Quotes About Self-discovery

I began to glimpse the chasm that lay between the inclinations of my soul and my ability to carry them out. I had had a clear, pure moment of knowing that compelled me to risk my religion and move beyond patriarchy at church and within my spiritual life, but actually doing it? Now that was something else altogether...Yes, I was withering within these things. Internally I felt trapped.

and poet Ntozake Shange put it, "i found god in myself / and i loved her / i loved her

I don't doubt you should give yourself to motherhood. I only question what it is you're meant to mother.

Our true identity flows from our "center." Therefore we are living the fullness of who we truly are when we are living out of our center.

As I form the words, it seems entirely possible that what I wanted all along was to answer the question myself.

and I suppose now that was part of the problem—my chronic inability to astonish myself.

This will sound ridiculous, I guess, but my life had started to feel so stagnant, like it was atrophied. Everything shrunk down to the roles I played. I had loved doing them, Dee, I really had, but they were drying up, and they weren't really me.

Ann, seeking her true self, her autonomy and voice, her place in the world; and me, looking for the sap of spring, the ability to conjure a new dream of myself and bring it forth. Ann

When someone tries to put you back into a box from which you've already escaped, you might recall a line from the Indian poet Mirabai. She said, "I have felt the swaying of the elephant's shoulders and now you want me to climb on a jackass? Try to be serious!

May Sarton novel, The Reckoning, Ella writes to her friend Laura, "Do you suppose growing up always means diluting [our] fierce purpose for the sake of others?"4

Thirty-nine years in the fish tank had caught up with me.

The two most powerful impulses in my life have been the urge to create and the urge to be – a set of opposites – and they have always clunked into each other. How very like them to do so right now.

Sue Monk Kidd

I cannot ignore this murderous self: it is there. I smell it and feel it. . . . When it says: you shall not sleep, you cannot teach, I shall go on anyway, knocking its nose in. Its biggest weapon is and has been the image of myself as a perfect success: in writing, teaching and living. . . . My demon of negation will tempt me day by day, and I'll fight it, as something other than my essential self, which I am fighting to save.20

I came to believe that my true identity goes beyond the outer roles I play. It transcends the ego. I came to understand that there is an Authentic 'I' within - an 'I am', or divine spark within the soul.

One night sitting beside the Greek shore, Shirley thinks to herself, I've allowed myself to lead this little life when inside me there is so much more...That's where Shirley Valentine disappeared to. She got lost in all this unused life.

So!, I thought, for the first time, there's more than one path to happiness! I likes that. I thought they were brave. I didn't want to be them, but I liked that they wanted to be them. It opened a world of possibilities in my mind, just the idea that every thing was much bigger than I thought.

Despite my broken heart, or rather, because of it, I was grateful to be where no one knew me. I was totally invisible here. I didn't have to pretend to be happy or nice or that everything was okay.

having tried and failed to invent a better future for himself, in the end he invented a better past"178

I always knew I was one of the ones who would leave.

As you gain more control over your past and present relationship with your parents, you will discover that your other relationships, especially your relationship with yourself, will improve dramatically. You will have the freedom, perhaps for the first time, to enjoy your own life.

Many people are frightened to take a look at the forces that shaped their characters and their backgrounds, believing that the past should be buried and that looking back might mean wallowing in self-pity and old wounds. But self-discovery can open up exciting new choices and options for us. The more we understand what shaped us as individuals, the more tools we have to free ourselves from behaviors that no longer work for us.

I have a horrible time trying to figure out who I am, what I want, or what I need. I'm just beginning to figure it out. The hardest part is for me to like myself. Every time I try, I hear Daddy telling me what an awful kid I was.

The more we understand what shaped us as individuals, the more tools we have to free ourselves from behaviors that no longer work for us.