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.

All Quotes

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.

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Quotes

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— Father Thomas Keating

More Quotes

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

— Thomas Watson

"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

"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

"In the inward man dwells truth."

— Saint Augustine of Hippo

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

— Pir Zia Inayat-Khan

"…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

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

— Rollo May

"Fears may mask anxiety."

— Rollo May

"Just as too much physical force can break a child’s bones, too much control can break a child’s spirit and fracture his psyche. It can cause a splintering of self, causing a child to disown some parts of himself and to inflate others."

— Beverly Engel

"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

"Sanity—mental health—is a state of flow and well-being; being grounded, resilient, and balanced; possessing self-esteem; and being able to adjust to the events of life."

— David Richo

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

— David Richo

"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

"One must have a chaos inside oneself to give birth to a dancing star."

— Friedrich Nietzsche

"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

"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

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

— Paulo Coelho

"Trauma is perhaps the most avoided, ignored, belittled, denied, misunderstood, and untreated cause of human suffering."

— Peter A. Levine PhD

"… what doesn’t destroy me makes me stronger."

— Friedrich Nietzsche

"Nothing changes till it becomes what it is."

— Fritz Perls

"The person … in the grip of an old distress says things that are not pertinent, does things that don’t work, fails to cope with the situation, and endures terrible feelings that have nothing to do with the present."

— Harvey Jackins

"The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places."

— Ernest Hemingway

"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

"Just as too much physical force can break a child’s bones, too much control can break a child’s spirit and fracture his psyche. It can cause a splintering of self, causing a child to disown some parts of himself and to inflate others."

— Beverly Engel

— Father Thomas Keating

"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

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

— Joan Z. Borysenko

"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

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

— Shunmyo Masuno

"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."

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

— Thomas Keating

— Thomas Keating

"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

"When we feel held by a caring presence, by something larger than our small frightened self, we begin to find room in our own heart for the fragments of our life, and for the lives of others. The suffering that might have seemed “too much” can awaken us to the sweetness of compassion."

— Tara Brach

"… trauma, undigested and locked in our body, randomly breaks through into consciousness. For years after the actual danger is past, a person who has been traumatized may relive an event as if it were continually occurring in the present."

— Tara Brach

"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

"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.

"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

"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."