Quotes from Rachel Naomi Remen

In avoiding all pain and seeking comfort at all cost, we may be left without intimacy or compassion; in rejecting change and risk we often cheat ourselves of the quest; in denying our suffering we may never know our strength or our greatness.

Suffering shapes the life force, sometimes into anger, sometimes into blame and self-pity. Eventually it may show us the wisdom of embracing and loving life.

Facts bring us to knowledge, but stories lead to wisdom.

The places in which we are seen and heard are holy places. They remind us of our value as human beings. They give us the strength to go on.

Perhaps we are no longer a kind people. More and more, we seem to have become numb to the suffering of others and ashamed of our own suffering. Yet suffering is one of the universal conditions of being alive. We all suffer. We have become terribly vulnerable, not because we suffer but because we have separated ourselves from each other.

Of course love is never earned. It is a grace we give one another. Anything we need to earn is only approval.

We burn out not because we don't care but because we don't grieve. We burn out because we have allowed our hearts to become so filled with loss that we have no room left to care.

When I have forgiven myself and remembered who I am, I will bless everyone and everything I see." The way to freedom often lies through the open heart.

Over the years I have learned that "cleaning up one's act" may be far less important than consecrating one's life. It may be possible to use everything. A ruthless man may be able to open doors that a more kindly and traditionally spiritual person could knock on forever. Without judgment, many things can be made holy.

Sometimes just being in someone's presence is strong medicine.

It is actually difficult to edit life. Especially in regard to feelings. Not being open to anger or sadness usually means being unable to be open to love and joy. The emotions seem to operate with an all-or-nothing switch.

Wholeness is never lost, it is only forgotten. Integrity rarely means that we need to add something to ourselves: it is more an undoing than a doing, a freeing ourselves from beliefs we have about who we are and ways we have been persuaded to 'fix' ourselves to know who we genuinely are.

Most of the things that give life its depth, meaning, and value are impervious to science.

Few perfectionists can tell the difference between love and approval. Perfectionism is so widespread in this culture that we actually have had to invent another word for love. 'Unconditional love,' we say. Yet, all love is unconditional. Anything else is just approval.

Grieving is a way of self-care.

Inner peace is more a question of cultivating perspective, meaning, and wisdom even as life touches you with its pain.

All life has in it the dimension of the Unknown; it is a thing forever unfolding. It seems important to consider the possibility that science may have defined life too small. If we define life too small, we will define ourselves too small as well.

Much of life can never be explained but only witnessed.

One of the reasons many physicians feel drained by their work is that they do not know how to make an opening to receive anything from their patients. The way we were trained, receiving is considered unprofessional. The way most of us were raised, receiving is considered a weakness.

The best stories have many meanings; their meaning changes as our capacity to understand and appreciate meaning grows.

Before every session, I take a moment to remember my humanity. There is no experience that this man has that I cannot share with him, no fear that I cannot understand, no suffering that I cannot care about, because I too am human. No matter how deep his wound, he does not need to be ashamed in front of me. I too am vulnerable. And because of this, I am enough.

The way in which we go to the grocery store may tell us everything about the way in which we live a life. The way we tend the life force in a plant may be the way we tend our own life force. We are exquisitely coherent.

If we fear loss enough, in the end the things we possess will come to possess us.

Freedom may come not from being in control of life but rather from a willingness to move with the events of life, to hold on to our memories but let go of the past, to choose, when necessary, the inevitable. We can become free at any time.