop them later.

Even if you grow up in the perfect Beaver Cleaver household, things happen in life that cause stress on your foundation. Like a house settling as a result of gravity and bad weather, your life develops cracks as a result of situationsdivorce, neglect, fear, abuse, peer pressure, work stress, illness. On the other hand, the seemingly most fortunate life situations can also crack a foundation. You wonder how people who look like they have it all (money, fame and stardom) can resort to damaging or ending their lives, but thats not an unusual backdrop for the storyline of many famous peoples biographies. Women like Janis Joplin, Marylyn Monroe and even Martha Stewart got caught in a tangled web of mistakes.

Saranne Rothberg is a woman who decided to fill her cancer holes with laughter. She started a nonprofit organization called Comedy Cures that helps people in tough situations laugh. Her traveling Laugh-A-Thons visit all kinds of groups around the country from hospitals to 9/11 family survivors. Five years after her fatal diagnosis, Saranne has no signs of the disease.

I often sign notes and letters with the words Love, Light & Laughter. Love and laughter for obvious reasons, many of which are repeated in this book. Light is a reminder to always gravitate towards all things bright, positive and cheery in life and then to shine your own inner Goddess light with so much intensity that that it cuts through and dissipates any darkness around you. If you fill your life with those three Ls, you will always act with integrity and joy, and be able to break whatever negative patterns you may have been exposed to or continue to hold on to in your life.

While you cant change the foundation created by the environment in which you grew up, or the subsequent life events that follow, you do have a choice to fill in the cracks that may form with positive things like love, light, and laughter.

5 Ways to Fill Your Foundation:

Always tell the truth.

If you feel like youre in a rut, use the three Ls (love, light and laughter) to help you out.

Honor your body with good nutrition and exerciseavoid recreational drugs.

Never compromise your integritystand your ground.

Dont keep anything that isnt really yours, including praise.