Mental Health Inspirational Quotes

It's up to you today to start making healthy choices. Not choices that are just healthy for your body, but healthy for your mind.

It’s never overreacting to ask for what you want and need.

I lied and said I was busy. I was busy; but not in a way most people understand. I was busy taking deeper breaths. I was busy silencing irrational thoughts. I was busy calming a racing heart. I was busy telling myself I am okay. Sometimes, this is my busy - and I will not apologize for it.

It’s a humbling realization that sometimes what we think we want may not align with what God knows we truly need.

Don't take my devils away, because my angels may flee too.

Don't live the same day over and over again and call that a life. Life is about evolving mentally, spiritually, and emotionally.

Self-pity is spiritual suicide. It is an indefensible self-mutilation of the soul.

If we keep going in a straight line we'll get out of here. Walking one foot in front of the other, in the same direction, will always get you further than running around in circles. It's about the determination to keep walking forward.

Usually, we believe that our pain is a misfortune that needs to be fixed, but in fact, all pain (physical, mental, and emotional) is a necessary step towards becoming conscious.

I thought to myself, time was never on my side—after all of this, it was, because it led me to the right place at the right time.

Yesteryear, you will never be forgotten. I am healing, and it is a beautiful thing.

You're going to make it; You're going to be at peace; You're going to create, and love, and laugh, and live; You're going to do great things.

It can be a good thing, too, to learn to sit in your own weirdness.

Hating our bodies is something that we learn, and it sure as hell is something that we can unlearn.

Your Monday morning thoughts set the tone for your whole week. See yourself getting stronger, and living a fulfilling, happier & healthier life.

A question that always makes me hazy is it me or are the others crazy' Albert Einstein

Recovery is full of ups and downs. There is no such thing as a linear life. But you can always turn your setbacks into setups to come back stronger.

You’ve got to reach bedrock to become depressed enough before you are forced to accept the reality and enormity of the problem.

When things go dark, we can't see what we have. That doesn't mean that we don't have those things. Those things remain, right in front of us. All we need is to light a candle, or ignite some hope, and we can see that what we thought was lost was merely hidden.

Not every conflict is necessarily neurotic; some amount of conflict is normal and healthy. In a similar sense suffering is not always a pathological phenomenon; rather than being a symptom of neurosis, suffering may well be a human achievement, especially if the suffering grows out of existential frustration... Existential frustration is neither pathological or pathogenic.

Everyone kept asking me if I wanted to die, Well, no. No I didn't want to die. But no one ever asked me if I wanted to live.

My story is not a sad story; it's a real one. It's a story about a girl who fought through a storm she thought would never end.

A huge part of recovery and life -is slowing down and accepting the unKNOWN. This is how you get to KNOW –yourself.

Your words control your life, your progress, your results, even your mental and physical health. You cannot talk like a failure and expect to be successful.

It takes bravery to cry out, to release what is in your heart.

You own all of yourself, Charlie. Every last bit.

I said earlier that making decisions is a key anxiety trigger, If we drill down a bit we can see that this happens because we work to the belief there's a perfect decision out there to be made. But such a thing doesn't exist. And clutching at something that doesn't exist is enough to send anyone into a drowning panic.

If people would only listen to themselves, they would realize how naïve and ignorant they sound. Just because the term was created doesn’t mean it should be used.

how silly of me to forget that I am the love of my life

Society is collapsing, and people are starting to recognize that the reason they feel like they’re mentally ill is that they’re living in a system that’s not designed to suit the human spirit.

There are scars on my heart, just as thick, as disfiguring as those on my face. I know they're there. I hope some undamaged tissue remains, a patch through which love can come in and flow out. I hope.

You were never created to live depressed, defeated, guilty, condemned, ashamed or unworthy. We were created to be victorious.

You want to be happy? You want to be well? Then put your boots on.

Peace can only survive when fed peace.

I Am More Than My Race: So why put me in a category? Is it because you do not want me to tell my story? Despite my exotic face, I am human, and I am a part of the human race.

Self-hatred is only ever a seed planted from outside in.

