β
Itβs only after youβve stepped outside your comfort zone that you begin to change, grow, and transform.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett
β
Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.
β
β
Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)
β
If people refuse to look at you in a new light and they can only see you for what you were, only see you for the mistakes you've made, if they don't realize that you are not your mistakes, then they have to go.
β
β
Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?
β
β
John Keats (Letters of John Keats)
β
Believe in your infinite potential. Your only limitations are those you set upon yourself.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
The only way that we can live, is if we grow. The only way that we can grow is if we change. The only way that we can change is if we learn. The only way we can learn is if we are exposed. And the only way that we can become exposed is if we throw ourselves out into the open. Do it. Throw yourself.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.
β
β
AnaΓ―s Nin
β
We are all alone, born alone, die alone, andβin spite of True Romance magazinesβwe shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonelyβat least, not all the timeβbut essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.
β
β
Hunter S. Thompson (The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967)
β
We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it.
β
β
Rick Warren (The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?)
β
Often, itβs not about becoming a new person, but becoming the person you were meant to be, and already are, but donβt know how to be.
β
β
Heath L. Buckmaster (Box of Hair: A Fairy Tale)
β
Dare to love yourself
as if you were a rainbow
with gold at both ends.
β
β
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
β
Patience Is Not the Ability to Wait:
Patience is not the ability to wait. Patience is to be calm no matter what happens, constantly take action to turn it to positive growth opportunities, and have faith to believe that it will all work out in the end while you are waiting.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
My destination is no longer a place, rather a new way of seeing.
β
β
Marcel Proust
β
I'm unpredictable, I never know where I'm going until I get there, I'm so random, I'm always growing, learning, changing, I'm never the same person twice. But one thing you can be sure of about me; is I will always do exactly what I want to do.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
Pain is a pesky part of being human, I've learned it feels like a stab wound to the heart, something I wish we could all do without, in our lives here. Pain is a sudden hurt that can't be escaped. But then I have also learned that because of pain, I can feel the beauty, tenderness, and freedom of healing. Pain feels like a fast stab wound to the heart. But then healing feels like the wind against your face when you are spreading your wings and flying through the air! We may not have wings growing out of our backs, but healing is the closest thing that will give us that wind against our faces.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
I suppose sooner or later in the life of everyone comes a moment of trial. We all of us have our particular devil who rides us and torments us, and we must give battle in the end.
β
β
Daphne du Maurier (Rebecca)
β
I am my own biggest critic. Before anyone else has criticized me, I have already criticized myself. But for the rest of my life, I am going to be with me and I don't want to spend my life with someone who is always critical. So I am going to stop being my own critic. It's high time that I accept all the great things about me.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
When things do not go your way, remember that every challenge β every adversity β contains within it the seeds of opportunity and growth.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett
β
You learn something valuable from all of the significant events and people, but you never touch your true potential until you challenge yourself to go beyond imposed limitations.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett
β
Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away... and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast.... be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don't torment them with your doubts and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn't be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust.... and don't expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.
β
β
Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet)
β
Change may not always bring growth, but there is no growth without change.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
The mind is just like a muscle - the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets and the more it can expand.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
It's a funny thing about life, once you begin to take note of the things you are grateful for, you begin to lose sight of the things that you lack.
β
β
Germany Kent
β
You must have a level of discontent to feel the urge to want to grow.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
Whenever I am in a difficult situation where there seems to be no way out, I think about all the times I have been in such situations and say to myself, "I did it before, so I can do it again.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
The type of person you are is usually reflected in your business. To improve your business, first improve yourself.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
When life is sweet, say thank you and celebrate. And when life is bitter, say thank you and grow.
β
β
Shauna Niequist (Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way)
β
God knows far more about living a life of joy and blessings than we do.
β
β
Randy Loubier (Slow Brewing Tea (Slow Brewing Tea Series))
β
Success comes from the inside out. In order to change what is on the outside, you must first change what is on the inside.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
Push your boundaries beyond the ordinary; be that βextraβ in βextraordinary.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
When you work on something that only has the capacity to make you 5 dollars, it does not matter how much harder you work β the most you will make is 5 dollars.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
You are never alone. You are eternally connected with everyone.
β
β
Amit Ray (Meditation: Insights and Inspirations)
β
Life is like a game of chess.
To win you have to make a move.
Knowing which move to make comes with IN-SIGHT
and knowledge, and by learning the lessons that are
acculated along the way.
We become each and every piece within the game called life!
β
β
Allan Rufus (The Master's Sacred Knowledge)
β
The lotus is the most beautiful flower, whose petals open one by one. But it will only grow in the mud. In order to grow and gain wisdom, first you must have the mud --- the obstacles of life and its suffering. ... The mud speaks of the common ground that humans share, no matter what our stations in life. ... Whether we have it all or we have nothing, we are all faced with the same obstacles: sadness, loss, illness, dying and death. If we are to strive as human beings to gain more wisdom, more kindness and more compassion, we must have the intention to grow as a lotus and open each petal one by one.
β
β
Goldie Hawn
β
As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed as ignorant as you were at twenty-two, you'd always be twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It's growth. It's more than the negative that you're going to die, it's the positive that you understand you're going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.
β
β
Mitch Albom (Tuesdays with Morrie)
β
Yes, I decided, a man can truly change. The events of the past year have taught me much about myself, and a few universal truths. I learned, for instance, that while wounds can be inflicted easily upon those we love, it's often much more difficult to heal them. Yet the process of healing those wounds provided the richest experience of my life, leading me to believe that while I've often overestimated what I could accomplish in a day, I had underestimated what I could do in a year. But most of all, I learned that it's possible for two people to fall in love all over again, even when there's been a lifetime of disappointment between them.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Wedding (The Notebook, #2))
β
An education is not so much about making a living as making a person.
β
β
Tara Westover (Educated)
β
You are one thing only. You are a Divine Being. An all-powerful Creator. You are a Deity in jeans and a t-shirt, and within you dwells the infinite wisdom of the ages and the sacred creative force of All that is, will be and ever was.
β
β
Anthon St. Maarten (Divine Living: The Essential Guide To Your True Destiny)
β
Love is . . . Being happy for the other person when they are happy, Being sad for the person when they are sad, Being together in good times, And being together in bad times.
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF STRENGTH.
Love is . . . Being honest with yourself at all times, Being honest with the other person at all times, Telling, listening, respecting the truth, And never pretending.
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF REALITY.
Love is . . . An understanding so complete that you feel as if you are a part of the other person, Accepting the other person just the way they are, And not trying to change them to be something else.
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF UNITY.
Love is . . . The freedom to pursue your own desires while sharing your experiences with the other person, The growth of one individual alongside of and together with the growth of another individual.
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF SUCCESS.
Love is . . . The excitement of planning things together, The excitement of doing things together.
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF THE FUTURE.
Love is . . . The fury of the storm, The calm in the rainbow.
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF PASSION.
Love is . . . Giving and taking in a daily situation, Being patient with each other's needs and desires.
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF SHARING.
Love is . . . Knowing that the other person will always be with you regardless of what happens, Missing the other person when they are away but remaining near in heart at all times.
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF SECURITY.
LOVE IS . . . THE SOURCE OF LIFE!
β
β
Susan Polis Schutz
β
Fear robs you of your freedom to make the right choice in life that can bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be. On the other side of fear, lies freedom. If you want to grow, you need to be brave and take risks. If you're not uncomfortable, you're not growing.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.
β
β
M. Scott Peck (The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth)
β
Before you find your soul mate, you must first discover your soul.
β
β
Charles F. Glassman (Brain Drain - The Breakthrough That Will Change Your Life)
β
Wildflower; pick up your pretty little head,
It will get easier, your dreams are not dead.
β
β
Nikki Rowe
β
She remembered who she was
and the game changed.
β
β
Lalah Delia
β
Many times in life, we are held back from achieving our goals because we do not commit ourselves wholeheartedly. With an escape route in mind, we hold ourselves back from giving our all.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (All You Need Is a Ball: What Soccer Teaches Us about Success in Life and Business)
β
I have no right to call myself one who knows. I was one who seeks, and I still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in books; I'm beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within me. My story isn't pleasant, it's not sweet and harmonious like the invented stories; it tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves.
β
β
Hermann Hesse (Demian)
β
If a treeβs strength is judged while it is still a seed, it is mistaken as weak.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (All You Need Is a Ball: What Soccer Teaches Us about Success in Life and Business)
β
The problem that we have with a victim mentality is that we forget to see the blessings of the day. Because of this, our spirit is poisoned instead of nourished.
β
β
Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
β
It is always the simple things that change our lives. And these things never happen when you are looking for them to happen. Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things.
