It is important to realize that the practice itself is not as important as what opens within us as we do it. We are creatures of habit, and the sum of our habits is what keeps us from changing and growing. The practice is a gateway, a door to inner change. The great psychologist William James once remarked that most people are "set in plaster" by the time they are twenty-five or thirty. One purpose of spiritual practice is to melt that solid plaster, to make it soft and flexible again.
— Lewis Richmond, Work as a Spiritual Practice