Anyone who really loves you wants you to be authentic. And anyone who doesn’t want you to be authentic doesn’t really love you.
It is a curious paradox of human history that a doctrine that tells human beings to regard themselves as sacrificial animals has been accepted as a doctrine representing benevolence and love for mankind.
Fear and pain should be treated as signals not to close our eyes but to open them wider.
If you are terrified of making mistakes, you will be reluctant to acknowledge them when you do make them-and therefore you will not correct them.
For “I” to become “we” and yet remain “I,” is one of the great challenges of marriage.
Loving consciously does not mean subjecting your relationship to endless analysis. It means something much simpler: paying attention. Noticing. This requires presence.
Suffering is just about the easiest of all human activities; being happy is just about the hardest. And happiness requires, not surrender to guilt, but emancipation from guilt.
Your choices have psychological consequences. The way you choose to deal with reality, truth, facts – your choice to honor or dishonor your own perceptions – registers in your mind, for good or for bad, and either confirms and strengthens your self-esteem or undermines and weakens it.
How do we nurture the soul? By revering our own life. By learning to love it all, not only the joys and the victories, but also the pain and the struggles.
No one is coming to save you...
You are not likely to bring out the best in people or nurture their creativity if every time you hear about their problems you instantly offer a solution Encourage people to look for their own solutions-and project the knowledge that they are capable of doing so.
We must become what we wish to teach.
The feeling that “I am enough” does not mean that I have nothing to learn, nothing further to achieve, and nowhere to grow to. It means that I accept myself, that I am not on trial in my own eyes, that I value and respect myself. This is not an act of indulgence but of courage.
The greatest barrier to achievement and success is not lack of talent or ability but rather the feeling that achievement and success, above a certain level, are outside our self-concept-our image of who we are and what is appropriate to us.
You have a right to your feelings. Your feelings are there to tell you something, but they are not infallible guides to behavior.
Even when our life is most difficult, it is important to remember that something within us is keeping us alive- the life force-that lift us, energizes us, pulls us back sometimes from the abyss of despair. True spirituality does not exist without love of life.
Either you will make your life work, or your life will not work.
As you grow in self-esteem, your face, manner, way of talking and moving will tend naturally to project the pleasure you take in being alive.
Reason and emotion are not antagonists. What seems like a struggle between two opposing ideas or values, one of which, automatic and unconscious, manifests itself in the form of a feeling.
A goal without an action plan is a daydream.