“You have three aspects of reality that nobody gets to avoid. Pain, uncertainty, and constant work. Those are things you’re just gonna have to live with, no matter what. What will make you happy is the process. You have to learn how to love the process of dealing with those three things.”
Phil Stutz, Stutz
“Part X is the judgmental part of you, the antisocial part of you. It’s an invisible… force that wants to keep you from changing or growing. It wants to block your evolution. It wants to block your potential. Part X is the voice of impossibility. Whatever it is you think you need to do, it’s gonna tell you that’s impossible.”
Phil Stutz, Stutz
“Your relationships are like handholds to let yourself get pulled back into life. The key of it is you have to take the initiative. If you’re waiting for them to the take the initiative, you don’t understand. You could invite somebody out to lunch that you don’t find interesting, it doesn’t matter, it will affect you anyway, in a positive way. That person represents the whole human race, symbolically.”
Phil Stutz, Stutz
“I have noticed that when all the lights are on, people tend to talk about what they are doing — their outer lives. Sitting round in candlelight or firelight, people start to talk about how they are feeling – their inner lives. They speak subjectively, they argue less, there are longer pauses. To sit alone without any electric light is curiously creative. I have my best ideas at dawn or at nightfall, but not if I switch on the lights — then I start thinking about projects, deadlines, demands, and the shadows and shapes of the house become objects, not suggestions, things that need to done, not a background to thought.”
Jeanette Winterson, The Guardian
“Look for situations where the energy is already flowing downhill. Invest in relationships where there is already mutual respect. Create products that tap into a desire people already have. Work on projects that play to your strengths. And then, once the potential of the situation is already working for you, add fuel to the fire. Pour yourself into the craft. Act as if you have to outwork everyone else—even though the wind is at your back. The idea is to sprint downhill, not grind uphill.”
James Clear, Blog
“A tool is a bridge between what you realize the problem is and the cause of the problem to over here, actually gaining at least some control over the symptom. It all has to do with possibility. And not a bullshit definition of possibility. Possibility means you feel yourself reacting differently. It sounds, trite, but it’s actually the truth.”
Phil Stutz, Stutz
“In traditional therapy, you’re paying this person, and you save all of your problems for them, and they just listen, and your friends, who are idiots, give you advice. Unsolicited. And you want your friends just to listen. And you want your therapist to give you advice.”
Jonah Hill, Stutz
“A tool is something that can change your state, your inner state, immediately, in real time. It takes an experience that’s normally unpleasant, then it turns it into an opportunity. Tools change your mood and then just give you a sense of hope that won’t be your mood forever.”
Phil Stutz, Stutz
“Taking turns leading in different situations helps each individual express their power and their talents. Partners normally have different strengths so it makes sense that one person would not be in control in all situations. Sharing power is critical to creating a harmonious environment and building trust. Being able to live in your power creates the sense of freedom that we all need to truly feel at home.”
Yung Pueblo
“We can never handwrite the same message twice. Every crease and every accidental fold of paper serves as the most unique canvas for our words. The ink filling our inscriptions will never behave exactly the same way in a single letter written twice. The way we hold our pen may change, even if ever so slightly, from one word to the next. Each and every squiggly line is one of a kind and our longhand note may never really be replicated. This unwritten poetry that resides between the lines of our messages enhances our gift of words. If we want to make someone feel special, is there a better way than to offer them something only they will ever have?”
Kinga Lewandowska, Intelligent Change Blog
“Everything in this world blooms, grows, and returns to its roots. Returning to one’s roots means becoming united with nature; becoming united with nature involves eternity. The destruction of your body holds no danger in itself.”
Lao-Tzu, via A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 354)
“When you reach the peak of it all—whatever that may be for you—you will look back and know that every step was worth it. More than anything, you will be overwhelmingly grateful for the pain that led you to begin your journey, because really, it wasn’t trying to hurt you as much as it was trying to show you that something was wrong. That something was the risk of your potential remaining untapped, your life spent with the wrong people, doing the wrong things, and wondering why you never felt quite right. You life is just beginning.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 239)
“You cannot avoid all pain, but you can absolutely avoid a lot of suffering by staying focused on your internal growth.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 235)
“Happiness is your natural state. That means you will return to it on your own if you allow the other feelings you want to experience to come up, be felt, be processed, and not resisted. The less you resist your unhappiness, the happier you will be. It is often just trying too hard to feel one certain way that sets us up for failure.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 231)
“The time that you’re alive is the only thing you truly possess, and you can give it away. You can give it away by working for other people—they own your time and you can be miserable. You can give it away by reaching for external pleasures and distractions—spending the time that you have as a slave to different passions and different obsessions. Or you can make the time that you’re alive your own.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 426)
“In a competition between someone who knows the most and someone who is willing to learn the most, the edge usually goes to the curious and empathic professional, not the one who is simply protecting what’s already known.”
Seth Godin, Blog
“The greatest gift that life will hand you is discomfort. Discomfort is not trying to punish you! It is just trying to show you where you are capable of more, deserving of better, able to change, or meant for greater than you have right now. In almost every case, it is simply informing you that there is more out there for you, and it is pushing you to go pursue it.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 229)
“Triggers are not random; they are showing you where you are either most wounded or primed for growth. If we can see these triggers as signals that are trying to help us put our attention toward some part of our lives that needs healing, health, and progress, we can begin to see them as helpful instead of hurtful.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 228)
“The only time you’re going to really hold onto the past is when you haven’t fully learned from the past. When you have, you can apply those lessons to the present moment and create what you wanted to experience then.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 226)