I feel sorry for people who maintain relationships and friendships detrimental to their mental health. Everyone is guilty of it at one time or another- but the idea is to strive to be your best; right? So, meanwhile why are so many people faking it? Security? Fear of loneliness? Fears of independence? Fears of being self ? Or just the idea that you can make someone change? Regardless of the justifications you give & treat yourself to... , I hope all of you - "new year -new me types" strive for self care , honest and pure friendships and relationships based of love- and not based off the fake realities of your mind. These delusions of what you hope for instead of what's there, where you and your puppet show master focus more on everyone else and less on self. To change the world you must start within. But you must first BE HONEST with yourself. My new year started a few months ago-- and it was the best choice I ever made- and I hope your recreations are progressive and successful in THE NEW YEAR

...the problem is that giving too many fucks is bad for your mental health.

We're saying the story doesn't end here, that the air in your lungs is there for a reason.

Be the complex elegance of a melting candle. Be a map with 10,000 roads. Be the orange at sunset that outclasses the pink of sunrise. Be the self that dares to be true.

No one had ever wanted me. And for some reason I didn't even want me anymore. I wished I could have stepped out of my body and given it back, like you do with a shirt that doesn't fit properly.

It doesn't really matter how you look in [family holiday] pictures, it just matters that you're there.

You shouldn't talk to people about the future if you don't believe in one for yourself.

Why is race always a factor?

Tell me, just how many lives need to be lost until someone realises the impact that their words can have on another individual?

It's feeling full of everything and empty of it all at the same time. This is mental illness.

If you want to see the stars, you must be willing to travel through the dark.

You sound like my nephew. Always thinking you need to do things on your own without anyone's support. There is nothing wrong with letting people who love you help you.

I am focusing on my breathing. These thoughts exist, and I am letting them pass me by.

Why is race always a factor? Nowadays, people are so quick to categorize one another and put each other in a stereotypical bubble that they do not take time to know the authentic person. It is sad, and they are quick to judge by looking at someone’s skin.

One of the dear, dear things about getting older, is that it does eventually dawn on you that there is no guidebook. One day it suddenly emerges: No one bloody gets it! None of us knows what we're doing. Thing is, we all put a lot of effort into looking like we did get the guide, that of course we know how to do this caper called life. We put on a smile rather than tell friends we are desperately lonely. And we make loud, verbose claims at dinner parties to make everyone certain of our certainty. We're funny like that.

I never knew anybody, anywhere I have been, who found life simple. I think a life or a time looks simple when you leave out the details, the way a planet looks smooth, from orbit.

Be present and aware of the privilege of living.

Hate pulls so much negative energy from the soul. I guess the saying is true; misery loves company.

We are not all in the same boat. We are in the same storm. Some of us are on superyachts. Some of us have just the one oar.

We all have problems, but let's not kid ourselves: it's how we deal with them that makes the difference.

There is no right or wrong way to recover. There is only the decision to do so.

People were so quick to point at all those inspiring stories of catharsis, completely ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the broken never beat their demons, that the drunkard’s son stayed with the bottle, the war widow never conquered her loneliness, and the defiled child never wiped that imagined black stain from their soul. Because in a world that worshipped the victorious, who the hell wanted to hear about the defeated?

I believe with all my heart that just understanding the metapurpose of the anxious struggle helps to make it beautiful. Purposeful, creative, bold, rich, deep things are always beautiful.

You hear a lot about the benefits of insanity or whatever - like, Dr. Karen Singh had once told me this Edgar Allan Poe quote: "The question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence." I guess she was trying to make me feel better, but I find mental disorders to be vastly overrated. Madness, in my admittedly limited experience, is accompanied by no superpowers; being mentally unwell doesn't make you loftily intelligent any more than having the flu does.

The way of the world is full of judgmental people. People size me up and down with their eyes. I am told that my hair is too curly to be white and too straight to be black. People ask me questions as if I owe them an answer—what does my race have anything to do with you—and why do you care. The fact is, race shouldn’t exist—it is not real. It is made up, but race does matter.” Race shouldn’t matter, but it does. In society's eyes, race is stubbornly real.

During the day, my mood is cloudy, uncertain, blurred, depressing, and there is so much fog I can’t see the sun, nor do I have a head's up that the rain is coming. I wish just one day my mood could at least be fair skies.

Love me, hate me, hurt me or kill me. I keep fighting.

The only time it's hopeless is when you're dead! Long as you're alive, you can get better - you can make it better.

Recovery doesn't mean putting your life on hold. Recovery means holding on so you can live your best life.

