“Every time you dwell on a hurtful past experience today, put something heavy in your pocket, purse, or backpack. Feel how these items weigh you down, and then, as you remove each one at the end of the day, think, I am letting go of my pain and anger so I can be light and free.“
Lori Deschene, Tiny Buddha’s 365 Tiny Love Challenges (Page 125)
“We all broken. Some broken folk do whatever they can not to break other folk. If we’re gone be broken, I wonder if we can be those kind of broken folk from now on. I think it’s possible to be broken and ask for help without breaking other people.”
Kiese Laymon, Heavy (Page 228)
“If you are in pain––be it in life, work or love––reflect on a time you were hurting so deeply and so gutturally. If you retrace your steps and walk back to this broken place, you will surely find a bed of wildflowers growing there. Raid them. Cut them. Bunch them into a bouquet. Place them on your kitchen counter. On the days when your heart is so heavy, you wish you could pluck it out of your chest and wring it out in the kitchen sink––don’t. Instead, gaze upon the flowers on the counter and remind yourself that healing takes time.”
Cole Schafer
“She would never be ashamed for her own nature. She would see the doctor. She would make an appointment and continue to do and take and try whatever they advised. She wouldn’t run from her pain any more. She wouldn’t poison herself with the pressures of imagined perfection. She would see her own hurt, recognise it, and not imagine there was a life of unquestionable positivity and happiness she was being deprived from. She would accept the darkness of life in a way she never had, not as failure but as part of a totality, as something that threw other things into relief, into growth, into being. The ash in the soil.”
Matt Haig, The Midnight Library (Page 285)
“I have come to recognize that the pain which I have and will continue to experience in coming to love myself will prove my greatest asset.”
Willo, via If You Meet Buddha On The Road, Kill Him! (Page 52)
A Wise Woman’s Advice To A Young Man Whose Life Was “Full Of Pain” [Excerpt]
Excerpt: A young man seeks help from a wise woman because his life is “full of pain.” How she responds is equal parts surprising as it is satisfying.
Read More »A Wise Woman’s Advice To A Young Man Whose Life Was “Full Of Pain” [Excerpt]
“Ask yourself: ‘What am I afraid of losing?’ Start with the externals: Is it your car, your house, your looks? Write down everything you think of. Now think about the internals: your reputation, your status, your sense of belonging? Write those down too. These combined lists are likely to be the greatest sources of pain in your life—your fear of having these things taken away. Now start thinking about changing your mental relationship with those things so that you are less attached to them. Remember—you can still fully love and enjoy your parter, your children, your home, your money, from a space of nonattachment. It’s about understanding and accepting that all things are temporary and that we can’t truly own or control anything, so that we can fully appreciate these things and they can enhance our life rather than be a source of griping and fear.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 57)
“Be thankful for the hurt.
Find meaning in the hurt.
And,
understand every moment that it hurts
represents another moment
you’re alive
and breathing
and living
and loving
and experiencing
all the beauty
this world has to offer.”
Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 48)