β
β
Donald Miller
β
Whenever you are going through lifeβs challenges, remember that for iron to be cast into its desired form, it must first go through intense heat.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (All You Need Is a Ball: What Soccer Teaches Us about Success in Life and Business)
β
Acquiring wisdom is great but it is not the goal, applying it is.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
Sometimes it is good to be in uncomfortable situations because it is in finding our way out of such difficulties that we learn valuable lessons.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
What is considered impossible is someone elseβs opinion. What is possible is my decision.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (All You Need Is a Ball: What Soccer Teaches Us about Success in Life and Business)
β
The person in life that you will always be with the most, is yourself. Because even when you are with others, you are still with yourself, too! When you wake up in the morning, you are with yourself, laying in bed at night you are with yourself, walking down the street in the sunlight you are with yourself.What kind of person do you want to walk down the street with? What kind of person do you want to wake up in the morning with? What kind of person do you want to see at the end of the day before you fall asleep? Because that person is yourself, and it's your responsibility to be that person you want to be with. I know I want to spend my life with a person who knows how to let things go, who's not full of hate, who's able to smile and be carefree. So that's who I have to be.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
A relationship built on lies and trickery will not last; only truthfulness can uphold a relationship
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
So, what if, instead of thinking about solving you whole life, you just think about adding additional good things. One at a time. Just let your pile of good things grow.
β
β
Rainbow Rowell (Attachments)
β
Believe in your infinite potential. Your only limitations are those you set upon yourself.
Believe in yourself, your abilities and your own potential. Never let self-doubt hold you captive. You are worthy of all that you dream of and hope for.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Even though our time in this life is temporary, if we live well enough, our legacy will last forever.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (All You Need Is a Ball: What Soccer Teaches Us about Success in Life and Business)
β
It makes no sense to try to extend a friendship that was only meant to be a season into a lifetime.
β
β
Mandy Hale (The Single WomanβLife, Love, and a Dash of Sass: Embracing Singleness with Confidence)
β
Your brand must communicate the value that you bring to a working relationship.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
You don't need to change the world; you need to change yourself.
β
β
Miguel Ruiz
β
Life is like a sandwich!
Birth as one slice,
and death as the other.
What you put in-between
the slices is up to you.
Is your sandwich tasty or sour?
Allan Rufus.org
β
β
Allan Rufus
β
My scars remind me that I did indeed survive my deepest wounds. That in itself is an accomplishment. And they bring to mind something else, too. They remind me that the damage life has inflicted on me has, in many places, left me stronger and more resilient. What hurt me in the past has actually made me better equipped to face the present.
β
β
Steve Goodier
β
Life: a constellation of vital phenomenaβorganization, irritability, movement, growth, reproduction, adaptation.
β
β
Anthony Marra (A Constellation of Vital Phenomena)
β
Difficulties and adversities viciously force all their might on us and cause us to fall apart, but they are necessary elements of individual growth and reveal our true potential. We have got to endure and overcome them, and move forward. Never lose hope. Storms make people stronger and never last forever.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
The joy of life consists in the exercise of one's energies, continual growth, constant change, the enjoyment of every new experience. To stop means simply to die. The eternal mistake of mankind is to set up an attainable ideal.
β
β
Aleister Crowley (The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography)
β
Quiet the mind, and the soul will speak.
β
β
Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati (The 11 Karmic Spaces: Choosing Freedom from the Patterns that Bind You)
β
You read and write and sing and experience, thinking that one day these things will build the character you admire to live as. You love and lose and bleed best you can, to the extreme, hoping that one day the world will read you like the poem you want to be.
β
β
Charlotte Eriksson
β
This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.
β
β
Martin Luther
β
You will evolve past certain people. Let yourself.
β
β
Mandy Hale (The Single WomanβLife, Love, and a Dash of Sass: Embracing Singleness with Confidence)
β
The demon that you can swallow gives you its power, and the greater lifeβs pain, the greater lifeβs reply.
β
β
Joseph Campbell (The Power of Myth)
β
Wild woman are an unexplainable spark of life. They ooze freedom and seek awareness, they belong to nobody but themselves yet give a piece of who they are to everyone they meet.
If you have met one, hold on to her, she'll allow you into her chaos but she'll also show you her magic.
β
β
Nikki Rowe
β
No amount of me trying to explain myself was doing any good. I didn't even know what was going on inside of me, so how could I have explained it to them?
