People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you let them be. When I look at a sunset, I don’t find myself saying, “Soften the orange a bit on the right hand corner.” I don’t try to control a sunset. I watch with awe as it unfolds.
I have come to realize that being trustworthy does not demand that I be rigidly consistent but that I be dependably real.
The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.
Growth occurs when individuals confront problems, struggle to master them, and through that struggle develop new aspects of their skills, capacities, views about life.
I realize that if I were stable, prudent and static; I’d live in death. Therefore I accept confusion, uncertainty, fear and emotional ups and downs; because that’s the price I’m willing to pay for a fluid, perplexed and exciting life.
We think we listen, but very rarely do we listen with real understanding, true empathy. Yet listening, of this very special kind, is one of the most potent forces for change that I know.
What you are to be, you are now becoming.
As no one else can know how we perceive, we are the best experts on ourselves.
The organism has one basic tendency and striving – to actualize, maintain, and enhance the experiencing organism.
When I look at the world I’m pessimistic, but when I look at people I am optimistic.
People only seriously consider change when they feel accepted for exactly who they are.
The only reality I can possibly know is the world as I perceive it at this moment. The only reality you can possibly know is the world as you see it at this moment. And the only certainty is that those perceived realities are different. There are as many “real worlds” as there are people!
If I can listen to what he can tell me, if I can understand how it seems to him; if I can see its personal meaning for him, if I can sense the emotional flavor which it has for him, then I will be releasing potent forces of change in him.
The very essence of the creative is its novelty, and hence we have no standard by which to judge it.
Powerful is our need to be known, really known by ourselves and others, even if only for a moment.
In my early professional years I was asking the question: How can I treat, or cure, or change this person? Now I would phrase the question in this way: How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth?