Quotes

More Quotes

• "Repentance is the nourisher of piety, the procurer of mercy."

  — Thomas Watson

  The Doctrine of Repentance

• "The two great graces essential to a saint in this life, are faith and repentance. These are the two wings by which he flies to heaven."

  — Thomas Watson

  The Doctrine of Repentance

• "While the prayer of words is an attempt to express to ourselves our dependence on the great mystery, the prayer of silence is not so much to express, but to experience, that dependence."

  — Richard Rohr

  Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer

• "In the inward man dwells truth."

  — Saint Augustine of Hippo

  On True Religion

• "You will not attain the good, until you give freely of what you love."

  — Pir Zia Inayat-Khan

  Sufi Conference 2008 - Opening Talk with Pir Zia Inayat-Khan & Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

• "…when you find the courage to turn inward, to become curious about the labyrinths and caves that make up your inner world, everything changes."

  — Sheryl Paul

  The Wisdom of Anxiety

• "…anxiety represents not only an attempted return of the repressed but also a striving on the part of the total personality toward a re-establishment of unity, harmony, oneness, “health.”"

  — Rollo May

  The Meaning of Anxiety

• "…the social nature of the human being as the source of our uniquely creative intellectual capacities as well as our capacity for anxiety."

  — Rollo May

  The Meaning of Anxiety

• "Fears may mask anxiety."

  — Rollo May

  The Meaning of Anxiety

• "No one is truly ever gone, since all of us and our connections began at the Big Bang, the explosion of oneness into oneness, and have never come to an end."

  — David Richo

  Everything Ablaze: Meditating on the Mystical Vision of Teilhard de Chardin

• "With spiritual awareness, everyone’s wholeness matters."

  — David Richo

  Wholeness and Holiness

• "Anxiety was born in the very same moment of mankind. And since we will never be able to master it, we will have to learn to live with it — just as we have we have learned to live with storms."

  — Paulo Coelho

  Manuscript Found in Accra

• "Anxiety is love’s greatest killer. It creates the failures. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic."

  — Anais Nin

  The Diary of Anais Nin vol. 4

• "There is nothing wrong with anxiety. Although we cannot control God’s time, it is part of the human condition to want to receive the thing we are waiting for as quickly as possible."

  — Paulo Coelho

  Manuscript Found in Accra

• "… although anxiety is a part of life, never let it control you."

  — Paulo Coelho

  Manuscript Found in Accra

• "Nothing changes till it becomes what it is."

  — Fritz Perls

  As cited in Homecoming

• "Once something appears before you, ask yourself what is happening inside you and around you—what you are in the midst of experiencing."

  — Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len

  As cited in The Book of Ho’oponopono

• "If psychologists and psychiatrists would be in dialogue with the insights of St. John of the Cross and those who experience the dark nights, there could be a marvelous symbiosis of treatment. We are not sick just because of some physiological pathology. It is not just a question of sin either; it is a question of the human condition, for which none of us is initially responsible but, on becoming adults, we are now called to be responsible."

  — Father Thomas Keating

  The Human Condition: Contemplation and Transformation

• "As we attune with the heart, our approach to life reverses. Instead of feeling empty, agitated, and disconnected, we discover an inner fullness, peace, and sense of seamlessness."

  — John J. Prendergast

  The Deep Heart: Our Portal to Presence

• "Thank God for what doesn’t need healing."

  — Joan Z. Borysenko

  Gratitude: A Way of Life

• "By surrendering to love, by surrendering to God, we can go through each day acknowledging one another with gratitude."

  — Gerald G. Jampolsky, M.D., and Diane V. Cirincione

  Gratitude: A Way of Life

• "The garden is a spiritual place where the mind dwells."

  — Shunmyo Masuno

  Zen Garden Design

• "Nature is always moving and transforming, and Japanese gardens express this quality through the use of plants and trees that move with the wind and change over the seasons."

  Zen Garden Design

• "To submit to the divine therapy is something we owe to ourselves and the rest of humanity."

