Melody Beattie Journey To The Heart Quotes

Taking time to rest, renew, and refresh yourself isn’t wasted time. Recharge. Choose what energizes you.

Rest when you’re tired. Take a break when life stales. Take time to recharge your battery. Energy isn’t something you have—it’s something you are. To give and give and give, to put out without taking in, depletes your battery. It drains you, runs you down.

Stay conscious of who you travel with on this journey. See who you’re attracted to and notice who is attracted to you. See how much better you feel when you surround yourself with the energy of love.

Map Your Own Journey Go on your own journey. Don’t let others hold you back; don’t hold them back. Don’t judge their journey, and don’t let them judge yours. All persons are free to have the experiences their souls lead them to.

Stop picking on yourself, worrying if you’re good enough, wondering what people will see if you let them see your heart. This is what they’ll see: that you are a lovable and delightful soul, a beautiful child of God.

Don’t let the heartbreaks of the past cause you to become cynical, close you off to life’s magic and promise. Open yourself wide to all that the universe has to say. Let yourself begin anew.

If we abdicate responsibility for our choices, we may become angry, sometimes full of rage at others for running our lives, for telling us what to do. We need to take responsibility. We need to trust ourselves.

Now is a time of magic. Let the universe take your hand and show you things you have never seen before. Now, at last, you’re open and vulnerable enough to begin. Celebrate the magic, the mystery of the unknown. Celebrate the miracles that will certainly come.

The right wave will come. When it does, grab your board, jump on, and ride it for all it’s worth.

The only limitations on you are the ones you’ve placed on yourself.

Change your perspective and enjoy the adventure. Let the child in you come out to play.

Talk to the universe. Ask it for help. Then listen to your heart. Because that quiet voice, the one in your heart, is how the universe talks to you.

It isn’t the head that sees clearly, nor does the head always see with love. Often, it sees with eyes of fear. The heart sees clearly. It balances the mind and emotions. It takes what’s real and processes it into truth, then into action.

Imagine All the Possibilities Think of all the possibilities for your life—for love, for work, for growth. Think of all the possibilities for adventure, for fun, and for service. This day, this week, this month, this year abounds with possibilities. Each task you have to do, each problem you encounter and need to solve abounds with possibilities. Your life abounds with possibilities. For a long time, we only saw some of the possibilities life held. We’d look at a situation and see the possibilities for guilt, victimization, sadness, and despair. We’d tell ourselves there was only one choice, or no choice, or that something had to be done in a particular way—the hardest and dreariest way possible. We’d neglect to envision the other options—the choices for joy, for making any event more fun, more pleasant, more enjoyable.

Cherish the hope that lies beneath the snow.

We don’t open our hearts by being a tower of strength. We don’t open our hearts by glossing over things in our head. We open our hearts by feeling what we feel. We open our hearts by being vulnerable, honest, and gentle. We’ve become so strong, so self-sufficient. I can deal with that, we say. No big deal. I’ll keep moving on. Yet many circumstances we’ve been through, and some we’re going through now, cause break lines in our heart. Some of the fractures are small. Some are big. They really hurt. Maybe certain people in our lives weren’t there for us, aren’t there for us now in a way we’d like them to be. Maybe some deceived us unconsciously or betrayed us deliberately. I can deal with that, we say. I understand. They have their own issues. I forgive… Yes, people do have their own issues. And we do forgive. But now it may be time to learn gentleness, compassion, understanding, and forgiveness for ourselves as well. We don’t open our hearts by ignoring the break lines. We take our hand, knowing it’s held by God, and gently run our fingers across each crack. Yes, it’s there. Yes, I feel it. Yes, I’m ready to heal my heart.

You don’t need to limit yourself anymore. You’ve opened your heart. Now open your mind. Look around. See all the possibilities. The universe is teaming with them. It will lead and guide you into this abundance if you ask it for help and then allow that to happen. Open to life’s abundance. Open to all its possibilities. The more open you become, the more creative you’ll be—in work, in play, in love, in life. The more creative you are, the more possibilities you’ll see.

Each moment of each day in our lives is a valuable turning point—an important part of our spiritual growth, an important scene in the movie of our lives. Each feeling is important: boredom, fear, hate, love, despair, excitement. Each action we take has value: an act of love, an act of healing. Each word we speak, each word we hear, each scene we allow ourselves to see, and each scenario we participate in changes us. Trust and value each moment of your life. Let it be important. It is a turning point. It is a spiritual experience.

