Quotes About Self-discovery

the really important thing to be was yourself, just as hard as you could.

She was almost there. She could feel the weight of herself, the ponderousness of her body, the distant memories of the dawn of time when rock was molten and free. For the first time in her life she knew what it was like to have balconies.

When I said, "I am my mother, but I'm not," I was saying my path would be my own.

Boundaries are fears made manifest, designed to protect us. I don't want protection, I want freedom.

She is reading Zen, Krishnamurti, and Jung, asking herself questions she has never had the courage to explore. Suddenly, the shackles which have bound her are beginning to snap, as personal revelation replaces orthodoxy.

Wilderness is an antidote to the war within ourselves.

Here is the woman who had seriously considered taking LSD under the supervision of a medical doctor so she could have a mind-altering experience, who had read herself straight out of Mormonism and into Eastern religious thought--but refused to replace one dogma with another.

Opera has the power to warn you that you have wasted your life. You haven't acted on your desires. You've suffered a stunted, vicarious existence. You've silenced your passions. The volume, height, depth, lushness, and excess of operatic utterance reveal, by contrast, how small your gestures have been until now, how impoverished your physicality; you have only used a fraction of your bodily endowment, and your throat is closed.

For far too long we have been seduced into walking a path that did not lead us to ourselves. For far too long we have said yes when we wanted to say no. And for far too long we have said no when we desperately wanted to say yes.

When we don't listen to our intuition, we abandon our souls. And we abandon our souls because we are afraid if we don't, others will abandon us. We've been raised to question what we know, to discount and discredit the authority of our gut. I want to know why. I regret whenever I abandon myself. But harboring regrets is making love to the past, and there is no movement here... I am growing beyond my own conditioning, breaking set with what was breaking me.

I fear silence because it leads me to myself, a self I may not wish to confront. It asks that I listen. And in listening, I am taken to an unknown place. Silence leaves me alone in a place of feeling. It is not necessarily a place of comfort.

A crisis woke us up. A shared love of place opened a dialogue with neighbors. We asked for help. We found partners. We used our collective intelligence to formulate a plan. And then we had to search within ourselves to find what each of us had to give.

I am trapped in my own snowbound valley. I am the only one who can rescue me.

Then she walked out of his church, and back into her own world.

Maybe I don't really know what love feels like. Because I've been too busy fighting it. Just as I fight everything else that might hurt me.

Do not try to force yourself back into this old life. It is like trying to fit into a pair of old trousers once you have grown taller. It no longer suits you. It never will again. It is best to admit this, lest you force the fit and look ridiculous. Better for the pants, better for you, better for all who would see you wear them.

Your purpose is to be yourself. You don't have to run anywhere to become someone else. You are wonderful just as you are.

Mindful breathing is the vehicle that you use to go back to your true home.

Life waits patiently for true heroes. It is dangerous when those aspiring to be heroes cannot wait until they find themselves.

Enlightenment, peace, and joy will not be granted by someone else. The well is within us, And if we dig deeply in the present moment, The water will spring forth

Let one embrace his own truth and devote himself to its fulfillment.

you carry in yourself all the obstacles necessary to make your realization perfect. Always you will see that within you the shadow and the light are equal: you have an ability, you also have the negation of this ability. But, if you discover a very black hole, a thick shadow, be sure that somewhere in you there is a great light. It is up to you to know how to use the one to realize the other.

Seek to do what is easy, comfortable and familiar and you will stay right where you are, bound to the past and bound to all the deceptions that have plagued you in the past, unable to proceed, unable to advance, unable to learn and unable to accomplish what you came here to accomplish.

It's very confusing, being all of yourself. You'll find it quite uncomfortable for a while. But you'll get used to it. We all do.