Quotes About Self-awareness

Perfectionism is one way our muscles cramp. In some cases we don't even know that the wounds and the cramping are there, but both limit us. They keep us moving and writing in tight, worried ways.

You need to find people who laugh gently at themselves, who remind you gently to lighten up.

I had enough to wrestle, wrangle and settle back into, with this one life of mine. Besides, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if something was not my problem, I probably did not have the solution.

We need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here - and, by extension, what we're supposed to be writing.

Remember that you own what happened to you.

you're instantly in a bind once you arrive here on earth, of need, self-will, a body and a separate personality, even before teh crippling self-consciousness kicks in, even before the seventh grade ... you're fucked at cell division ... it's all downhill from there. After that, it's all survival, and trying to keep yourself either entertained or convinced that the things you're obsessed with are of any importance at all in the big scheme.

If you stop trying to control your mind so much, you'll have intuitive hunches about what this or that character is all about.

I devoured books like a person taking vitamins, afraid that otherwise I would remain this gelatinous narcissist, with no possibility of ever becoming thoughtful, of ever being taken seriously.

I started to get found, to discover who I had been born to be, instead of the impossibly small package, all tied up tightly in myself, that I had agreed to be.

had to learn to be present without paying quite so much attention to my poor old overamped mind, because this was the source of most of my unhappiness. And it still is. The

The movement of grace toward gratitude brings us from the package of self-obsessed madness to a spiritual awakening. Gratitude is peace.

God gives us Her own self. Left to my own devices, I would prefer answers. This is why it is good that I am in charge of so little: the pets, the shopping, the garden.

Of course, there will always be more you could do, but you have to remind yourself that perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor.

In recovery, they say there are no victims, only volunteers, […]

Your job is to present clearly your viewpoint, your line of vision. Your job is to see people as they really are, and to do this, you have to know who you are in the most compassionate possible sense.

I desperately want to stop minding so much about other people, life, and myself. Krishnamurti, the great Indian teacher, when asked what was the secret to his serenity, said in his soft, shy voice, "I don't mind what happens." This is so not me—I mind his having even said this.

The old adage is that intimacy means "Into me I see"—deeply, with a flashlight—and believe me, we're not trying to avoid seeing the lovely and selfless aspects of ourselves. It's not even the unlikable qualities—narcissism, fraudulence, envy. It's the really disgusting, uncooked-egg parts of us—wanting people to fail, using people, holding on to resentments, our sense of entitlement.

Carl Jung said that most painful issues can't be solved—they can only be outgrown, but that takes time and deep work.

And the story begins to materialize, and another thing is happening, which is that you are learning what you aren't writing, and this is helping you to find out what you are writing.

I need to bring up radio station KFKD, or K-Fucked, here. It is perhaps the single greatest obstacle to listening to your broccoli that exists for writers.

It is okay to fear death. Many people who don't can be a little too pleased with themselves.

There's something wrong in not appreciating one's own special abilities, my girl. Find your own limitations, yes, but don't limit yourself with false modesty.

One can forgive almost anything except one's own stupidities.

I learned to tolerate images rising in me like bruises.