Excerpt: This collection of Russell Brand Quotes from Recovery isn’t just for ‘addicts’—it’s for anyone with addictive tendencies… it’s for us all.
“They say all the energy that has ever been is still here now and will always be here. That means there is a totality and I am part of it. When I have an opinion on suffering, it is only that, an opinion. I do not and cannot understand the full context of events that occur in an infinite and eternal universe. It’s as if within my finite lifetime I glimpse a second of a three-hour movie and try to understand the entire plot. All I must do is engage with this idea: I will become open to the idea that my conceptions, beliefs and experiences are limited. I will become open to new beliefs and new possibilities. I will become open to the idea that I can live a better, more loving and useful life, even if I don’t fully understand how I will do it or what it will be like.”
Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 47)
“There is hunger for ordinary bread, and there is hunger for love, for kindness, for thoughtfulness; and this is the great poverty that makes people suffer so much.”
Mother Teresa, Sunbeams (Page 29)
“…It is impossible to define the meaning of life in a general way. Questions about the meaning of life can never be answered by sweeping statements. ‘Life’ does not mean something vague, but something very real and concrete, just as life’s tasks are also very real and concrete. They form man’s destiny, which is different and unique for each individual… When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task, his single and unique task… No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden. For us, as prisoners, these thoughts were not speculations far removed from reality. They were the only thoughts that could be of help to us. They kept us from despair, even when there was no chance of coming out of it alive.”
Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search For Meaning, via Sunbeams (Page 27)
Excerpt: In the rush of life, we tend to lose touch with the peace that is available in each moment. These quotes from Peace Is Every Step will help…
“Never before has a generation of people known the comforts and conveniences we have today. And yet, we cannot claim to be the most joyful or loving generation in history. A vast number of people live in states of constant anxiety and depression. Some are suffering their failure, but ironically, many are suffering the consequences of their success. Some are suffering their limitations, but many are suffering their freedom. What is missing is human consciousness. Everything else is in place, but the human being is not in place. If human beings stopped obstructing the path to their own happiness, every other solution is at hand. You cannot transform the world without transforming the individual.”
Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 262)
“If you don’t give to yourself, you will suffer damage.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 16)
More specifically, if you don’t give to yourself some of your own time, energy, and effort—you will suffer damage. And we’re not talking about presents. You can live just fine without ever buying yourself superfluous gifts. What you can’t live “just fine” without, however, are the gifts of “you” time, the self-directed energy required for self-discovery and healing, and the personal effort it takes to overcome challenges and become your best you. If you only ever direct your time, energy, and effort towards others—where are you supposed to get the time, energy, and effort required to maintain, upgrade, and improve yourself?
Read More »Mira Kirshenbaum Quote on Self-Care and How Important It Is To Give To Yourself“When there is no way out, there is still always a way through. So don’t turn away from the pain. Face it. Feel it fully. Feel it—don’t think about it! Express it if necessary, but don’t create a script in your mind around it. Give all your attention to the feeling, not to the person, event, or situation that seems to have caused it. Don’t let the mind use the pain to create a victim identity for yourself out of it. Feeling sorry for yourself and telling others your story will keep you stuck in suffering. Since it is impossible to get away from the feeling, the only possibility of change is to move into it; otherwise, nothing will shift. So give your complete attention to what you feel, and refrain from mentally labeling it. As you go into the feeling, be intensely alert. At first, it may seem like a dark and terrifying place, and when the urge to turn away from it comes, observe it but don’t act on it. Keep putting your attention on the pain, keep feeling the grief, the fear, the dread, the loneliness, whatever it is. Stay alert, stay present—present with your whole Being, with every cell of your body. As you do so, you are bringing a light into this darkness. This is the flame of your consciousness.”
Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 222)
“Illness is not the problem. You are the problem—as long as the egoic mind is in control. When you are ill or disabled, do not feel that you have failed in some way, do not feel guilty. Do not blame life for treating you unfairly, but do not blame yourself either. All that is resistance. If you have a major illness, use it for enlightenment. Anything ‘bad’ that happens in your life—use it for enlightenment. Withdraw time from the illness. Do not give it any past or future. Let it force you into intense present-moment awareness—and see what happens. Become an alchemist. Transmute base metal into gold, suffering into consciousness, disaster into enlightenment.”
Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 218)
“Whatever happens, keep moving. Get through it. Choose to live. ‘Cause even on the worst day, there are people who love you. There’s new music waiting for you to hear; something you haven’t seen before that will blow your mind in the best way. Even on the worst day, life is a pretty spectacular thing.”