β
β
Sierra D. Waters (Debbie.)
β
Being wrong opens us up to the possibility of change. Being wrong brings the opportunity for growth.
β
β
Mark Manson (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life)
β
Know who you are, and be it. Know what you want, and go out and get it!
β
β
Carroll Bryant
β
Life is growth. You grow or you die.
β
β
Phil Knight (Shoe Dog)
β
There is a time in life when you expect the world to be always full of new things. And then comes a day when you realise that is not how it will be at all. You see that life will become a thing made of holes. Absences. Losses. Things that were there and are no longer. And you realise, too, that you have to grow around and between the gaps, [...]
β
β
Helen Macdonald (H is for Hawk)
β
To love means to be actively concerned for the life and the growth of another.
β
β
Irvin D. Yalom (Existential Psychotherapy)
β
What is a Wanderess? Bound by no boundaries, contained by no countries, tamed by no time, she is the force of natureβs course.
β
β
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
β
Sometimes we know in our bones what we really need to do, but we're afraid to do it. Taking a chance and stepping beyond the safety of the world we've always known is the only way to grow, though and without risk there is no reward.
β
β
Wil Wheaton (Just a Geek: Unflinchingly Honest Tales of the Search for Life, Love, and Fulfillment Beyond the Starship Enterprise)
β
We can't possibly have a summer love. So many people have tried that the name's become proverbial. Summer is only the unfulfilled promise of spring, a charlatan in place of the warm balmy nights I dream of in April. It's a sad season of life without growth...It has no day.
β
β
F. Scott Fitzgerald (This Side of Paradise)
β
Growing up means learning what life is. When you're little, you have a set of ideals, standards, criteria, plans, outlooks, and you think that you have to sit around and wait for them to happen to you and then life will work. But life isn't like that, for anybody; you can't fall in love with a standard, you have to fall in love with a person. You can't live in a criteria, you have to live your life. You can't wait for your plans to materialize, because they may never materialize the way you think they will. You can't wait to watch your ideals and standards walk up to you, because you can't know what's yours until you have it. I always say, always take the first chance in case you never get a second one, but growing up takes that even one step further, growing up means that you have to hold on to what you have, when you have it, because what you have- that's yours- and all the ideals and criteria you have set in your head, those aren't yours, because those haven't happened to you.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.
The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits - islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides.
β
β
Anne Morrow Lindbergh (Gift from the Sea)
β
There is darkness inside all of us, though mine is more dangerous than most. Still, we all have itβthat part of our soul that is irreparably damaged by the very trials and tribulations of life. We are what we are because of it, or perhaps in spite of it. Some use
it as a shield to hide behind, others as an excuse to do unconscionable things. But, truly, the darkness is simply a piece of the whole, neither good nor evil unless you make it so. It
took a witch, a war, and a voodoo queen to teach me that.
β
β
Jenna Maclaine (Bound By Sin (Cin Craven, #3))
β
When I was little and running on the race track at school, I always stopped and waited for all the other kids so we could run together even though I knew (and everybody else knew) that I could run much faster than all of them! I pretended to read slowly so I could "wait" for everyone else who couldn't read as fast as I could! When my friends were short I pretended that I was short too and if my friend was sad I pretended to be unhappy. I could go on and on about all the ways I have limited myself, my whole life, by "waiting" for people. And the only thing that I've ever received in return is people thinking that they are faster than me, people thinking that they can make me feel bad about myself just because I let them and people thinking that I have to do whatever they say I should do. My mother used to teach me "Cinderella is a perfect example to be" but I have learned that Cinderella can go fuck herself, I'm not waiting for anybody, anymore! I'm going to run as fast as I can, fly as high as I can, I am going to soar and if you want you can come with me! But I'm not waiting for you anymore.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
Today is a new day and it brings with it a new set of opportunities for me to act on.
I am attentive to the opportunities and I seize them as they arise.
I have full confidence in myself and my abilities.
I can do all things that I commit myself to.
No obstacle is too big or too difficult for me to handle because what lies inside me is greater than what lies ahead of me.
I am committed to improving myself and I am getting better daily.
I am not held back by regret or mistakes from the past.
I am moving forward daily.
Absolutely nothing is impossible for me.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
It is easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of all the intoxicating existence we've been endowed with. But what's life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as oursβarguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don't. Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, endure any insult, for a moment's additional existence. Life, in short, just wants to be.
