Quotes About Introspection

I always speak to myself no more myself but a colander draining the sound from this never-to-be-mentioned wound

into the lane he dropped not once looking up

I am cold cold trying to slide myself out of my own shade but hour by hour more shade leaks out

when a man rolls over and sighs

and I who live in the basement one level down from the world

severed by light from myself not knowing but almost

not looking up but lost in pause

I have a simple philosophy: Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch where it itches.

I had surprised myself this year by jumping in to reshape my life before life stepped in to reshape it for me.

Peut-on changer de paysage extérieur sans déranger son paysage intérieur? Les voyages qu'on fait en soi-même? Aujourd'hui, je suis retournée dans mon passé, puis je suis partie vers un avenir qui prenait forme quelque part à la lisière de ma pensée. Mais je me suis aussi rendue dans un endroit rarement visité : l'innocence du moment présent.

It was probable, I thought, that what I disliked in him was what Nour had disliked in me, and that the whole world was mad.

Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me.

Any God I ever found in church, I brought in myself.

I don't understand it," I continued. "These things, they just keep happening, and I know it has to mean something. It has to. I want my suffering to mean something. I want this pain to matter.

If I want to be alone, some place I can write, I can read, I can pray, I can cry, I can do whatever I want - I go to the bathroom.

We don't draw loved ones into our lives coincidentally. They're there to shine a light on our unfinished emotional business, to reveal to us our deepest tendencies. And as my life is proving to me even now, those patterns appear time and again, often cleverly disguised. And they'll keep right on showing up until we're willing to truly look at them.

That though passageway came with a surprising revelation. When life forces you to face yourself, what awaits in the mirror is a gift: vulnerability. Your heart is pierced. You're broken open. You're hyper-aware of what you're feeling.

It's hard to pinpoint the precise moment when we internalize others' assessments; it's usually not just a single experience but rather a series of moments that bruise the spirit and lead us to distrust ourselves and those around us. And then we wake up at age seventeen or twenty-five or thirty-seven and realize we don't know the last time we've lived life only to please ourselves

It's hard to pinpoint the precise moment when we internalize others' assessments; it's usually not just a single experience but rather a series of moments that bruise the spirit and lead us to distrust ourselves and those around us. And then we wake up at age seventeen or twenty-five or thirty-seven and realize we don't know the last time we've lived life only to please ourselves.

On this part of my journey, I'm at last quieting the noise of our world—removing all the external distractions and opinions and judgments and tuning in to my own voice. I'm recognizing my own power and owning it. I'm finally trusting myself, believing I already have inside me the answers I most crave. And above all, I'm discovering who I am at my core—and becoming, day by day, more myself.

You don't want modesty," Maya Angelou once said. "You want humility. Humility

We don't draw loved ones into our lives coincidentally. They're there to shine a light on our unfinished emotional business, to reveal to us our deepest tendencies. And as my life is proving to me even now, those patterns appear time and time again, often cleverly disguised. And they'll keep right on showing up until we're willing to truly look at them.

Who are we really? What are all the various pieces that form us? Which parts of ourselves do we embrace or dismiss, and what does that mean or not mean? Most of us are comfortable with expressing certain aspects of ourselves, while other sides might get left in the shade by default. For me, the latter was apparently happening on an unconscious level.

When life forces you to face yourself, what awaits in the mirror is a gift: vulnerability. Your heart is pierced. You're broken open. You're hyperaware of what you're feeling.