  — Thomas Keating

  The Human Condition

• "Contemplative prayer is a deepening of faith that moves beyond thoughts and concepts. One just listens to God, open and receptive to the divine presence in one’s inmost being as its source. One listens not with a view to hearing something, but with a view to becoming aware of the obstacles to one’s friendship with God."

  — Thomas Keating

  The Human Condition

• "When we are not thinking, analyzing, or planning and place ourselves in the presence of God in faith, we open ourselves to the contents of the unconscious."

  — Thomas Keating

  The Human Condition

• "No matter what problems we struggle with—anxiety, depression, negative rumination, self-doubt, chronic pain—they do not have to keep us from acting in a way that brings our lives meaning and purpose."

  — Steven C. Hayes, Ph.D.

  A Liberated Mind

• "Anxiety is simply insight that we haven’t yet found a productive use for, that hasn’t yet made its way into art or philosophy."

  — Alain De Botton

  The School of Life

• "Anxiety is not a sign of sickness, a weakness of the mind or an error for which we should always seek a medical solution. It is mostly a hugely reasonable and sensitive response to the genuine strangeness, terror, uncertainty and riskiness of existence."

  — Alain De Botton

  The School of Life

• "We can notice whether we are anxious about accidents or misfortunes, and how much anger, irritation, fear, anxiety, or worry are still in us. As we become aware of the feelings in us, our self-understanding will deepen."

  — Thich Nhat Hanh

  How to Love

• "When we’re anxious, worried, or angry, we can’t make good decisions. When we’re free, we make better decisions. This freedom is something we can attain whenever we like with the practice of breathing in mindfulness, walking in mindfulness."

  — Thich Nhat Hanh

  How to Relax

• "A soulful person trusts his intuitions and other forms of inner guidance, knowing that a stronger sense of self abides there."

  — Thomas Moore

  Care of the Soul

• "To be yourself, you have to learn how to become who you were dreamed to be."

  — John O’Donohue

  To Bless the Space Between Us

• "Something rather than nothing — that is a dividing line between those who believe in God and those who do not."

  — Philip Brownell

  Gestalt Therapy: Advances in Theory and Practice

• "While psychotherapy and spiritual practice may both incorporate reflection and presence, the home base of therapy is reflection and the home base of spirituality is presence."

  — John Welwood

  Reflection and Presence: The Dialectic of Awakening

• "Psychotherapy generally fails when it does not help individuals to discover the place within or without (depending upon the individual’s belief system) where they can go to connect with the spiritual truth."

  — Margaret Paul, PhD

  Inner Bonding

• "Mystics in many spiritual traditions see suffering as necessary, essential, the only means toward closeness to God or to existential transcendence. Yet in our medicalized world, normal bereavement and trauma are turned into mental disorders with diagnostic codes, which then become treatable with medications. But if grief is a disease, so too must be love."

  — Dr. Joanne Cacciatore

  Bearing the Unbearable

• "The brain is malleable and can be reshaped, and thus so can the neural circuits that contribute to depression and anxiety."

  — Alex Korb

  The Upward Spiral

• "The Serenity Prayer… is a succinct and meaningful way of talking about acceptance and willingness when addressing difficult life circumstances."

  — Jill A. Stoddard, PhD and Niloofar Afari, PhD

  The Big Book of ACT Metaphors

• "While traditional spiritual cultures of the East have specialized in illuminating the… “heaven” side of human nature — Western psychology has focused on the earthly half… We need a new vision that embraces all…. domains of human existence…."

  — John Welwood

  Toward a Psychology of Awakening

• "Trauma is a fact of life. It does not, however, have to be a life sentence. Not only can trauma be healed, but with appropriate guidance and support, it can be transformative. Trauma has the potential to be one of the most significant forces for psychological, social, and spiritual awakening and evolution."