β
β
Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
β
I imagined the lies the valedictorian was telling them right now. About the exciting future that lies ahead. I wish she'd tell them the truth: Half of you have gone as far in life as you're ever going to. Look around. It's all downhill from here. The rest of us will go a bit further, a steady job, a trip to Hawaii, or a move to Phoenix, Arizona, but out of fifteen hundred how many will do anything truly worthwhile, write a play, paint a painting that will hang in a gallery, find a cure for herpes? Two of us, maybe three? And how many will find true love? About the same. And enlightenment? Maybe one. The rest of us will make compromises, find excuses, someone or something to blame, and hold that over our hearts like a pendant on a chain.
β
β
Janet Fitch (White Oleander)
β
At the center of the Universe is a loving heart that continues to beat and that wants the best for every person. Anything that we can do to help foster the intellect and spirit and emotional growth of our fellow human beings, that is our job. Those of us who have this particular vision must continue against all odds. Life is for service.
β
β
Fred Rogers
β
I am a strong and powerful woman.
I am proud to be a woman and I celebrate the qualities that I have as a woman.
I am not defined by other peopleβs opinion of who I should be or what I should do as a woman. I determine that, not anyone else.
I am not passed up for a position, title, or promotion because I am a woman.
I fully deserve all the good things that comes my way.
Irrespective of what anyone might think, being a woman places no boundaries or limits on my abilities.
I can do anything I set my mind to.
I celebrate my womanhood and I am beautiful both inside and out.
β
β
Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
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I have realized; it is during the times I am far outside my element that I experience myself the most. That I see and feel who I really am, the most! I think that's what a comet is like, you see, a comet is born in the outer realms of the universe! But it's only when it ventures too close to our sun or to other stars that it releases the blazing "tail" behind it and shoots brazen through the heavens! And meteors become sucked into our atmosphere before they burst like firecrackers and realize that they're shooting stars! That's why I enjoy taking myself out of my own element, my own comfort zone, and hurling myself out into the unknown. Because it's during those scary moments, those unsure steps taken, that I am able to see that I'm like a comet hitting a new atmosphere: suddenly I illuminate magnificently and fire dusts begin to fall off of me! I discover a smile I didn't know I had, I uncover a feeling that I didn't know existed in me... I see myself. I'm a shooting star. A meteor shower. But I'm not going to die out. I guess I'm more like a comet then. I'm just going to keep on coming back.
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C. JoyBell C.
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COMING FORTH INTO THE LIGHT
I was born the day
I thought:
What is?
What was?
And
What if?
I was transformed the day
My ego shattered,
And all the superficial, material
Things that mattered
To me before,
Suddenly ceased
To matter.
I really came into being
The day I no longer cared about
What the world thought of me,
Only on my thoughts for
Changing the world.
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Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
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There is a simple realization from which all personal improvement and growth emerges. This is the realization that we, individually, are responsible for everything in our lives, no matter the external circumstances. We donβt always control what happens to us. But we always control how we interpret what happens to us, as well as how we respond. Whether we consciously recognize it or not, we are always responsible for our experiences. Itβs impossible not to be. Choosing to not consciously interpret events in our lives is still an interpretation of the events of our lives. Choosing
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Mark Manson (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life)
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When I was a little girl, everything in the world fell into either of these two categories: wrong or right. Black or white. Now that I am an adult, I have put childish things aside and now I know that some things fall into wrong and some things fall into right. Some things are categorized as black and some things are categorized as white. But most things in the world aren't either! Most things in the world aren't black, aren't white, aren't wrong, aren't right, but most of everything is just different. And now I know that there's nothing wrong with different, and that we can let things be different, we don't have to try and make them black or white, we can just let them be grey. And when I was a child, I thought that God was the God who only saw black and white. Now that I am no longer a child, I can see, that God is the God who can see the black and the white and the grey, too, and He dances on the grey! Grey is okay.
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C. JoyBell C.
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You have a right to experiment with your life. You will make mistakes. And they are right too. No, I think there was too rigid a pattern. You came out of an education and are supposed to know your vocation. Your vocation is fixed, and maybe ten years later you find you are not a teacher anymore or you're not a painter anymore. It may happen. It has happened. I mean Gauguin decided at a certain point he wasn't a banker anymore; he was a painter. And so he walked away from banking. I think we have a right to change course. But society is the one that keeps demanding that we fit in and not disturb things. They would like you to fit in right away so that things work now.