When we have graciously endured every adversity, we become like a shining diamond.

Counting calories is not the answer, because eating is not the problem.

Happiness is a state of mental,physical and spiritual well-being. Think pleasantly,engaged sport and read daily to enhance your well-being.

There's no shame in getting help. There's no shame in being a work in progress.

People who have stepped fully into their power know they don't have to push or force things; they know that real power comes from surrender.

The bird carried me inside his song. It was so beautiful that I couldn’t help myself. I reached out and tried to embrace it, the bird, and when I did, I put my arms around you.

I started crying because this would all disappear including me and no one seemed to realise it. Did no one feel what I was feeling.

Ironic, isn't it? The moment you decide to kill yourself, you have never felt more alive.

I believe there are a lot of devils who walk on this earth. They just look like human beings.

~Pinwheels and Dandelions~

Broken bones take a long time to heal. Why shouldn't brains?

Sometimes I am high; sometimes I am low, but I love myself even when I hate myself.

Healing requires you to be vulnerable and strong at the same time.

Needing help doesn't have a look, but asking for it always looks beautiful.

If only you could command your brain to actually do that. It would be cool to have some kind of remote control to switch off your thoughts. Thoughts off, Siri. Or, more positive thoughts, Siri. Forget about this thought, Siri. if only.

Free your mind of that which you have no control. It is not only good to do so for your mental, but your overall health. Some people must learn from experience. You can convey knowledge to them and offer to show them the way. But, that doesn't mean your wisdom will be accepted or appreciated.

Conscious Parenting on Children's Happiness and matrix of influences: 'We live surrounded by an increasingly complex matrix of impulses allowing strangers of all sorts (TV, media, Internet) interfere in our children’s mental, emotional and spiritual development. Understanding this intricate network and how does the human brain interacts with it is increasingly becoming our door to happiness and health.

There’s nothing worse than bottling something up inside and letting it eat at you. It’s like being shot, and leaving the bullet inside our bodies. The wound would never heal. Instead, we need to let it out.

Dear Yesteryear, I do not feel alone anymore. I have found love. Maybe I should say love has found me. Well, to be fair, we found each other. Yesterday, I didn’t have a home. Yesterday, I didn’t have a pillow where I could lay my head. Yesterday, it was hard to find peace. Yesterday, I wondered if morning would ever come. Yesterday, I was unable to love, dream, and trust. Yesterday, I didn’t understand life. Yesterday, I was walking in my shadow. I didn’t know if I had meaning or a purpose. I am healing from my yesteryears. However, I am still rough around the edges and still have a lot to learn. I used to be so empty inside, but now I have lovely people to fill my no-longer-empty arms. Yesterday, my path was different. I was confused, not knowing if I should go right or left— move forward or turn around. I do not know what life has in store, but I know for a fact that I do not have to worry about the deadly and narrow path anymore. Yesterday, my sun was blocked by my shadows and everything thing else that came along that didn’t serve me. However, today, the sun is shining brighter than it ever has in my entire life. Yesterday, I will never forget you. You’ve taught me many lessons. I was taught lessons that a young person should never experience or even know about. Some lessons in life leave permitted marks. There have been many lessons I’ve learned that have left so many scars on my heart, but life goes on. I use to be overwhelmed by hate, disbelief, and not knowing if I was going to make it. Now, I am surrounded by warm hugs, smiles, love, and peace. Yesteryear, you will never be forgotten. I am healing, and it is a beautiful thing.

Fabulous and fucked up. Absolutely right. That’s what we all are. It’s called being human. Let’s celebrate that, not fear it. And let’s never, ever feel ashamed when the challenges of life become too overwhelming and the fucked-up part gets into the driving seat. That is called being normal.

these negative emotions are not simply something to endure and erase. They are purposeful. Beneficial. They tell us what we need. Anger inspires action. Sadness is necessary to process grief. Fear helps keep us safe. Completely eradicating these emotions is not just impossible—it’s unhealthy. These negative emotions only become toxic when they block out all the other emotions. When we feel so much sadness that we can’t let any joy in. When we feel so much anger that we cannot soften around others. True mental health looks like a balance of these good and bad feelings. As Lori Gottlieb says in her book Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, “Many people come to therapy seeking closure. Help me not to feel. What they eventually discover is that you can’t mute one emotion without muting the others. You want to mute the pain? You’ll also mute the joy.