  — Peter Levine

  Waking the Tiger

• "Depression and anxiety are downward spirals: patterns of negative, unhealthy activity and reactivity that the brain ends up stuck in… Recent research has uncovered the power of the upward spiral: the fact that small positive life changes lead to positive brain changes in its electrical activity, its chemical composition, and even its ability to grow new neurons… Upward spirals can reverse the downward patterns of depression and anxiety…"

  — Alex Korb

  The Upward Spiral

• "… by making small changes in your thoughts, actions, interactions, and environment, it’s possible to change the activity and chemistry of the key brain circuits underlying depression and anxiety."

  — Alex Korb

  The Upward Spiral

• "People first awaken to a spiritual dimension in their lives in an incredible variety of ways. Some people seem to open up to it through traumatic experiences… Other people awaken through meditation or through religious experiences. Others arrive at it through sex or through drugs."

  — Ram Dass

  Polishing the Mirror

• "To live in the here and now is to have no regrets about the past, no worries or expectations for the future. To be fully present in each moment of existence is to live in total contentment, in peace and love. To enter into this presence is to reside in a different state of being, in a timeless moment, in the eternal present."

  — Ram Dass

  Polishing the Mirror

• "It’s an overflowing love which is purely spontaneous, unmotivated, groundless and creative . . . the love of God operating in the human heart."

  — Martin Luther King, Jr.

  As cited in: Be Love Now

• "The heart area is central to human experience. It is where we feel most affected and touched, both emotionally and spiritually. Our sense of meaning springs from the heart, as does our sense of oneness or communion with the whole of life."

  — John J. Prendergast

  The Deep Heart

• "We all have a sacred calling that has very little to do with what we accomplish in this world. It is the calling of the sacred – the quiet pull of an implicit wholeness within each of us that awaits our conscious recognition."

  — John J. Prendergast

  The Deep Heart

• "Amongst all of the existential angst of modern life there is a blossoming of spirit arising within the collective psyche of humanity."

  — Adyashanti

  The Deep Heart

• "When you know the answer you won’t ask the question."

  — Unknown Zen Master

  Alan Watts, Psychotherapy East & West

• "Even though no word can capture the boundless mystery of what you are, some people use the word awareness; some people use the word consciousness; some people use the word presence, spirit, god, space, emptiness, source, life . . . but in the end, the language we use really doesn’t matter, and can just become yet another distraction. You exist before language, concepts, dreams, conclusions — be- fore even the most beautiful and spiritual words like awakening, enlightenment, and love."

  — Jeff Foster

  The Self-Acceptance Project

• "It is not feelings that are the problem, but what we do with them that matters. The freedom to deal with them and to confront them with reason and faith is what makes us fully human."

  — Thomas Keating

  The Human Condition: Contemplation and Transformation

• "Normal anxiety is an expression of the capacity of the organism to react to threats; this capacity is innate and has its inherited neurophysiological system."

  — Rollo May

  The Meaning of Anxiety

• "…conscious anxiety is more painful but it is available also to use in the service of integration of the self."

  — Rollo May

  The Meaning of Anxiety

• "…anxiety can inform your life, but it does not have to define it. You’re not destined for anxiety; you’re destined for equanimity."

  — Sheryl Paul

  The Wisdom of Anxiety

• "The constructive way of dealing with anxiety… consists of learning to live with it, accepting it as a “teacher,” to borrow Kierkegaard’s phrase, to school us in confronting our human destiny."

  — Rollo May

  The Meaning of Anxiety

• "The problem of the management of anxiety is that of reducing the anxiety to normal levels, and then to use this normal anxiety as stimulation to increase one’s awareness, vigilance, zest for living."

  — Rollo May

  The Meaning of Anxiety

• "This is the wisdom of anxiety: the call to turn inward so that you can fill your well and turn back outward to give to a world that needs you."

  — Sheryl Paul

  The Wisdom of Anxiety

• "…when we learn how to harness the wisdom of anxiety, the richness and messages contained in the unconscious can inform and expand our conscious lives."

  — Sheryl Paul

  The Wisdom of Anxiety

• "Anxiety… is worry about future uncertainty and our inability to control what will happen to us."

  — Marc Brackett

  Permission to Feel