Quotes from Elizabeth Lesser

fearlessness is the product of tenderness.

There are three major hurdles to overcome in crisis: dealing with pain; working with your attitude; and using the crisis as a wake-up and a cleanup call.

As I Walked Out One Evening," W. H. Auden expresses in a few lines what to me is the essence of the Phoenix Process: O stand, stand at the window As the tears scald and start; You shall love your crooked neighbour With your crooked heart. A heart made crooked through loss and change is a heart that can love the world and its less than perfect people.

those who are willing to enter the woods of self-examination in order to retrieve what was never really lost.

where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves.

Joseph Campbell calls the "hero's path." Some of us need a cataclysmic event to find our way toward "the center of our own existence.

Some of us don't. Some of us add up all of the smaller changes into one big lesson, and find our way home as well. A

He went on to tell me that before the workshop he hadn't cried for years, even when his father died, even when his wife told him she was leaving. "I am so glad to finally feel something." He sighed, touching his heart. "Even if I have to cry every day for a couple of years, it's better than having a frozen heart." Ever

What ensued will go down in the record of my heart as one of those rare times in life when you finally rest—when you put down the burden of striving and a sense of well-being spreads like honey into every corner of your consciousness. There was nowhere else to go, nothing to do, no one to be—just now, just this precious day, these shared breaths with a friend.

They are I-don't-know-it-alls. They are not afraid to look dumb or make mistakes. Because of that, they go places others won't and try things others don't. That is where the new discoveries are lurking. "So

When we practice dying, we are learning to identify less with Ego and more with Soul. —RAM DASS

Now he was emerging, like a phoenix from the ashes, with new wings and an open heart. I

What is the soul?" a man in the audience asked. "The soul," I said, "was the one who just answered the question 'Why are you really here?' It is the wise and whole and brave part of the self. The soul is the ageless longing for truth that sends scientists into the lab and seekers onto the spiritual path." And

bones and muscles, organs and skin, I want to take care of the gift of my body. I want to feed it well, move it gracefully, and rest it deeply. I know that the life force beats on, even when the heart has stopped, but while I have a heart and lungs, I want to treat them with sacred awe. And while I dwell with others who are just like me, I want to see them for who they really are, in all of their fragility and all of their majesty.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don't go back to sleep. People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep.

He freed the song of your soul.

The Sleeping Giants and Strange Angels may bring with them risky advice. If you listen, your life may change; you will certainly change. If you turn a deaf ear, you'll stay the same. It's up to you. Giants

Life would always be quirky, dynamic, changing, and messy. The

Strange Angels, we will become more and more numb to life. We will remain unchanged. If we allow the Angels entry, we will open the door to change and evolution.

A heart made crooked through loss and change is a heart that can love the world and its less than perfect people.

grief is good—that it is a sign of how well we have loved. And

In the end, what will matter is how much we loved—our children, our mates, our families, our friends, everyone we knew, everyone who traveled with us during our brief visit to this unbearably lovely place. What will matter is the good we did, not the good we expected others to do.

But there was something out of control about him, something that scared me. At that point in my young life, I was looking for an anchor.

What is keeping you from feeling the rapture? I can assure you, you won't find the answer in a lighted room. What stands between you and a full-bodied life can be found only in the shadows.