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Pain Quotes

    don't run away
from heavy emotions

honor the anger;
give pain the space
it needs to breathe

this is how we let go

~  Yung Pueblo, Inward (Page 17)

      when we disconnect
from our pain
we stop growing

when we are dominated
by our pain
we stop growing

freedom is observing our pain
letting it go
and moving forward

(middle path)

~ Yung Pueblo, Inward (Page 11)

        “Most people, consciously or unconsciously, seek to avoid tedium, pain, and any form of adversity. They try to put themselves in places where they will face less criticism and minimize their chances of failure. You must choose to move in the opposite direction. You want to embrace negative experiences, limitations, and even pain as the perfect means of building up your skill levels and sharpening your sense of purpose.”

        Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 34)

          “I think of the trees and how simply they let go, let fall the riches of a season, how without grief (it seems) they can let go and go deep into their roots for renewal and sleep… Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.”

          May Sarton

            “You have to shift from the gloom and doom and focus instead on what you love. That’s all you can do in the face of these things. Love the people around you. Love the life you have. I can’t think of a more powerful response to life’s sorrows than loving.”

            Katherine, via Between Two Kingdoms (Page 312)

              “I used to think healing meant ridding the body and the heart of anything that hurt. It meant putting your pain behind you, leaving it in the past. But, I’m learning that’s not how it works. Healing is figuring out how to coexist with the pain that will always live inside of you, without pretending it isn’t there or allowing it to hijack your day. It is learning to confront ghosts and to carry what lingers. It is learning to embrace the people I love now instead of protecting against a future in which I am gutted by their loss.”

              Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 312)

                “There is only one thing pain is good for. It teaches you to love. God bless pain.”

                Joey Goldfarb, via Sunbeams (Page 150)

                  “At times, my heart feels so haunted that there’s no room for the living—for the possibility of new love, new loss.”

                  Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 289)

                    “I’m realizing that if I am to cross the distance between near-death and renewal, instead of trying to bury my pain, I must use it as a guide to know myself better. In confronting my past, I have to reckon not only with the pain of losing other people but also with the pain I’ve caused others. I must keep seeking truths and teachers on these long, lonely stretches of highway even when—especially when—the search brings discomfort.”

                    Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 283)

                      “It is hard to rage at something as nebulous as cancer. You have to steer the trajectory of your anger, ideally toward a canvas or a notebook, before it hurdles toward a human target.”

                      Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 281)

                        “Melissa painted self-portraits from bed; I wrote self-portraits from bed. Watercolors and words were the drugs we preferred for our pain. We were learning that sometimes the only way to endure suffering is to transform it into art.”

                        Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 157)