Quotes About Self-awareness

We don't want to think about our weaknesses. We don't want to talk about them, and we certainly don't want anyone else to point them out. This is a classic sign of mediocrity, and this mediocrity has a firm grip on the Church and humanity at this moment in history.

Criticizing yourself all the time or being overly judgmental of a situation is like wearing dark sunglasses indoors.

However, do not confuse distraction with avoidance. When you avoid a distressing situation, you choose not to deal with it. But when you distract yourself from a distressing situation, you still intend to deal with it in the future, when your emotions have calmed down to a tolerable level. The

Rather than building your self-esteem on being right, you might reform your picture of yourself into that of one who, above all, wants to find the truth. Listening

I have to speak carefully now because I have this strange habit of imitating British people without even realizing that I'm doing it.

I'm not an alcoholic—I don't have the discipline to become one—

For the first thirty-something years of my life, I never once asked my dad if he was OK . . . and now I've done it twice in one week. I wonder if this is just the way it is. Are all our parents, collectively, fucked up? Have they always been fucked up, and it just takes us until our own adulthood to figure that out?

That's me giving myself a tough-love speech. I'm going to start doing that more often, I've decided. One might as well put his inner monologue to good use.

I do not seek the mantle of genius. I am an appreciator, an observer, a preposition, and content in that, and that's me in a nutshell.

We never like the smell of our own vices in other people, Holmes. Ah, let's steer here for a drink or two, Lowell suggested.

Meditation is not just blissing out under a mango tree. It completely changes your brain and therefore changes what you are.

We deal with our mind from morning till evening, and it can be our best friend or our worst enemy.

We are very much like birds that have lived too long in a cage to which we return even when we get the chance to fly away. We have grown so accustomed to our faults that we can barely imagine what life would be like without them. The prospect of change makes us dizzy.

The truth is that even if resentment is triggered by an external object, it is not located anywhere else but in our mind.

You don't grow up, she reasoned now, until you begin to evaluate yourself, to recognize your good traits and acknowledge that you have a few faults.

Did he know that she was so dissatisfied with herself that she was always pretending to be different? Probably he did, and despised her for it. More than anyone she knew, Joe Willard was always, fearlessly, himself.

Even though she had been warned, she tripped over the bike. She probably tripped because she'd been warned and was telling herself not to trip over the bike. She did that sometimes. It was often easier not to know what obstacles were in the way.

Mostly, Stevie forgot she had a body, and when someone else noticed her body, it made her look down and go, huh. Would you look at that. How long has that been there?

We all know what we're doing. Whether we realize it or not.

It just seemed like telling the truth would mean admitting some weakness

The fact is, he said, I liked you from the first moment I saw you, when you looked like you wanted to punch me in the face for just being alive. That probably says something dark about me. And I think you like me because I annoy you. Both of us have real problems, but maybe we should make our weird personalities work for us.

I had no idea why I was saying this. It just seemed like telling the truth would mean admitting some weaknesses.

The idea that Izzy had a full life that didn't revolve around David had somehow never occurred to Stevie. Love made her stupid.

when people talked about feelings and touching and all of the stuff she thought was meant to be kept carefully bottled inside her own personal apothecary.