People often walk around with their happiness and the solutions to their problems packed away inside. When we don’t recognize — and heed — our spiritual longing, it creates problems that permeate every corner of our lives.

• Is life good overall but you sense something is missing?
• Do you feel isolated and disconnected from those around you, and even yourself?
• Do you have trouble knowing what you want, what you really want?

How happy do you want to be?

You might think you’re happy enough. Maybe you feel vaguely discontent, unfocused, unmotivated. Or you might be a raging perfectionist, with nothing (and no one) quite measuring up to your standards. Life is good, but not good enough.

Yet most of us have glimpses of our inner treasure. What if you made finding your inner treasure part of your everyday life?

Looking for your inner treasure sets you on a path of exploration and discovery as you go about your every day life.

When looking for your inner treasure, if you come upon obstacles, you’re motivated to meet the challenge. You’re inspired by being yourself.

The mind — your mind — always looks for what’s wrong in a misguided attempt to keep you safe. But if you always look for what’s wrong — for the obstacles — that’s all you’ll ever find, one obstacle after another.

Let me help you feel safe enough to choose yourself, choose happiness and fulfillment, lift yourself out of your circle of fear, and open the safe where your treasure awaits.

Who is Pamela Miles?

I have been helping people unlock their inner treasures, enjoy their lives and themselves, and strengthen their health and well-being for more than four decades. What I offer you is what I have discovered in my own life, which is basically three things:

• Life sucks when you don’t know who you are, what you want, or what you’re doing here. Even if it looks like you have everything in place.
• We have everything we need to live happier, healthier, more satisfying lives with greater ease
• The happiness we create for ourselves is also a gift to others, and to the world we live in.

I started studying meditation and yoga as a kid, not because anyone in my house was doing it, but because I was fascinated. I KNEW there was more to life and I was determined to have it.

I sensed life could be magical, but even as a kid, I didn’t want to fool myself. I just couldn’t swallow anything wholesale, no matter who was selling it (you can imagine what that was like for my parents). I had to think everything through for myself.

Much to the surprise of my skeptical mind, small efforts brought results.

Of course, as a kid, my outer options were limited. The one place I was free to roam was inside.

Books were my first spiritual teachers. I began practicing meditation and yoga from a book. Much to the surprise of my skeptical mind, small efforts brought results. And the desire for more.

I read everything I could get my hands on (actual books were the only option back then!),  from Shirley Maclaine (not satisfying) to the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (more my style) and back again.

When I was old enough to move independently in the world, I sought out the company of people whose presence told me they had found for themselves what I wanted.

What I didn’t want was theoretical. I wanted real.

And I have been very fortunate to connect with a bevy of incomparable teachers who guided me and gave fine example of what it is like to be truly happy.

Although happiness and health seemed unrelated so many decades ago, my spiritual seeking ran parallel to an interest in holistic health — health from the ground up.

As a child, I was horrified by the thalidomide tragedy, in which babies were damaged by a medication prescribed to their pregnant mothers by doctors they trusted, doctors who trusted the medicine, and thought they were helping.

My mother was a nurse and we had good medical care, but while I respected the scientific method, I became distrustful of contemporary medicine. I began studying herbs and learning ways to stay healthy instead of just treat illness.

Others noticed. Whatever they saw led them to ask for my help.

At first it startled me when people older and — from my perspective as a young college student — accomplished in the world thought I knew something they didn’t. But as I found the courage to share, it became apparent that the knowledge I had acquired combined with the intuition refined by years of meditation practice helped them recognize the small but important steps toward being happier, healthier, and living a life of greater ease. We could both see the difference our work together made.

A couple of years later, I left steady employment to spend a few months in India, in an ashram, where I could focus on spiritual practice. A few months became two years.

What I slowly began to understand is the power of practice. Practice improves any skill. Maybe you’re not as certain as I am that happiness is a skill, but surely it is apparent that happiness involves skills. Skills that can be learned. Skills we can get better at.

No one holds my happiness hostage.

Looking from the outside, there is nothing remarkable about my life. I come from a middle class American family, had a good education but not Ivy League. Yet I’ve taught at Yale medical school; presented at Harvard and the National Institutes of Health; been interviewed by a wide range of media, including Dr. Oz, CNN, NBC, Forbes, The Atlantic, New York Magazine, U.S. News & World Report, and Allure.

I’ve been blessed to live in New York City and raise two children (Her Highness and His Majesty) and do work I love, helping people be happier and healthier.

No one holds my happiness hostage. Isn’t that something you wish were true for you? Let me help you make that wish come true.

I’ve learned there are small, manageable changes that allow the larger changes we desire to unfold organically. I offer creative, appealing, doable, customized ways to strengthen your happiness and health, to approach your treasure hunt so delight and self-discovery become your constant companions.