Helpers carry a heavy load, they listen, love, cry, and often go into the depths of others’ pain. They sometimes enter darkness that no person should have to step into: the darkness of the abuse of a child, of mental health, of our cultural propensity to sit back and do nothing about it. They bear this each day.

There is a type of courage that cannot always be seen. It's a bravery that you have to choose for yourself. You use it in the little, seemingly insignificant choices and decisions you make each day. Keep making these tiny, good choices over and over until you realize your whole life is different and the hero who saved you is yourself.

You’re not fine. You’re not. And that’s OK. The first thing I want you to do is to finally tell yourself that it’s OK not to be OK. To accept that you’re feeling badly and that something isn’t right. Too many of us are in denial because we think that to admit there’s something wrong means we’re weak or broken or odd. I don’t know if it’s society, or just who we associate with, but we need to change our way of thinking. We are not weak. We are not broken. We are not odd.

Yesterday it was sun outside. The sky was blue and people were lying under blooming cherry trees in the park. It was Friday, so records were released, that people have been working on for years. Friends around me find success and level up, do fancy photo shoots and get featured on big, white, movie screens. There were parties and lovers, hand in hand, laughing perfectly loud, but I walked numbly through the park, round and round, 40 times for 4 hours just wanting to make it through the day. There's a weight that inhabits my chest some times. Like a lock in my throat, making it hard to breathe. A little less air got through and the sky was so blue I couldn’t look at it because it made me sad, swelling tears in my eyes and they dripped quietly on the floor as I got on with my day. I tried to keep my focus, ticked off the to-do list, did my chores. Packed orders, wrote emails, paid bills and rewrote stories, but the panic kept growing, exploding in my chest. Tears falling on the desk tick tick tick me not making a sound and some days I just don't know what to do. Where to go or who to see and I try to be gentle, soft and kind, but anxiety eats you up and I just want to be fine. This is not beautiful. This is not useful. You can not do anything with it and it tries to control you, throw you off your balance and lovely ways but you can not let it. I cleaned up. Took myself for a walk. Tried to keep my eyes on the sky. Stayed away from the alcohol, stayed away from the destructive tools we learn to use. the smoking and the starving, the running, the madness, thinking it will help but it only feeds the fire and I don't want to hurt myself anymore. I made it through and today I woke up, lighter and proud because I'm still here. There are flowers growing outside my window. The coffee is warm, the air is pure. In a few hours I'll be on a train on my way to sing for people who invited me to come, to sing, for them. My own songs, that I created. Me—little me. From nowhere at all. And I have people around that I like and can laugh with, and it's spring again. It will always be spring again. And there will always be a new day.

Dear Future Daughter: 1) When you’re at some party, chain smoking on the roof with some strange girl with blue hair and exorbitant large dark eyes, ask her about her day. I promise you, you won’t regret it. Often times you’ll find the strangest of people have the most captivating of stories to tell. 2) Please, never mistake desire for love. Love will engulf your soul, whilst desire will emerge as acid, slowly making it’s way through your veins, gradually burning you from the inside out. 3) No one is going to fucking save you, anything you’ve read or heard otherwise is bullshit. 4) One day a boy is going to come along who’s touch feels like fire and who’s words taste like vanilla, when he leaves you, you will want to die. If you know anything at all, know that it is only temporary. 5) Your mental health comes before school baby, always. If its midnight, and you have an exam the next day but your hands have been shaking for the past hour and a half and you’re not so sure you want to be alive anymore, pull out that carton of Ben and Jerry’s and afterwards, go the fuck to bed. So what if you get a 68% on the exam the next day? You took care of yourself and at the end of the day that will always come before a high test score. To hell with anyone who tells you differently.

There is a lot of negativity and bad habits that just need to be cut out of our lives. Sometimes we hold on tightly to the things that are actually causing us a lot of pain. We are our own worst enemy. We cling to all the wrong things. We subconsciously do things that are very bad for us, the worst being that we tell ourselves every day that “we’re not good enough” and “it’s our fault”. Well cut it out!

A lot of self-help methods are based on mental discipline or on working through emotional issues. What these approaches lack in an awareness of how the body is an integral part of the equation. The health of your body influences what you experience in your mind. There is no split. If you can engage your whole spirit in the pursuit of fitness--not just your intellect, not just your emotions-- but instead everything inside you that is truly you, you'll discover what it is to be a whole person.