Clay Jensen, Graduation Speech, 13 Reasons Why (Season 4)
If you’re going through hell… keep going. I mean, why would you want to stay in hell? Not moving doesn’t seem like an option when hell is where you find yourself—so don’t fool yourself if you’re in some kind of hellish reality. Keep moving. Whatever happens. No matter how hard things get. Keep moving forward in some kind of direction that’s going to take you away from where you are and out of the hell that you might find yourself in. What’s the alternative?
Read More »Clay Jensen Quote on Choosing To Live and To Keep Moving, Whatever Happens.“Every addiction arises from an unconscious refusal to face and move through your own pain. Every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain. Whatever the substance you are addicted to—alcohol, food, legal or illegal drugs, or a person—you are using something or somebody to cover up your pain. That is why, after the initial euphoria has passed, there is so much unhappiness, so much pain in intimate relationships. They do not cause pain and unhappiness. They bring out the pain and unhappiness that is already in you. Every addiction does that. Every addiction reaches a point where it does not work for you anymore, and then you feel the pain more intensely than ever.”
Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 152)
“Be confused, it’s where you begin to learn new things. Be broken, it’s where you begin to heal. Be frustrated, it’s where you start to make more authentic decisions. Be sad, because if we are brave enough we can hear our heart’s wisdom through it. Be whatever you are right now. No more hiding. You are worthy, always.”
S. C. Lourie
Life doesn’t always have to be sunshine and rainbows. And it certainly runs deeper than smiles and ease. But you already know this. You’ve felt it: the confusion, the sadness, the frustration, the brokenness, the misery, the pain—it’s all a part of the experience of life. What you need to know is that it’s okay to feel these emotions. It doesn’t make you any less human to feel the breadth and depth of the emotional spectrum—if anything, it makes you more human.
Read More »S. C. Lourie Quote on Being Worthy and Accepting of Where You Are—No More Hiding“It’s not the things that happen to us that cause us to suffer, it’s what we say to ourselves about the things that are happening.”
Pema Chodron, via Essential Zen Habits (Page 106)
Think about your mind like a movie theater. What you say to yourself is what directs and creates the movie that plays in your mind. You can direct and play whatever type of movie you want—action, comedy, romance, horror, adventure, thriller, etc. What you don’t get to do, however, is choose how the events in your movie unfold. So, if you can’t control how the events unfold, how can you control how the movie plays out? It’s all in the director’s (your) creative interpretation and expression of how those events influence the main character to think, feel, speak, and act (also you). You get to take the expression, “Everything happens for a reason” and you get to determine why everything happened and for what reason and see to it that the movie plays out in a direction of your choosing.
Read More »Pema Chodron Quote on Suffering and What We Should Do To Alleviate It“When we’re in any kind of pain, we can use it to open our hearts to the reality that people are always suffering. Pain is something everyone experiences. We can use it to ground us in the fundamental truth of our being. Pain gives us firsthand experience by which to be kind and generous to others. It gives us direct access through our empathy to helping others. We can use pain to activate compassion. We’d like others not to experience pain, and we can extend ourselves to them. We can contemplate the words, ‘May all beings be free of pain.’ Our direct experience of pain only makes our wish more potent. It may even decrease our pain, because it increases our joy. This becomes a wonderful meditation, to sit there and contemplate the relief of pain and suffering of everyone, of the whole world—not only because it changes our attitude toward our own pain, but also because it’s opening our mind of enlightenment. This kind of prayer is always healing.” ~ Sakyong Mipham, Turning the Mind Into An Ally (Page 144)
“From a Buddhist point of view, human beings aren’t intrinsically aggressive; we are inherently peaceful. This is sometimes hard to believe. When we’re angry or upset, our untrained mind becomes belligerent and we routinely strike out at others. We imagine that reacting aggressively to the object of our emotion will resolve our pain. Throughout history we have used this approach over and over again. Striking out when we’re in pain is clearly one way we perpetuate misery. With a trained mind, a stable mind, a mind with a larger motivation than its own comfort, we find another way to work with difficulties of daily life. When we’re in a difficult situation, we maintain our seat. Instead of perpetuating misery by acting out aggression, we learn to use the rough spots to spark the courage to proceed on our journey. Eventually we may actually be able to turn the mind of anger into the energy of love and compassion.” ~ Sakyong Mipham, Turning the Mind Into An Ally (Page 26)