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AnaΓ―s Nin
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I'd learned enough from life's experiences to understand that destiny's interventions can sometimes be read as invitation for us to address and even surmount our biggest fears. It doesn't take a great genius to recognize that when you are pushed by circumstance to do the one thing you have always most specifically loathed and feared, this can be, at the very least, an interesting growth opportunity.
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Elizabeth Gilbert (Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage)
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Make New Year's goals. Dig within, and discover what you would like to have happen in your life this year. This helps you do your part. It is an affirmation that you're interested in fully living life in the year to come.
Goals give us direction. They put a powerful force into play on a universal, conscious, and subconscious level. Goals give our life direction.
What would you like to have happen in your life this year? What would you like to do, to accomplish? What good would you like to attract into your life? What particular areas of growth would you like to have happen to you? What blocks, or character defects, would you like to have removed?
What would you like to attain? Little things and big things? Where would you like to go? What would you like to have happen in friendship and love? What would you like to have happen in your family life?
What problems would you like to see solved? What decisions would you like to make? What would you like to happen in your career?
Write it down. Take a piece of paper, a few hours of your time, and write it all down - as an affirmation of you, your life, and your ability to choose. Then let it go.
The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written. We can help write that story by setting goals.
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Melody Beattie (The Language of Letting Go: Daily Meditations on Codependency (Hazelden Meditation Series))
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Some periods of our growth are so confusing that we donβt even recognize that growth is what is happening. We may feel hostile or angry or weepy and hysterical, or we may feel depressed. It would never occur to us, unless we stumbled on a book or person who explained it to us, that we were in fact in the process of change, of actually becoming larger, spiritually, than we were before. Whenever we grow, we tend to feel it, as a young seed must feel the weight and inertia of the earth as it seeks to break out of its shell on its way to becoming a plant. Often the feeling is anything but pleasant. But what is most unpleasant is the not knowing what is happening . . . Those long periods when something inside ourselves seems to be waiting, holding its breath, unsure about what the next step should be, eventually become the periods we wait for, for it is in those periods that we realize that we are being prepared for the next phase of our life and that, in all probability, a new level of the personality is about to be revealed.
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Alice Walker (Living by the Word: Essays)
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The majority of people have successfully alienated themselves from change; they tediously arrange their lives into a familiar pattern, they give themselves to normalcy, they are proud if they are able to follow in auspicious footsteps set before them, they take pride in always coloring inside the lines and they feel secure if they belong to a batch of others who are like them. Now, if familiar patterns bore you, if normalcy passes before you unnoticed, if you want to create your own footsteps in the earth and leave your own handprints on the skies, if you are the one who doesn't mind the lines in the coloring book as much as others do, and perchance you do not cling to a flock for you to identify with, then you must be ready for adversity. If you are something extraordinary, you are going to always shock others and while they go about existing in their mundaneness which they call success, you're going to be flying around crazy in their skies and that scares them. People are afraid of change, afraid of being different, afraid of doing things and thinking things that aren't a part of their checkerboard game of a life. They only know the pieces and the moves in their games, and that's it. You're always going to find them in the place that you think you're going to find them in, and every time they think about you, you're going to give them a heart attack.
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C. JoyBell C.
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He is your Father, and His role is to protect you; He will comfort you and guide you. He will feed you; He will carry you when you are weak. He will seek you out when you go astray; He will help you in times of trouble. He will not let your enemies go unpunished; He will cherish you like a father cherishes his daughter. When you fall, He will pick you up; when you donβt understand, He will always understand.
When you feel like life is weighing you down, He will lift you up. When you feel like giving up, He will encourage you to keep going. When you are sad, He will lighten your spirits. When you need advice, His line is open 24-7. When you feel unsafe, He will be your safety; when you are worried, He will be an ear to your concerns. When you feel burdened, offer your burden to Him and He will take it. Where you have been burnt, He will make you beautiful; where you hurt, He will heal. Whenever you feel lonely, He will always be with you.
Where others have not supported you, He will support you. When you feel discouraged, He will be your encouragement. Where you donβt know, He will tell you when the time is right. When you feel unloved, remember that He has always loved you.
You see limitations; God sees opportunities. You see faults; God sees growth. You see problems; God sees solutions. You see limitations; God sees possibilities. You see life; God sees eternity.
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Corallie Buchanan (Watch Out! Godly Women on the Loose)