Quotes

More Quotes

• "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

• "Ask your fears, “What are you saying to me about what is real?” “What are you trying to teach me?"

  — Richard Rohr

  Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer

• "The good news is that pain, whether physical or emotional, can function as a powerful catalyst for healing, change, and growth."

  — Friedemann Schaub

  The Self-Acceptance Project

• "Man’s inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn!"

  — Robert Burns

  Man Was Made To Mourn

• "Fears may mask anxiety."

  — Rollo May

  The Meaning of Anxiety

• "Emotions… are ancient mechanisms that provide moment-by-moment feedback information for individuals in relationship to their motive-environment interactions, and provide the impetus for motivation and action…"

  — Paul Gilbert

  The origins and nature of compassion focused therapy

• "Honest plain words best pierce the ears of grief."

  — William Shakespeare

  Love's Labour's Lost

• "Bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love. It follows marriage as normally as marriage follows courtship or as autumn follows summer."

  — C. S. Lewis

  A Grief Observed

• "You can’t heal what you can’t feel."

  — John Bradshaw

  Homecoming

• "… emotions make things matter."

  — Paul Gilbert

• "Emotions… are what bring people into therapy, are at the root of the ‘experience of suffering’, and in some approaches are the focus for therapy."

  — Paul Gilbert

  The origins and nature of compassion focused therapy

• "Transmuting emotion is one way way of turning the dark, murky world of the confused mind into the radiance of clear vision."

  — John Welwood

  Awakening The Heart

• "… caring for the self means learning to regulate our emotions when we can through our rhetoric; and, when we cannot, learning to let our emotions wash over us without allowing them to dictate our words and control our behavior."

  — Jeremy David Engels

  The Art of Gratitude

• "The world is disclosed to us through our emotions."

  — Jeremy David Engels

  The Art of Gratitude

• "Perhaps the biggest tragedy in our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns. Entangled in the trance of unworthiness, we grow accustomed to caging ourselves in with self-judgment and anxiety, with restlessness and dissatisfaction."

  — Tara Brach

  Radical Acceptance

• "…if we have the strength and the courage to confront our own emotions and to accept every one of them as a part of us, we cannot only finish our “unfinished business,” but, as we have so often seen, add months and even years to our lives…"

  — Elisabeth Kübler-Ross & David Kessler

  On Grief & Grieving

• "Unfinished business encompasses all those things we haven’t said or done. The feelings we wish we allowed ourselves to feel. Those feelings that we have ignored and not attended to."

  — Elisabeth Kübler-Ross & David Kessler

  On Grief & Grieving

• "Why grieve? For two reasons. First, those who grieve well, live well. Second, and most important, grief is the healing process of the heart, soul, and mind; it is the path that returns us to wholeness."

  — Elisabeth Kübler-Ross & David Kessler

  On Grief & Grieving

• "Grief is the intense emotional response to the pain of a loss. It is the reflection of a connection that has been broken. Most important, grief is an emotional, spiritual, and psychological journey to healing."

  — Elisabeth Kübler-Ross & David Kessler

  On Grief & Grieving

• "There is no correct way or time to grieve."

  — Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

  On Death & Dying

• "If we learn to dissociate from the pain of our reality, we can survive a childhood of tremendous betrayal, sadness, pain, and fear. But dissociation… from pain is not selective; we inevitably disconnect even from the joy of being alive."

  — Daniel J. Siegel, MD

  Aware

• "The risk of unexamined emotional pain is that it comes back to influence our waking as well as sleeping life."

  — Daniel J. Siegel, MD

  Aware

• "Since in our unconscious mind we are all immortal, it is almost inconceivable for us to acknowledge that we too have to face death."

  — Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

  On Death & Dying

• "It is our privilege, and our responsibility, to find joy and laughter while fully aware of the wide array of pain and perils, as well as the vast possibilities for being of service on our precious planet."

  — Daniel J. Siegel, MD

  Aware

• "Feelings in themselves don’t necessarily lead to wisdom, but the process of opening fully to them can."

  — John Welwood

  Reflection and Presence: The Dialectic of Awakening

• "If we could let ourselves feel just what we feel, instead of reacting against it, condemning it, or trying to manipulate and suppress it, perhaps we would develop greater confidence about facing whatever life confronts us with."

