Quotes About Transformation

She looked, and a scarlet butterfly flew away from her, away down the length of the tower, and then another, another, an unraveling scarf of butterflies like winged blood.

I haven't changed. Something's happened to me, that's all.

Though we come and go, and pass into the shadows, where we leave behind us stories told — on paper, on the wings of butterflies, on the wind, on the hearts of others — there we are remembered, there we work magic and great change — passing on the fire like a torch — forever and forever. Till the sky falls, and all things are flawless and need no words at all.

Starting over didn't have to be scary or painful if you looked at it for what it was—a clean slate, a chance to create something entirely different, a chance to discard all things that weren't in sync with personal philosophies. Hope.

what it was—a clean slate, a chance to create something entirely different, a chance to discard all things that weren't in sync with personal philosophies. Hope. That's what it gave her most. By 3:30 p.m., the trash bins were all overflowing and her ten-year-old Volvo was stuffed to the ceiling. Zoe wandered the halls, wondering

Starting over didn't have to be scary or painful if you looked at it for what it was—a clean slate, a chance to create something entirely different, a chance to discard all things that weren't in sync with personal philosophies. Hope. That's what it gave her most.

each moment of being herself, she knew, was a strengthening, an adapting, of who she was; and she didn't want to be who she was—that she would squeak a little.

The key lies in staying with the experience through all its changes.

apply an antidote, a positive alternative to the mental habit of the afflictive emotion.

A great Tibetan teacher of mind training once remarked that one of the mind's most marvelous qualities is that it can be transformed.

Alchemy is accepting everything in the pot without trying to reject or correct it—seeing that even the negative is part of the learning and healing.

We can change habits at any of four levels: our thoughts, our emotions, our behavior, and our relationships.

Bringing an automatic habit into awareness in order to change it is a crucial step.

When therapy was successful, two kinds of changes showed up in person after person: the schemas' grip on their lives loosened, and the script changed for the better its typical outcome.

Change is ceaseless.

There is no fixed, solid, permanent self—just a series of changing patterns of experience.

The deepest transformations in our lives come down to something very simple: We learn to respond, not react, to what is going on inside us.

When radical acceptance blossoms in our relationships, it becomes a kind of spiritual re-parenting that enables us to trust the goodness and beauty of who we really are. Just as good parenting mirrors back to a child that they are lovable, when we understand and accept others, we affirm their intrinsic worth and belonging. To receive this kind of Radical Acceptance can transform our lives.

This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! … The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. Rumi

How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races—the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses. Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are only princesses waiting for us to act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.

But Radical Acceptance also means not overlooking another important truth: the endless creativity and possibility that exist in living. By accepting the truth of change, accepting that we don't know how our life will unfold, we open ourselves to hope so that we can move forward with vitality and will.

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change." Our

Chögyam Trungpa, a contemporary Tibetan Buddhist teacher, writes, "The problem is that ego can convert anything to its own use, even spirituality.

Whether we feel pleasure or pain, the wings of acceptance allow us to honor and cherish this ever-changing life, as it is.