Quotes for healing - the ones that take you DEEPER

Forest

Forest

Beloved Grand Eagle
I love reading the quotes that people put in their forum signatures. For many people, recovering from TMS hinges on a process of personal growth that they might not have ever been able to anticipate when they first started. Quotes can connect us with the wisdom of others and guide us along our paths.

There are so many beautiful and powerful quotes out there. What quotes have you found that help you to take your healing deeper? What quotes remind you how you want to live your life?

Also, since everyone is different, if you could unpack the quotes a bit and help us understand what we can learn from them (or just what the person posting it has learned!)... For example, I love the quotes that @Ellen puts in her signature. Right now, she has,
"We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same." ~ Carlos Casteneda​
The quote is rich and inspiring, and I've love to hear her thoughts on what we can learn from it.
 
One of my favorite quotes is, "What we resist persists." To me, it means that if we fight a feeling that we have, we can actually feed the feeling. For example, right now I'm reading The Meaning of Truth, by @Nicole J. Sachs LCSW. When she tells her story of the epiphany she had with her daughter, she was fighting the frustration and disappointment that she was feeling. When she was able to just let it out and "accept what is," she could accept who she was and the negative feelings began to melt away. There will always be ups and downs, but healing started with acceptance.

For TMS, many of us resist the fact that we don't know how long our healing will take. We cast around looking for reassurance that it will happen rapidly, which leads us to obsess on it and gets our heads in exactly the wrong place. The TMS wants us to obsess over it and our obsessive calendar watching only feeds it. We need to just accept that we don't know and realize that that is okay. We are stronger than we know. As Nicole says in chapter 7 (turning out to be one of my favorite chapters), "Life is not good or bad, happy or Sad. Often (almost always) life is about choosing between what hurts, and what hurts worse." Accepting the uncertainty makes the overall process hurt less.

Here's TMS recoverer and journalist Tony Schwarz's take on the quote from the New York Times: What we resist persists. His approach is different from mine, but it includes a video from Louis C.K., so how bad can it be?
 
Speaking of acceptance, another quote that has had a huge effect on my life has been the classic Serenity Prayer:

serenity-prayer-04-vicki-ferrari.jpg

Serenity is such a powerful thing, though figuring out how to find it can be mysterious.

Perhaps some good quotes can guide us in a helpful direction.
 
Forest said:
Also, since everyone is different, if you could unpack the quotes a bit and help us understand what we can learn from them (or just what the person posting it has learned!)... For example, I love the quotes that @Ellen puts in her signature. Right now, she has,
"We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same." ~ Carlos Casteneda​
The quote is rich and inspiring, and I've love to hear her thoughts on what we can learn from it.
Click to expand...

Great idea for a thread, Forest.

I change the quote in my signature from time to time. The current one quoted above, particularly speaks to me right now. I'm at the phase in my healing where I've identified some dysfunctional habitual ways of thinking and behaving that, while they once were useful defense mechanisms, now only serve to make me miserable. So I'm trying to catch myself engaging in these old negative habits, and attempting to replace them with thoughts and behaviors that lead to empowerment--making me strong instead of miserable.

For example, I have a work colleague right now who is very challenging. Instead of resorting to old habits of blaming myself for the problems and withdrawing into self-criticism, I'm trying to just feel my emotions that are triggered and let them pass through me. I remind myself to "jump off all stressful trains of thought", and then sink into the present moment, finding some joy and peace there. If I'm still feeling stressed, I do yoga (which includes deep breathing) or take or a walk. Much more empowering than my old habits.

I follow on Twitter a few entities that are a good source of quotes--Zen Moments and Sounds True.

But it's hard to get any better than the Serenity Prayer.
 
Walt Oleksy said:
Today it's hard to be happy because of the heat and humidity.
This has been like living in a Chicago jungle.
Click to expand...

Walt, here's one just for you:
“MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

Good to remember what it's like "back East" when it's hot and humid. Where I am, this morning there was frost.
 
Staying for the whole show

Someone on the forum recommended a man named Guy Finley. I listened to a YouTube video and he said something I loved so much. He was talking about how we resist what life throws at us when we don't like it (but we embrace the good things easily) and he said the problem is that we "don't stay for the whole show." In other words, a feeling we don't want comes up and we push it away instead of feeling it. We just walk out of the theatre, so to speak. If we stayed until the end, we could find release and resolution.

It's not really a quote, but I love the image so much. I'm working on embracing rather than denying.
 
Blake, I betcha that was Chickenbone! Guy Finley has been very helpful to her in her healing journey and I too have enjoyed his teachings. That's a great picture he paints about "the whole show".

Walt, cool temps will be coming your way soon. I feel for you. Our brief time back in Michigan reminded me of how humidity really cranks up the discomfort factor when it's hot out.

Njoy, it'll be frosting here soon enough. Thankfully, we will be in Arizona by the time Old Man Winter is in full swing. Happy me.
 
Great thread Forest!

I like:

Don’t wait for a light to appear at the end of the tunnel, stride down there and light the bloody thing yourself.

And

Get off your cross, and use the wood to build a bridge and get over it.
 
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