  — John Welwood

  Awakening the Heart

• "Emotions are our most common experience of being moved by forces seemingly beyond our control. As such, they are among the most confusing and frightening phenomena of everyday life."

  — John Welwood

  Awakening the Heart

• "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

• "Beauty and pain coexist. But when we are in the early phases of grieving, in order to eventually see beauty in the world again, we must first feel and inhabit our pain."

  — Dr. Joanne Cacciatore

  Bearing the Unbearable

• "When your relationship exhibits consistently high levels of secure functioning, you and your partner automatically increase the resources you’re able to use for personal development, mutual physical and mental health… You become more resilient as individuals and as a couple, able to manage the slings and arrows of life and its unknowns."

  — Stan Tatkin

  We Do

• "When our Inner Child feels consistently unloved by our Inner Adult, the Child’s false beliefs, adopted in childhood when parents were unloving, are reinforced—beliefs that we are bad, wrong, unlovable, unimportant, inadequate, defective in some way."

  — Margaret Paul

  Inner Bonding

• "The Inner Child is the aspect of our personality that is soft, vulnerable, and feelings oriented—our “gut” instinct. It is who we are when we were born, our core self, our natural personality, with all its talent, instinct, intuition, and emotion."

  — Margaret Paul

  Inner Bonding

• "Inner Bonding is a process of connecting our Adult thoughts with our instinctual gut feelings, the feelings of our “Inner Child,” so that we can live free of conflict within ourselves."

  — Margaret Paul

  Inner Bonding

• "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

• "When we cannot shield our children from painful experiences, the next best thing is to be fully present to them, helping them through the process by letting them feel their sadness and disappointment."

  — 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

• "One of the difficulties with shame is that it does not seem to be expressed and released in the same way as other feelings: Sadness and grief are released through crying, anger through yelling and stomping about, fear through screaming and shaking… Though it appears not to discharge, it does seem to dissipate under very special circumstances—the nonjudgmental, accepting contact of another human being."

  — Babette Rothschild

  The Body Remembers

• "Anger is an emotion of self-protection. It may involve an effort to prevent injury or specify a boundary. It is also a common response to having been threatened, hurt, or scared, or to the person who caused it. Anger can escalate to rage when the threat is extreme or when assertions of “Don’t!” or “Stop!” are not respected."

  — Babette Rothschild

  The Body Remembers

• "Emotions, though interpreted and named by the mind, are integrally an experience of the body."

  — Babette Rothschild

  The Body Remembers

• "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

• "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

• "When we’re in the deepest, darkest, and worst emotional state, when it seems like self-acceptance is the farthest away, we are in fact one instant from the awareness that can transform us completely."

  — Raphael Cushnir

  The Self-Acceptance Project

• "Self-acceptance is a great matter, asking much of us, and giving back even more. Exploring and cultivating intimacy with what’s in the way of self-acceptance is an essential journey for us, if we are to truly come alive."

  — Robert Augustus Masters

  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

• "Our most habitual and compelling feelings and thoughts define the core of who we think we are."

  — Tara Brach

  Radical Acceptance

• "The particular sensations, emotions or thoughts that arise when we practice mindfulness are not so important. It is our willingness to become still and pay attention to our experience… With time we develop the capacity to relate to our passing experience, whether in meditation or daily life, with deep clarity and kindness."

  — Tara Brach

  Radical Acceptance

• "The love and understanding of a friend, like a deep well of the purest water, refreshes the very source of our being."

  — Tara Brach

  Radical Acceptance

• "The true quality of our love is exposed by the stresses and strains of our relationships with others, especially those with whom we work the closest."

  — Alexander Strauch, Robert L. Peterson

  Agape Leadership

• "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

• "Normally, emotions need to be expressed in some way in order to be processed. Emotions are energy. If they are not processed, they become blocks in our bodies and nervous systems to the free flow of our energy systems and of grace."

  — Father Thomas Keating

  The Human Condition: Contemplation and Transformation

• "…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

• "The human being is not something to be overcome, but undergone."

  — Simon Critchley

  On the Human Condition, Dominique Janicaud

• "The human condition is defined by the feelings and emotions associated with our existence, our “conscious” experience of past and future, cognizance of the passage of time, and our vexed awareness of our mortality."

  — Robert G. Bednarik

  The Human Condition

• "Emotion skills are the key to unlocking the potential inside each one of us."

  — Marc Brackett

  Permission to Feel