Quotes — Sadness, Grief and Despair

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"Establishing boundaries helps us raise children who know how to handle disappointment and who are therefore strong, adaptable, and self-reliant."

— Susan Stiffelman

Parenting with Presence
"Sorrow and contentment, grief and beauty, longing and surrender coexist in the realm of sameness… We are not either happy or sad. We are not either grieving or grateful. We are not either content or despairing. We are both/and."

— Joanne Cacciatore

Bearing the Unbearable
"For all who love, suffering is inevitable. To love deeply is one of life’s most profound gifts, and the loss of a loved one is one of life’s most profound tragedies."

— Joanne Cacciatore

Bearing the Unbearable
"Grief education is quintessential to shifting our culture’s antagonistic relationship to grief, and expressive, creative arts are an important part of this."

— Joanne Cacciatore

Bearing the Unbearable
"It almost seems that the only way to eradicate our grief would be to relinquish the love we feel — to disassemble our loved one’s place in our lives. But checking in with the wisdom of our heart, we see that is impossible. Grief and love occur in tandem."

— Joanne Cacciatore

Bearing the Unbearable
"The psychologist Rollo May wrote, “One does not become fully human painlessly.” It is through inhabiting, often painfully, our emotions that we are able to become fully human. Through grief, we can experience an alchemical transformation that cannot be contrived, hastened, or imparted by others."

— Joanne Cacciatore

Bearing the Unbearable
"Grief comes to one and all; no one is exempt. We must remember our dead. We must do better for the bereaved. We must embody compassion. To be redeemed we must remember. Remembering is our duty — and the only thing that will save us."

— Joanne Cacciatore

Bearing the Unbearable
"True healing is not a destination, not about ridding yourself of pain, fear, sorrow, and all that, not about becoming perfect, or immune, or untouchable, but has something to do with saying YES to the present moment (the only moment we are ever truly in connection with), and affirming it, even if it is uncomfortable right now."

— Jeff Foster

The Self-Acceptance Project
"An emotion is your brain’s creation of what your bodily sensations mean, in relation to what is going on around you in the world."

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

How Emotions Are Made
"Emotion skills are the key to unlocking the potential inside each one of us."

— Marc Brackett

Permission to Feel

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