“One day you’re tooling along, working your normal job, living your normal life, and everything seems OK. But something happens that triggers a sudden expansion of your awareness, and for that brief moment of perfect clarity, you know what it’s like to be fully awake. You’re struck by the terrifying realization that your life has gotten way off course, and that you’re really meant to be doing something entirely different.”

Steve Pavlina

“Flight from the dark infantilizes your spirituality, because the dark nights of the soul are supposed to initiate you into spiritual adulthood. You have to be exceptionally alert in the sphere of religion, because, for all its beauty and substance, it can be full of traps. Even those who perpetrate religious nonsense don’t seem to be aware of what they are doing, and that makes it only more difficult for the susceptible seeker of spiritual wisdom. You have to use your intelligence every step of the way.”

Thomnas Moore Dark Nights Of The Soul

Perhaps life is not a race whose only goal is being foremost. Perhaps the truth lies in what most of the world outside the modern west has always believed, namely that there are practices in life, good in themselves, which are inherently fulfilling. Perhaps work that is intrinsically rewarding is better for human beings than work that is only extrinsically rewarded. Perhaps enduring commitment to those we love and civic friendship toward our fellow citizens are preferable to restless competition and anxious self defense. Perhaps common worship, in which we express gratitude and wonder in the face of the mystery of being itself, is the most important thin of all. If so we will have to change our lives and being to remember what we have been happier to forget.

Holiness of the Heart, quoted by Costello

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Marianne Williamson

It is not because things are difficult
that we do not dare.
It is because we do not dare

Seneca

Discover Me in you. Discover Me in your work. Discover Me in your blessings. Discover Me in your trials. Discover Me in the people around you. Discover Me all around you.

Bo Sanchez

“Breathe. You’re going to be okay. Breathe and remember that you’ve been in this place before. You’ve been this uncomfortable and anxious and scared, and you’ve survived. Breathe and know that you can survive this too. These feelings can’t break you. They’re painful and debilitating, but you can sit with them and eventually, they will pass. Maybe not immediately, but sometime soon, they are going to fade and when they do, you’ll look back at this moment and laugh for having doubted your resilience. I know it feels unbearable right now, but keep breathing, again and again. This will pass. I promise it will pass.”

Daniell Koepke

We have places of fear inside of us, but we have other places as well-places with names like trust and hope and faith. We can choose to lead from one of those places, to stand on ground that is not riddled with the fault lines of fear, to move toward others from a place of promise instead of anxiety. As we stand in one of those places, fear may remain close at hand and our spirits may still tremble. But now we stand on ground that will support us, ground from which we can lead others toward a more trustworthy, more hopeful, more faithful way of being in the world.

Parker Palmer

Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation

To look forward, to want life, means we have to be willing to look backwards and become more conscious of all those who have hurt us, all that is broken in us and that has brought us inner deaths, hurts that we may have hidden and stifled. It means that we acknowledge the story of our origins, of our own lives, see and accept our brokenness and the times we also have hurt others. When we have accepted who we are and what we need in order to grow in compassion and peacemaking, we can move forward to give life. To forgive is a gift of God that permits us to let go of our past hurts.

Jean Varnier

Moving towards an undivided life can be difficult. But, as Parker says, “the divided life is a wounded life”. Becoming whole means we are able to serve more completely.

Parker Palmer

Authentic abundance does not lie in secured stockpiles of food or cash or influence or affection but in belonging to a community where we can give those goods to others who need them-and receive them from others when we are in need.

Parker Palmer
Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation

“Pity is one of the noblest emotions available to human beings; self-pity is possibly the most ignoble . . . . [It] is an incapacity, a crippling emotional disease that severely distorts our perception of reality . . . a narcotic that leaves its addicts wasted and derelict.”

Eugene Peterson

Excuses are lies we tell ourselves to avoid dealing with unpleasant truths. But as long as we buy into those excuses, we can never move past them. Instead of addressing the underlying problem, we merely hide the symptoms. One of the most important steps in personal growth is to uproot excuse-making and confront the real issues behind the excuses with consciousness and courage.

Steve Pavlina

If only you see what I see in you. Then you’ll realize how great I am—and how great you are.

Bo Sanchez

How often do you praise the people you love? Make it frequent. And let them also overhear you say nice things about them to others. You’ll be amazed at how they will change.

Bo Sanchez

“Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.”

Henri Nowen

No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you,
must cross the river of life. There may be countless trails
and bridges and demigods who would gladly carry you across;
but only at the price of pawning and forgoing yourself.
There is one path in the world that none can walk but you.
Where does it lead? Don’t ask, walk!

Nietzke

Even when you have made mistakes, God has loved you totally.
Even when you have betrayed yourself, God has loved you totally.
Even when you have transgressed against others, God has loved you totally.
Even when you have hated Him, God has loved you totally.
And that is how He would have us love…
Those who are mistaken about you, love them totally.
Those who judge you, love them totally.
Those who betray you, love them totally.
Those who despise you, love them totally.
That does not mean you should give them your keys, or surrender boundaries
or any of that.
It means only that love —and only total love — lifts us above the darkness of the world.
When we think as God thinks, and love as God loves, we are given wings and a mantle of light
to protect us and bless us all ways, on all days. For such is the power of Love. Amen

Marianne Williamson

Disappointment is coming, for sure! People are going to hurt you in ways you would never have believed even possible. You are going to be let-down and deeply betrayed. And there is only one thing to do when you are tragically let down — let-go. No matter how wrong they were, holding on will not make it right, it will only eat you alive over time. You are worthy of not reacting negatively to negativity. Don’t let them kill you twice. Letting go is the only way.

—Bryant McGill