Quotes About Self-awareness

When we find ourselves in a situation in which our buttons are being pushed, we can choose to repress or act out, or we can choose to practice. If we can start to do the exchange, breathing in with the intention of keeping our hearts open to the embarrassment or fear or anger that we feel, then to our surprise we find that we are also open to what the other person is feeling. Open heart is open heart.

Come, let me know whether thou art a creature of good or not.' And he replied: `I am a man.

Ensi tote nuit se degenglent Cil qui de mal dire s'estrenglent, Mes tex dit sovant mal d'autrui Qui est molt pires de celui Que il blasme et que il despit.

What we know about who we are comes from stories. It's the agents of our imagination who really shape who we are.

The knowledge of my depravity is the only thing that makes me special... that I have always always always known, and have never for a moment been able to forget, that there is something terribly wrong with me.

Yes, there is something a little defeatist about accepting one's slacking ways rather than trying to fix them. That's a worry, though, for another month. The healthiest, most productive approach to writing is to acknowledge your weak spots early on, and build a writing plan that plays to your strengths and works around your liabilities.

He defined himself almost wholly in the negative: It was not who he was, it was who he was not.

Orrin Woodward relates this principle to people who claim to have thirty years of work experience, when actually in many cases, they merely have one year of experience thirty times over.

I didn't understand that I could sing until I was like 11 or 12. My mom heard me singing around the house and she said, What are you doing? You really can sing! So then I started going to school and singing to the girls.

I can say that I am only human and I have made mistakes. I can say that I try to live my life in the most true, honest way that I can. I am not perfect, no one is. No one is harder on me than me. No one can please everyone. No one can live in the past and expect to grow. I have been moving forward and hope that I am not defined by just a few moments in my life but all of the moments that will make up my life.

I don't think there's anybody in America who thinks my personality is best suited to being Number Two.

I'm basically the healthiest fat guy you've ever seen.

You travel here and you travel there, trying to get out from under the cloud, and nothing works, and then one day you realize you've been carrying the weather around with you.

There are countries of the world, and regions of one's own mind, where it is unwise to travel.

Perhaps this was what it was to grow up: this realization that the world was already staffed with people and that one was not particularly needed. She

Isn't it sad, growing up? You start off like my Charlie. You start off thinking you can kill all the baddies and save the world. Then you get a little bit older, maybe Little Bee's age, and you realize that some of the world's badness is inside you, that maybe you're a part of it.

Yu only be livin one life, darlin. Don't matter yu don't uh-preshie-ate part of it, cos it don't stop bein part of yu.

I don't know. We've never done anything, have we? We've no talent but conversation.

and you start wondering whether that badness you've seen in yourself is really all that bad at all..." "Maybe that's just developing as a person, Sarah" I sighed, and look out at Little Bee "Well" I said. "Maybe this is a developing world.

Then hearing Elvis today made me think I didn't have a lot to bitch about, but when I said that to Mr. Nak after group, he said, "Don't get to thinkin' just because some other guy's sinkin' in horse manure, the stuff up around your neck is chocolate puddin'. A wound is a wound, young Brewster. Remember that. Don't diminish the pain of your own just because you see some other gut-shot cowboy bleedin' to death.

See, Mr. Nak'll be talking about how anger comes creeping up, hoping you're not paying attention so it can trick you into something really embarrassing or degrading, and before you know it he's got you thinking about your life, or worse, talking about it. He keeps asking what seem like harmless questions, and it almost seems safe to answer them. Next thing you know you're ready to say something you thought you'd never tell anybody.

I'm a little kinder to myself most of the time. I tell myself I learned an important lesson the hard way: that the universe doesn't make allowances for mental lapses or ignorance, but that maybe I'm a better man because I know that.

You have to see everyone in relationship to you. Just because you understand the shit in someone else's life doesn't mean you don't stand up for your own

Only by acknowledging, "Hey, here is where I am, and I'm here because I steered my horse here," can I make the next choice to ride on out to the sunset where I'd really like to be. Or