Self Awareness Quotes

“If you want to study yourself—look into the hearts of other people. If you want to study other people—look into your own heart.”
Friedrich Von Schiller, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 41)

How to control everything:

“When we lay claim to the evil in ourselves, we no longer need fear its occurring outside of our control. For example, a patient comes into therapy complaining that he does not get along well with other people; somehow he always says the wrong thing and hurts their feelings. He is really a nice guy, just has this uncontrollable, neurotic problem. What he does not want to know is that his ‘unconscious hostility’ is not his problem, it’s his solution. He is really not a nice guy who wants to be good; he’s a bastard who wants to hurt other people while still thinking of himself as a nice guy. If the therapist can guide him into the pit of his own ugly soul, then there may be hope for him… Nothing about ourselves can be changed until it is first accepted.”
Sheldon Kopp, If You Meet The Buddha On the Road, Kill Him, via Sunbeams (Page 137)

Jokes.

“You can’t dominate people without separating them from each other and from themselves. The more people get plugged back into their bodies, into each other, the more impossible it will be for us to be dominated and occupied. I think that’s really the work right now, and I don’t mean that in a narcissistic way. I mean, how in our daily lives are we connecting in every single respect with ourselves and everything around us? Because that’s where transcendence comes from. That’s where real energetic transformation comes from.”
Eve Ensler, via Becoming Wise (Page 97)

Remember these.

“It sounds strange, but feelings have feelings. Being part of you, they know when they are unwanted. Fear cooperates by hiding; anger cooperates by pretending it doesn’t exist. That’s more than half the problem. How can you heal an unwanted feeling when it’s trying not to cooperate? You can’t. Until you make peace with negative feelings, they will persist. The way to deal with negativity is to acknowledge it. Nothing more is needed.”
Deepak Chopra, The Shadow Effect (Page 42)

“I respect the man who knows distinctly what he wishes. The greater part of all the mischief in the world arises from the fact that men do not sufficiently understand their own aims. They have undertaken to build a tower, and spend no more labor on the foundation than would be necessary to erect a hut.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, via Sunbeams (Page 103)

Before you make any big decisions, check yourself…

“I believe that the shadow is one of the greatest gifts available to us. Carl Jung called it a ‘sparring partner’; it is the opponent within us that exposes our flaws and sharpens our skills. It is the teacher, the trainer, and the guide that supports us in uncovering our true magnificence. The shadow is not a problem to be solved or an enemy to be conquered but a fertile field to be cultivated. When we dig our hands into its rich soil, we will discover the potent seeds of the people we most desire to be.”
Debbie Ford, The Shadow Effect (Page 5)

“It is one of the great troubles of life that we cannot have any unmixed emotions. There is always something in our enemy that we like, and something in our sweetheart that we dislike.”
William Butler Yeats, via Sunbeams (Page 102)

“Why do we have access to so much wisdom yet fail to have the strength and courage to act upon our good intentions by making powerful choices? Why do we continue to act out in ways that go against our value system and all that we stand for? […] It is because of our unexamined life, our darker self, our shadow self where our unclaimed power lies hidden. It is here, in this least likely place, that we will find the key to unlock our strength, our happiness, and our ability to live out our dreams.”
Debbie Ford, The Shadow Effect (Page 1)

“The difficulty is to learn to perceive with your whole body, not with just your eyes and reason. The world becomes a stream of tremendously rapid, unique events. So you must trim your body to make it a good receptor. The body is an awareness; and it must be treated impeccably.”
Carlos Castaneda, via Sunbeams (Page 95)

Stephen King Quote on the Relationship Between Reading and Writing

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
Stephen King

Beyond the Quote (343/365)

What happens when you read? Your eyes scan, decode, and lift symbols off pages and implants the information contained into your brain. It’s essentially the same process that a computer follows when it downloads new software/ updates. And as it’s true with computers, the information that’s downloaded/ implanted into our minds may either contain updates/improvements or infections/malware. This is why, just as you have to be very careful with what you download onto your computer, you have to be just as careful (if not more) about what you download into your brain.

An Insightful Short Story About Spilling Coffee — What's In YOUR Cup?

Excerpt: This short story about spilling coffee shares a powerful analogy that can help you better understand your temperament (and reactions) in life.

“All of our emotions have value, and as unpleasant as some are, they’re reminders that we’re alive and have a whole lot going on inside. Why not approach life with curiosity and wonder, instead of dread and fear. We don’t avoid movies because we know they’ll end. We enjoy the journey they take us on.”
Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 46)

Beyond the Quote (237/365)

Emotions are a signal of the state of your being. Many people categorize emotions as being either “positive” or “negative.” I think this is a dangerous practice that can lead you to suppress, ignore, invalidate, or even deny very valid signals from your body. Better to look at some emotions as being more desirable than others. States of happiness, excitement, enthusiasm, and joy, of course, are typically more desirable than sadness, anxiousness, or anger. But, don’t get it twisted. Sadness, anxiety, or anger are not “negative” emotions, per se.

“How we deal with our inner world drives everything. Every aspect of how we love, how we live, how we parent and how we lead. The conventional view of emotions as good or bad, positive or negative, is rigid. And rigidity in the face of complexity is toxic. We need greater levels of emotional agility for true resilience and thriving.”
Susan David, Ph.D, Mindful

Beyond the Quote (127/365)

As a result of people being in quarantine because of COVID-19, there have been two conversations that have been happening at large. One group has been pushing for productivity. The idea is to use all of this extra time to do more of that you felt you never had time to do before. Start that blog; write that book; lose that weight; create that website; become that person. The other group has been pushing for conscientious recovery. The idea is that this global pandemic has radically affected all of our lives and has redefined “normal.” We need to be taking this time to mindfully cope with all of new unknowns and pay close attention to our mental health during this global crisis. Both of these schools of thought should be carefully considered by everybody.

“With any loss comes gain. If things don’t work out my way, the consolation prize is a lesson I can keep close to me for the rest of my life. Those lessons encourage more self-awareness, which in turn strengthens my most important relationship—the one with myself.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 273)

Eckhart Tolle Quote on Taking Responsibility and Making the Present Moment Your Ally

“Maybe you are being taken advantage of, maybe the activity you are engaged in is tedious, maybe someone close to you is dishonest, irritating, or unconscious, but all this is irrelevant. Whether your thoughts and emotions about this situation are justified or not makes no difference. The fact is that you are resisting what is. You are making the present moment into an enemy. You are creating unhappiness, conflict between the inner and the outer. Your unhappiness is polluting not only your own inner being and those around you but also the collective human psyche of which you are an inseparable part. The pollution of the planet is only an outward reflection of an inner psychic pollution: millions of unconscious individuals not taking responsibility for their inner space.”
Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 77)

Beyond the Quote (82/365)

It’s easy to point fingers, to yell at a screen, to identify all of the faults in other people’s decisions and actions—it’s hard to take responsibility and make positive decisions yourself. What’s makes this harder is that you might even be right. The mess of the world might very well be the fault of another—or the fault of many others. But as Tolle points out, whether your thoughts and emotions about a given situation are justified or not makes no difference.