Quotes About Growth

Today, I view myself as a pilgrim. I take stock of the distances I have traveled. I take time to map the route I now choose.

Today, I embrace the beginning of a better life. I release my grip on the past and open my hand to receive the new. I accept the seeds of the future.

Do not be discouraged by the ways in which you fall short. Every shortcoming is to me an opportunity for your growth.

Wherever you are is the entry point," and this is always true with writing. Wherever you are is always the right place. There is never a need to fix anything, to hitch up the bootstraps of the soul and start at some higher place. Start right where you are.

Making art has taught me that the tiniest smidgen of progress is something to be savored.

Growth is an erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one step back. Remember that and be very gentle with yourself. A creative recovery is a healing process. You are capable of great things on Tuesday, but on Wednesday you may slide backward. This is normal. Growth occurs in spurts. You will lie dormant sometimes. Do not be discouraged. Think of it as resting.

When people ask, "Why do we write morning pages?" I joke, "To get to the other side." They think I am kidding, but I'm not. Morning pages do get us to the other side: the other side of our fear, of our negativity, of our moods. Above all, they get us beyond our Censor. Beyond the reach of the Censor's babble we find our own quiet center, the place where we hear the still, small voice that is at once our creator's and our own.

shadow artists must learn to take themselves seriously. With gentle, deliberate effort, they must nurture their artist child. Creativity is play, but for shadow artists, learning to allow themselves to play is hard work.

Today, I take the time to get my friends and acquaintances current on the shifts in my inner life. I communicate clearly and openly. I allow time for people to adjust to the ways in which I have changed. I, too, adjust to the change in others.

Change is not made without inconvenience.   RICHARD HOOKER

One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. ANDRÉ GIDE

Today, I welcome the winds of change. Today I cooperate with the new experiences coming to my soul.

Remember that in order to recover as an artist, you must be willing to be a bad artist. Give yourself permission to be a beginner. By being willing to be a bad artist, you have a chance to be an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one.

Writing is like breathing, it's possible to learn to do it well, but the point is to do it no matter what.

put us in touch with our spiritual core. For others, it's a trip to a greenhouse. The point is that even the slightest attention to our impoverished areas can nurture them.

La creatividad florece cuando tenemos una sensación de seguridad y de autoaceptación.

Once we are willing to accept that anything worth doing might even be worth doing badly our options widen.

As we gain - or regain - our creative identity, we lose the false self we are sustaining. The loss of this false self can feel traumatic: I don't know who I am anymore. I don't recognize me. Remember that the more you feel yourself to be terra incognita, the more certain you can be that the recovery process is working.

pain is what it took to teach me to pay attention. In times of pain, when the future is too terrifying to contemplate, and the past too painful to remember, I have learned to pay attention to right now. The precise moment I was in was always the only safe place for me ... In the exact now, we are all, always, all right ... Realizing this, I began to notice that each moment was not without its beauty.

When I make this point in teaching, I am met by instant, defensive hostility: "But do you know how old I will be by the time I learn to really play the piano/act/paint/write a decent play?" Yes … the same age you will be if you don't.

Conectar nos coloca en un estado de consciencia y, desde la consciencia, podemos realizar cambios, o al menos intentarlo.

Pages tutor us in courage.

In recovering from our creative blocks, it is necessary to go gently and slowly. What we are after here is the healing of old wounds—not the creation of new ones. No high jumping, please! Mistakes are necessary! Stumbles are normal. These are baby steps. Progress, not perfection, is what we should be asking of ourselves.

Do not fear mistakes," Miles Davis told us. "There are none.