Quotes About Introspection

Whatever we think of as "self" we will protect and maintain. If it's a conceptual self, and likely it is, then we end up with mind protecting mind. This produces a rather "introverted" self-mind creating thoughts and perceptions in its own image. When self becomes confused with mind, and mind becomes seen as the self, the mind's self-serving activities end up creating an experience of reality that is entirely self-referential.

An inner dialogue runs pretty much unceasingly though our minds. Sometimes we listen; sometimes we barely notice. The commands and assessments of this story line are there all the same, even if the depth of their influence goes unnoticed. But the most dangerous fictions aren't those we recognize as stories. Of more concern to us here are the ones we assume to be real.

it seems that the conceptual activity that is created to serve the self has become the self.

Again, I invite you to consider that if you can identify with character traits, qualities, thinking, or experiences other than what you identify with now, then you must not actually be any of these elements. If this is so, who are you? What are you? If you try to pin down who you really are, you will search your mind and attempt to grab onto an idea, or feeling, or sense. Yet that very idea, feeling, or sense itself can be let go, and so it can't be you either. See how this works?

when the mind serves "the self" it is actually serving something of its own making—a conceptual self.

Peter Robinson

You can still talk with her," Iceland said. "It will take time. Everything you need to know is inside you, the same as it's inside her. You'll figure out how to talk to each other. You'll have to figure out how to listen, to understand." "I'm listening," I said. "I will.

Watch your thoughts for they become words.  Watch your words for they become actions. Watch your actions for they become habits.  Watch your habits for they become your character.  And watch your character for it becomes your destiny.  What we think we become.

For when we genuinely look at how the other sees us, we are confronted with a distance that exists between the image we have of ourselves and the reality of our actions.

our religious beliefs have not provided us what they seemed to promise.

When you feel empty, you have to open up your heart and let the wind sweep through it.

In neglecting our intense emotions, we are false to ourselves and lose a wonderful opportunity to know God. We forget that change comes through brutal honesty and vulnerability before God.

The vast majority of us go to our graves without knowing who we are.

Most of us never examine the scripts handed to us by our past.

Our wisdom . . . consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.

Part of that likeness is to feel.

human. To minimize

The degree to which you recognize and engage your own shadow is the degree to which you can free others to face theirs.

A child doesn't say, "What's wrong with this environment where I am growing up?" They think, What's wrong with me?

The late Dag Hammarskjöld, once the secretary general of the United Nations, suggested that we have become adept at exploring outer space, but we have not developed similar skills in exploring our own personal inner spaces. He wrote, "The longest journey of any person is the journey inward."4 Most of us feel much more equipped to manipulate objects, control situations, and "do" things than to take that very long journey inward. Painful Honesty

In the Psalms, we see that he holds nothing back, freely pouring out his fears, despair, anger, and shame.

As the wise, old Abbot Moses said when a brother came to him for a good word, "Go, sit in your cell [a monk's room], and your cell will teach you everything.

modet til at lade dem, der ikke elsker os, være i fred, for i stedet kærligt at vende os mod den uelskede i os selv.

And there is, of course, a filter within yourself. When a book, or magazine article, or idea makes you uncomfortable, notice your exact reaction. If you're bored, move on. If you feel threatened, stay with it and see what troubles you.