Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength
August Wilson, 1945 – 2005, American Pulitzer Prize winning playwright
One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.
Freud, Letter to Jung, 1907
Life is difficult, the Buddha taught, for everyone. Suffering, he said, is the demand that experience be different than what it is. Of course, we do what we can to address pain. Sometimes illnesses are cured. Sometimes relationships are mended. Sometimes losses are recouped. Sometimes, though, nothing can be done. The Buddha’s teaching of liberation was that peace of mind is possible, no matter what the circumstances.
Sylvia Boorstein, It’s All Happening to All of us, All of the Time
With a lot of uncertainty these days, it is easy to get discouraged…
For once
the mocking, predictable voice
inside my head that says “No way”
is silent.
In fact, I think I can just barely make out
some other, quieter voice, whispering,
“Maybe.”
Katrina Kenison, Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment
The great challenge is
living your wounds through
instead of thinking them through…
Your heart is greater than your wounds.
Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
There are thresholds which thought alone, left to itself, can never permit us to cross.
An experience is required – an experience of poverty, of sickness.
Gabriel Marcel, quoted in Gelin, Les Pauvres de Yahvé
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