Just Be Kind
"You're going to die, too! Someday. And how will that be? Have you thought about it? What would you die for? Who I am is where I stand. Where I stand is where I fall."
~ Doctor Who
Well-Being is a Skill
"If one practices the skills of well-being, one will get better at it."
~ Dr. Richard Davidson
The Important of Kindness and Hush
"There's a thing when we're children we experience. It usually exists in libraries and it's called the hush. Like this magic world called Hush. There's not many places now to find hush. Somethimes I really do think if every person would experience hush—even if they almost have to force it on themselves for a while—just the bird, just the wind, nothing else, hush—there would be less violence."
Pain and Response to Pain Teaches Understanding
"The more personal you are willing to be and the more intimate you are willing to be about the details of your own life, the more universal you are."
~ Sherwin Nuland
The Ego Will Be Asked to Open to Something Larger
"The ego wishes comfort, security, satiety; the soul demands meaning, struggle, becoming. The contention of these two voices sometimes tears us apart. Ordinary ego consciousness is crucified by these polarities. Again, the paradox emerges that in our suffering, in our symptoms, are profound clues as to the meaning of the struggle, yet the path of healing is very difficult for the apprehensive ego to accept, for the ego will be asked to be open to something larger than itself."
~ James Hollis, from Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up
Feeling Slightly Out of It Most of the Time
"actually, it may be that just being yourself as a human being means feeling slightly out of it most of the time. And that a form of enlightenment is to understand that you'll never feel quite at home in the world and you're not meant to, because your sense of compassion for the rest of creation and for others depends on your understanding of exile — how far a creature, especially a human creature, can feel from true parentage, from their true inheritance, from their true home."
~ David Whyte
Traveling Light
Five strategies for reducing travel stress -- especially around the holidays -- by Allan Lokos, from "Peace While Traveling? Not Impossible," by Rachel Lee Harris, The New York Times, December 15, 2011.
Straddling Compassion and Boundaries
"It’s hard to for us to understand that we can be compassionate and accepting while we hold people accountable for their behaviors."
~ Brené Brown
Quickly, Before I Forget
The reason you so often in literature have a naked woman
walk out of her house that way, usually older, in her front garden
or on the sidewalk, oblivious, is because of exactly how I feel right now.
~ Jennifer Michael Hecht