Quotes

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• "…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

• "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

• "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

• "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

• "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

• "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

• "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

• "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