For people like us, looking towards the future can feel daunting. It can literally make us feel sick to the stomach and often induces panic attacks. Trust me, I’ve been there; I get it. That’s why the far-future should never be at the top of our “to-plan” list. It’s alright to have goals but to stress ourselves out with plans and options and worries of the future is a good way to drive us crazy. However, there is one time when I want you to consider the future. Always have something to look forward to.

There may not be any romance to mental illness but who needs romance when the preferable route is agency? The prevailing conversation around mental health issues is agency and the lack thereof on the part of the mentally ill. But what do you do if you’re a paid-up member of the mentally ill populace in question? Do you curl up into a ball and give up? No, you look for solutions. Ultimately, it’s about keeping despair at bay and sometimes simple things like running, taking up a hobby, doing charity work, painting or, in my case, writing can be a galvanizing part of the recovery process. Keeping the brain and the body active can give life a semblance of pleasure and hope. This is what writing has done for me. I took every traumatic element of my condition and channelled it into something useful.

Right there in that room, listening to the tape Laura gave me, I decided that I wanted something more than what I’d allowed myself to become. Listening to the voices and piano notes fade in and out, I decided that I wanted to be happy. If I had to fight for things in life, I wanted to fight for something bigger than the right to eat with a fork. I wanted to love and be loved and feel alive. I had no idea how to find my way, but listening to that music wash over me, I felt, for the first time, that the struggle I faced would be worth it.

Ordinary psyches often react to bad news with a momentary thrill, seeing the world, for once, in jagged clarity, as if lightning has just struck. But then darkness and dysfunction rush in. A mind such as Beethoven's remains illumined, or sees in the darkness shapes it never saw before, which inspire rather than terrify. This altered shape (raptus, he would say) makes art of the shapes, while holding in counterpoise such dualities as intellect and intuition, the conscious and the unconscious, mental health and mental disorder, the conventional and the unconventional, complexity and simplicity.

Running is not magic beans and I now know that I can’t expect it to inure me to the genuine sadness of life. But throughout tough periods in my life, and without realising it, I had finally acquired a coping skill, one that has helped me every day since I found myself on that floor, wondering how I’d ever get up. It’s something that has taken me out of my self-made cage, propelled me towards new jobs, new experiences, real love and a sense of optimism and confidence that I can be more than just a woman with crippling anxiety. It has given me a new identity, one which no longer sees danger and fear first. It’s not an exaggeration to say that I ran myself out of misery. It has transformed my life.

I have to believe that if we didn't need to protect ourselves, we wouldn't be so prone to avoiding rest. When fear enters the story, something changes. In response to the risk and need around us, we have constructed systems around labor that leave even the hardest workers vulnerable, in deficit. Labor is no longer a gift. How could it be when one is withering from hunger? Labor instead becomes a means to an end, not an avenue for flourishing but a transaction for survival. This is a grim human development, for no one wants to spend their days merely surviving. And this transaction is nearly always incongruent with the amount of labor one does. You can work, as my gramma did in California, for a full month just to be able to finally move from the shelter into low-income housing. Meanwhile, the powerful convince us that there is not enough while their pocket spill out in the open. They distract us from this by dangling opportunity in the opposite direction. They appear as rescuers, demanding ceaseless labor from us but presenting it as a gift. We are expected to feel deeply lucky and even indebted to a society that allows us to work, even if that work cannot satisfy our most basic needs.

Greed subsumes love and compassion; living simply makes room for them. Living simply is the primary way everyone can resist greed every day. All over the world people are becoming more aware of the importance of living simply and sharing resources. While communism has suffered political defeat globally, the politics of communalism continue to matter. We can all resist the temptation of greed. We can work to change public policy, electing leaders who are honest and progressive. We can turn off the television set. We can show respect for love. To save our planet we can stop thoughtless waste. We can recycle and support ecologically advanced survival strategies. We can celebrate and honor communalism and interdependency by sharing resources. All these gestures show a respect and a gratitude for life. When we value the delaying of gratification and take responsibility for our actions, we simplify our emotional universe. Living simply makes loving simple. The choice to live simply necessarily enhances our capacity to love. It is the way we learn to practice compassion, daily affirming our connection to a world community.