DECEMBER 31 Honor the Ending “How was your trip?” a friend asked, as my trip drew to a close. I thought for a moment, then the answer came easily. “It had its ups and downs,” I said. “There were times I felt exhilarated and sure I was on track. Other days I felt lost. Confused. I’d fall into bed at night certain that this whole trip was a mistake and a waste. But I’d wake up in the morning, something would happen, and I’d see how I’d been guided all along.” The journey of a year is drawing to a close. Cherish the moments, all of them, even the ups and downs. Cherish the places you’ve visited, the people you’ve seen. Say good-bye to those whose journeys have called them someplace else. Know you can always call them back by thinking loving thoughts. Know all those you love will be there for you when you need them most. Honor the lessons you’ve learned, and the people who helped you learn them. Honor the journey your soul mapped out for you. Trust all the places you’ve been. Make a scrapbook in your heart to help you remember. Look back for a moment. Reflect in peace. Then let this year draw to a close. All parts of the journey are sacred and holy. You’ve learned that by now. Take time to honor this ending—though it’s never really the end. Go to sleep tonight. When you wake up tomorrow a new adventure will begin. Remember the words you were told when this last adventure began, the words whispered quietly to your heart: Let the journey unfold. Let it be magical. The way has been prepared. People will be expecting you.

APRIL 10 Be Aware of the Energy Around You I stopped at a quaint little store in the mountain city of Solvang, California. It was filled with clocks, tick, tick, ticking away. Some sang, some chirped. Some just ticked. “If you wind them and leave them together long enough, they’ll all soon begin ticking together in harmony,” the shopkeeper told me knowingly. I listened. What she said was true. We are energy and vibration. When we’re open, how easy it is to begin ticking to the rhythm of those around us. If we had kept ourselves locked up and put away, it would be different. But since we’ve chosen to be open, to be sensitive, to open our hearts and souls, we’ll connect with, tick to, the vibrations of those around us. Our energy fields will touch and merge. We’ll begin to feel, and sometimes visibly take on, the characteristics, rhythms, and vibrations of those in our field. Pay attention to, choose carefully, those with whom you live, eat, and play. There may be times when you can handle their energy, and times it isn’t right for you. Sometimes, when we’re feeling off balance, it may be that we’re around energy that just isn’t right for us. Stay conscious of who you travel with on this journey. See who you’re attracted to and notice who is attracted to you. See how much better you feel when you surround yourself with the energy of love

DECEMBER 30 Joy Is Your Next Lesson Learning compassion, understanding love, and experiencing joy. That’s our purpose, our reason for being here. That’s our true mission on this planet. Learning compassion may have been difficult, because in order to feel compassion for others without judging, we had to go through difficult times ourselves. Times when despite our best efforts we couldn’t help ourselves, times when despite our searching we couldn’t find the answers. As many say, it is usually our own pain and problems that makes us compassionate. Understanding love may have taken many years, many heartbreaks, and much searching and grasping until we discovered that the key to love was our own heart. Until we discovered that love wasn’t exactly what we thought or hoped it would be. Now it’s different. And better. Don’t give up. Don’t stop now. Don’t let the residue, the pain from the early parts of your journey, stop you from going forward. We first had to learn about compassion and love in order to learn joy. The hard work is done. Now you have reached your reward. Now it is time to learn joy. DECEMBER 31 Honor the Ending “How was your trip?” a friend asked, as my trip drew to a close. I thought for a moment, then the answer came easily. “It had its ups and downs,” I said. “There were times I felt exhilarated and sure I was on track. Other days I felt lost. Confused. I’d fall into bed at night certain that this whole trip was a mistake and a waste. But I’d wake up in the morning, something would happen, and I’d see how I’d been guided all along.” The journey of a year is drawing to a close. Cherish the moments, all of them, even the ups and downs. Cherish the places you’ve visited, the people you’ve seen. Say good-bye to those whose journeys have called them someplace else. Know you can always call them back by thinking loving thoughts. Know all those you love will be there for you when you need them most. Honor the lessons you’ve learned, and the people who helped you learn them. Honor the journey your soul mapped out for you. Trust all the places you’ve been. Make a scrapbook in your heart to help you remember. Look back for a moment. Reflect in peace. Then let this year draw to a close. All parts of the journey are sacred and holy. You’ve learned that by now. Take time to honor this ending—though it’s never really the end. Go to sleep tonight. When you wake up tomorrow a new adventure will begin. Remember the words you were told when this last adventure began, the words whispered quietly to your heart: Let the journey unfold. Let it be magical. The way has been prepared. People will be expecting you. Yes, you are being led.

In Sedona, as I drove from the sweat lodge back to the room I was renting, I felt exhilarated. My excitement wasn’t only about the experience I had just been through. For so long I had limited my choices, limited my freedom. I was thrilled that I was finally giving myself permission to live more fully. Have you been limiting your choices, telling yourself there are only a few options available? Have you been limiting your choices, saying you’ve seen and done everything you can in this world? Have you been limiting yourself and your life, then wondering why life is so limiting? Set yourself free. Give yourself permission to experience and taste more of life. You are here to live your life—fully, richly, passionately. The journey has been about more than cleansing, healing, and spiritual growth. You have a body, emotions, passion, and thought. You are here to bring all parts to life, to connect the parts, and to fully live your life. Partake of the abundance of the universe. You’re sitting at a banquet table. Let yourself feast. Move on from monitoring, watching, limiting. Experience all of life that you can. June

There is no situation in life that can’t be improved by laugher. Sometimes humor can help us get through situations we couldn’t possibly endure without it. Sometimes laughter isn’t superfluous; it’s essential. Sometimes laughter is the next lesson we need to be learning.

Learn to listen to your inner voice. Listen to your heart. It’s your connection to God, to people, to the universe, and to yourself.

You will laugh a lot. And yes, you will cry a lot, too, because an open heart feels all it needs to feel. But you will not think twice about your emotions. You will feel them with the purity of a child and the wisdom of a sage. You will see, touch, taste, and feel life’s magic in a way you never imagined. You will love, and you will be loved. And you will learn that it is all the same.

Stay in the present moment. That’s where you find life’s magic.

Let the universe bring you all the healing you need. Let the universe bring you alive. Awaken to the world around you, and you’ll awaken to yourself.

Experience the Thrill of the Climb Don’t stop now. You’re almost there. You’ve worked so hard to climb this mountain. In the beginning, you were excited. Exhilarated at the prospect of the mountain you were about to climb. Now, you are almost to the top. You’ve struggled, gotten weary, and kept going. Now, your goal is in sight. Keep going. Guidance is still there to help you. The life force, the one that keeps you going, keeps you moving forward, is still there too, burning brightly within you, charging all that you do with its energy. It is more difficult for you to feel it, but that is only because you’re tired. See the mountain climber as he climbs the mountain. There are dangers and precipices and challenges along the way. But the higher he climbs, the steeper it gets. The more tired he is, the more energy he has to put into the climb. Don’t tell yourself that the way you feel is an indication you should stop. The way you feel now is the way anyone would feel who was so deeply committed to life. It’s the way anyone would feel who had committed to climbing that mountain. Don’t stop now. Relax as much as you can. Know that the rhythm of life is still there, moving you forward. Don’t look back. Focus intently on each step. Soon you will reach the top. Soon you will reach your goal. Soon you will experience the victory. Keep your eyes focused on the path; look straight ahead. Embrace the thrill of the climb. DECEMBER

Don’t let the lessons, the experiences of the past, dampen your enthusiasm for beginnings. Just because it’s been hard doesn’t mean it will always be that difficult. Don’t let the heartbreaks of the past cause you to become cynical, close you off to life’s magic and promise. Open yourself wide to all that the universe has to say.

We need to embrace the surprise element of life—embrace the mystery of life as it unfolds, as the lessons appear, as we grow and change.

Set yourself free. Let yourself go on a journey of love. Take notes. Be present. Experience. learn. Love and laugh, and cry when you need to. Rest when you’re tired. Take a flashlight to help you see in the dark. But most of all, take yourself and go. Go on your journey of joy.

You do not teach and lead your soul. Your soul leads and teaches you. It

Yes, sometimes to stay in the present we need to visit the past, to clear out an old feeling, to heal an old, limiting belief. But that visit can be brief. And sometimes we need to think about the future—to make commitments, to plan, to envision where we want to go. But to linger there can cause unrest.

Our world abounds with quiet, free sources of revitalization.

OCTOBER 11 Honor Your Connection to Your Body Our bodies are matter, the physical form we have assumed. They are infused with our energy, our soul. My awareness of the body-mind-soul connection came slowly, over many years. I had spent many years denying I had a body, denying its importance. I felt disconnected from it, as though it were something apart from me, a burden I had to carry around and live with. Then I began to see the connection between my emotions and the aches and pains—and sometimes illnesses—my body was experiencing. If I didn’t feel the feeling, listen to myself, my body would pound out the pain until it was heard that way. Energy needs to be discharged somewhere. If it isn’t discharged, the body will absorb and feel it as pain: I began to see the connection between changes in my life and changes in my body, the way the earth marks changing seasons and cycles. I began to get massages, exercise, and slowly trust the wisdom of my body. I became connected to my body. Yes, I was a soul. Yes, I had a heart. Emotions. Thought. But to live on the physical plane of earth, we need a body. Our body is part of us. It is us. It holds the scars of our life to date, the stories of our life so far; it contains the wisdom and energy of what we need today and tomorrow. Honor your connection to your body. Honor and value your body’s wisdom. It can tell you may things about your life, your growth, your past, and your path. Learn to listen to your body, and it will speak openly and lovingly to you.

Listen to that quiet voice, that fleeting thought that says, Why don’t you…?,

Life has been provoking, promoting, urging you to grow, stretch, learn, heal. Life has been trying to break you out of your prison.

Honor your passion by honoring your emotions. Feeling your emotions releases passion into life. Feel them. Feel them all. Then you will know what you like, what instills passion in you.