“I challenge you all to look at your ‘problems,’ and stare them in the eye and say, ‘Listen, this is how it’s going down… I’m not going to try and overcome you anymore or try and face you anymore—you are going to become my friend. And I am going to learn from you as much as I possibly can.” ~ Claire Wineland (14), Positively Positive
“People who are sick, nurses, and doctors—everybody in the medical care and health care communities—get so stuck in this notion that a hospital room is this cold, sterile, white place where we go to be sick and that’s all that it can be. And we get so stuck in that that we cannot see the possibility; we can’t see what we can make out of it; we don’t see what we can do with it. And I started to realize that our lives, in a way, are like this. Our lives are like empty hospital rooms. We get stuck in this idea that it’s supposed to be good or bad and we don’t let ourselves realize—we don’t let ourselves see—that we can make that hospital room beautiful. We can make our lives into a piece of art. We all have that ability, we all have that capability, as human beings, to turn these empty hospital rooms—to turn these lives—into something really beautiful.” ~ Claire Wineland, Klick MUSE New York
“The nature of the outer, conscious mind is to receive input, process it through our story filter, and then make meaning out of it. A problem arises when too much of what flows through our minds is negative: The conscious mind dwells on negative things and obsesses about them. Sound familiar? It’s well known that whatever we focus on tends to become our reality, even if the focus is on not wanting something. Negative input can plant seeds of destruction in our subconscious mind, which then partners with our conscious mind in a conspiracy for failure.” ~ Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal
“Discipline is the spark that ignites the fire of a habit. Those fires must be lit daily, and discipline provides the original source energy. The word discipline literally means to be a disciple to a higher purpose. Developing the discipline to train hard every day means you become a disciple—not to the training itself, not just to looking good or stroking your ego, but to the higher purpose of developing yourself fully as a human being and as a leader.” ~ Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal
“Too many of us succumb to a weak internal story informed by flawed but popular beliefs. We are reactionary to objective events, easily buffeted by the winds of change. Pop culture, people we interact with daily, and external events shape and reinforce this subjective reality. In these instances, we end up being extras in someone else’s story, reacting our way through life, lacking integrity and out of balance.” ~ Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal
“Though we’d like to believe our thoughts are under our control, guess again. Thoughts arise constantly, and many have no business being in our minds, nor do they have a positive purpose in our lives. Road rage, what goes through your mind when someone cuts you off in traffic, is a good example of an emotion-driven thought.” ~ Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal
“To win anything, we must first win control over our minds.” ~ Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal
“You do not have to wait until the flame has gone out to be reborn. I am reborn many times every day. Every moment is a moment of rebirth. My practice is to be reborn in such a way that my new forms of manifestation will bring light, freedom and happiness into the world. My practice is not to allow wrong actions to be reborn. If I have a cruel thought or if my words carry hatred in them, then those thoughts and words will be reborn. It will be difficult to catch them and pull them back. They are like a runaway horse. We should try not to allow our actions of body, speech and mind to take us in the direction of wrong action, wrong speech and wrong thinking.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear
