Reality Hurts Quotes

People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.

Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.

Girls are like apples...the best ones are at the top of the trees. The boys don't want to reach for the good ones because they are afraid of falling and getting hurt. Instead, they just get the rotten apples that are on the ground that aren't as good, but easy. So the apples at the top think there is something wrong with them, when, in reality, they are amazing. They just have to wait for the right boy to come along, the one who's brave enough to climb all the way to the top of the tree...

Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain. Classic thinking teaches us of the four doors of the mind, which everyone moves through according to their need. First is the door of sleep. Sleep offers us a retreat from the world and all its pain. Sleep marks passing time, giving us distance from the things that have hurt us. When a person is wounded they will often fall unconscious. Similarly, someone who hears traumatic news will often swoon or faint. This is the mind's way of protecting itself from pain by stepping through the first door. Second is the door of forgetting. Some wounds are too deep to heal, or too deep to heal quickly. In addition, many memories are simply painful, and there is no healing to be done. The saying 'time heals all wounds' is false. Time heals most wounds. The rest are hidden behind this door. Third is the door of madness. There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind. Last is the door of death. The final resort. Nothing can hurt us after we are dead, or so we have been told.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Say you’re running and you think, ‘Man, this hurts, I can’t take it anymore. The ‘hurt’ part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand anymore is up to the runner himself.

In dreams you don't need to make any distinctions between things. Not at all. Boundaries don't exist. So in dreams there are hardly ever collisions. Even if there are, they don't hurt. Reality is different. Reality bites. Reality, reality.

When Great Trees Fall When great trees fall, rocks on distant hills shudder, lions hunker down in tall grasses, and even elephants lumber after safety. When great trees fall in forests, small things recoil into silence, their senses eroded beyond fear. When great souls die, the air around us becomes light, rare, sterile. We breathe, briefly. Our eyes, briefly, see with a hurtful clarity. Our memory, suddenly sharpened, examines, gnaws on kind words unsaid, promised walks never taken. Great souls die and our reality, bound to them, takes leave of us. Our souls, dependent upon their nurture, now shrink, wizened. Our minds, formed and informed by their radiance, fall away. We are not so much maddened as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of dark, cold caves. And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed.

We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality

I am a lover of what is, not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality.

The way you think about yourself determines your reality. You are not being hurt by the way people think about you. Many of those people are a reflection of how you think about yourself.

Everyone says love hurts, but that is not true. Loneliness hurts. Rejection hurts. Losing someone hurts. Envy hurts. Everyone gets these things confused with love, but in reality love is the only thing in this world that covers up all pain and makes someone feel wonderful again. Love is the only thing in this world that does not hurt.

Look, it’s not ever going go stop hurting. That’s the reality. But after a while, it’ll get…easier. You’ll get used to living with it.

Memories have ways of becoming independent of the reality they evoke. They can soften us against those we were deeply hurt by or they can make us resent those we once accepted and loved unconditionally.

Words don’t have the power to hurt you, unless that person meant more to you than you are willing to confess.

Every now and then, I’d meet a guy and think that we were getting along great, and suddenly I’d stop hearing from him. Not only did he stop calling, but if I happened to bump into him sometime later he always acted like I had the plague. I didn’t understand it. I still don’t. And it bothered me. It hurt me. With time, it got harder and harder to keep blaming the guys, and I eventually came to the conclusion that there was something wrong with me. That maybe I was simply meant to live my life alone.

Forgiving and being reconciled to our enemies or our loved ones are not about pretending that things are other than they are. It is not about patting one another on the back and turning a blind eye to the wrong. True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the hurt, the truth. It could even sometimes make things worse. It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worthwhile, because in the end only an honest confrontation with reality can bring real healing. Superficial reconciliation can bring only superficial healing.

There is a big difference between hurt and harm. We all hurt sometimes in facing hard truths, but it makes us grow. It can be the source of huge growth. That is not harmful. Harm is when you damage someone. Facing reality is usually not a damaging experience, even though it can hurt.

There are only two kinds of people who can drain your energy: those you love, and those you fear. In both instances it is you who let them in. They did not force their way into your aura, or pry their way into your reality experience.

bad things, like good things don't happen any more often than they ought to by chance. the universe has no mind, no feelings, and no personality, so it doesn't do things in order to either hurt or please you. bad things happen because things happen.

if you want to live an authentic, meaningful life, you need to master the art of disappointing and upsetting others, hurting feelings, and living with the reality that some people just won’t like you. It may not be easy, but it’s essential if you want your life to reflect your deepest desires, values, and needs.

Lying is about controlling someone else’s reality, hoping that what they don’t know won’t hurt you.

non-reality was black, and it didn't hurt so much.

Will you come with me to the mountains? It will hurt at first, until your feet are hardened. Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows. But will you come?

I had lines inside me, a string of guiding lights. I had language. Fiction and poetry are doses, medicines. What they heal is the rupture reality makes on the imagination. I had been damaged, and a very important part of me had been destroyed - that was my reality, the facts of my life. But on the other side of the facts was who I could be, how I could feel. And as long as I had words for that, images for that, stories for that, then I wasn't lost.

Happiness is the purpose of humans so it must need to be for the good of others otherwise one’s happiness could hurt many others.

On top of the abuse and neglect, denial heaps more hurt upon the child by requiring the child to alienate herself from reality and her own experience. In troubled families, abuse and neglect are permitted; it's the talking about them that is forbidden.

Possibilities don’t hurt as much as realities. Possibilities are exciting and endless. Realities are final.

When reality hurts, make sure to soar above the dream-stained sky!

Pain can be endured and defeated only if it is embraced. Denied or feared, it grows in perception if not in reality. The best response to terror is righteous anger, confidence in ultimate justice, a refusal to be intimidated.

You’re too sensitive’ victims of sexual abuse are told over and over by those whose reality depends on being insensitive. Most adults who have been in the victim role cringe when anyone tells them they are sensitive. In fact, sensitivity is a lovely trait and one to be cherished in any human being.

When you forgive, you lose your anger, and when you lose your anger, you get weak. And when you're weak, you can get hurt all over again.

The reality is that there's no such thing as political correctness; it's a rhetorical device to depersonalize oppression. Being cognizant of and careful with historic trauma of others is what "political correctness" means. It means that the powerful should never attack the disempowered--not because it "offends" them or hurts their "feelings" but because it perpetuates toxic, oppressive systems.

Reality Check His lying is not contigent on who you are or what you do. His lying is not your fault. Lying is his choice and his problem, and if he makes that choice with you, he will make it with any other woman he’s with. That doesn’t mean you’re an angel and he’s the devil. It does mean that if he doesn’t like certain things about you, he has many ways to address them besides lying. If there are sexual problems between you, there are many resources available to help you. Nothing can change until you hold him responsible and accountable for lying and stop blaming yourself. The lies we tell ourselves to keep from seeing the truth about our lovers don’t feel like lies. They feel comfortable, familiar, and true. We repeat them like a mantra and cling to them like security blankets, hoping to calm ourselves and regain our sense that the world works the way we believe it ought to. Self-lies are false friends we look to for comfort and protection—and for a short time they may make us feel better. But we can only keep the truth at bay for so long. Our self-lies can’t erase his lies, and as we’ll see, the longer we try to pretend they can, the more we deepen the hurt.

We need a few trusted naysayers in our lives, critics who are willing to puncture our protective bubble of self-justifications and yank us back to reality if we veer too far off. This is especially important for people in positions of power.

We are all substantially flawed, wounded, angry, hurt, here on Earth. But this human condition, so painful to us, and in someways shameful- because we feel we are weak when the reality of ourselves is exposed- is made much more bearable when it is shared, face to face, in words that have expressive human eyes behind them...

But persistent name calling? that prolongs hurt. It stretches out. Each nasty word stretches the rubber band further away until finally, one day, it snaps back at you with maximum impact

Almost every day I can feel myself suffering mainly in the head, I can explain the pain to myself but knowing it comes from an inflammation of my imagination doesn't prevent it being reality itself. What's more I'd be crazy not to go crazy. We don't know what an illness is. On awful hurts we plaster little old words, as if we could think hell with a paper bandage.

You can’t be friends with someone you have feelings for. It’ll just be a constant reminder of what you can’t have. It’s like putting boiling water in an ice cold glass. It’s gonna bust and make a mess.

i will tell you about selfish people. even when they know they will hurt you they walk into your life to taste you because you are the type of being they don’t want to miss out on. you are too much shine to not be felt. so when they have gotten a good look at everything you have to offer. when they have taken your skin your hair and your secrets with them. when they realize how real this is. how much of a storm you are and it hits them. that is when the cowardice sets in. that is when the person you thought they were is replaced by the sad reality of what they are. that is when they lose every fighting bone in their body and leave after saying you will find better than me. you will stand there naked with half of them still hidden somewhere inside you and sob. asking them why they did it. why they forced you to love them when they had no intention of loving you back and they’ll say something along the lines of i just had to try. i had to give it a chance. it was you after all. but that isn’t romantic. it isn’t sweet. the idea that they were so engulfed by your existence they had to risk breaking it for the sake of knowing they weren’t the one missing out. your existence meant that little next to their curiosity of you.

Love is all that other stuff, but love is also heart-ripping, reality-checking, mad-like-crazy, hurt-like-impossible, throat-clenching, eye-burning, soul-taking, mean, torturous, spiteful, conditional—so, so conditional. It's scratches-from-another, and it's a secret-so-does-any-of-this-even-matter?

It was never easy being a witch. Oh, the broomstick was great, but to be a witch you needed to be sensible, so sensible that sometimes it hurt. You dealt with the reality—not what people wanted.

In fairy tales the evil characters disappear or die, in reality, evil spreads while you wait for your hero on a horse, only to realise the sword to save yourself was always in your hand...

I don’t know if it’s possible to take hate away from people. Not even people like us, who’ve seen firsthand what hate can do. We’re all hurting. We’re all going to be hurting for a long time. And we, probably more than anyone else out there, will be searching for a new reality every day. A better one.

I also believe that forgiveness is appropriate only when parents do something to earn it. Toxic parents, especially the more abusive ones, need to acknowledge what happened, take responsibility, and show a willingness to make amends. If you unilaterally absolve parents who continue to treat you badly, who deny much of your reality and feelings, and who continue to project blame onto you, you may seriously impede the emotional work you need to do.

Some people walk through a hallway with covered mirrors– the hallway is lined with mirrors but there are blankets covering each of them. They go through life believing in an image of themselves that isn't real, and an image of themselves standing in the world and relative to the world, that isn't real. If you happen to be in that hallway and pull the blankets off the mirrors, they're going to think that you're hurting them; but they're actually just seeing their reflection for the first time. Sometimes the most horrendous thing a person can see, is all the hidden things inside them, the things they've covered, the things they choose not look at. And you're not hurting them, you're setting them free.

Forgive and forget is the divine ideal. Grappling with the hurt while biting your tongue and struggling to refuse justifiable vengeance―that's closer to human reality.

But compassion is a deeper thing that waits beyond the tension of choosing sides. Compassion, in practice, does not require us to give up the truth of what we feel or the truth of our reality. Nor does it allow us to minimize the humanity of those who hurt us. Rather, we are asked to know ourselves enough that we can stay open to the truth of others, even when their truth or their inability to live up to their truth has hurt us.

God the Grand Weaver seeks those with tender hearts so that he can put his imprint on them. Your hurts and your disappointments are part of that design, to shape your heart and the way you feel about reality. The hurts you live through will always shape you. There is no other way.

Many survivors struggle to believe the abuse happened. They don’t want to believe it. It’s too painful to think about. They don’t want to accuse family members or face the terrible loss involved in realizing “a loved one” hurt them; they don’t want to rock the boat.

You are my reality, fantasy, daydream, fairytale, music, more than the princess in Cinderella; you are much more than a traditional myth.

there isn't a slightest wound that doesn't hurt in the heart.

At Garvin High we were dealt a hard dose of reality this year. People hate. That's our reality. People hate and are hated and carry grudges and want punishments ... I don't know if it's possible to take hate away from people. Not even people like us, who've seen firsthand what hate can do. We're all hurting. We're all going to be hurting for a long time. And we, probably more than anyone else out there, will be searching for a new reality every day. A better one ... But in order to change reality you have to be willing to listen and to learn. And to hear. To actually hear.

There comes a moment in life when one must acknowledge that you just can't keep looking back into your past for reasons to keep someone in your present and future. Regardless of how much looking that cruel reality in the eye hurts...memories can't be enough.

Oddly, the burned hand didn't seem to hurt much anymore; it was only numb. It would have been better if there had been pain. Pain was at least real.

Knowing to do the right thing, but playing stupid to oblige to it, is still lying.

A distinction must be made between that writing which enables us to hold on to life even as we are clinging to old hurts and wounds and that writing which offers to us a space where we are able to confront reality in such a way that we live more fully. Such writing is not an anchor that we mistakenly cling to so as not to drown. It is writing that truly rescues, that enables us to reach the shore, to recover.

I am a lover of what is, not because I’m a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality. We can know that reality is good just as it is, because when we argue with it, we experience tension and frustration. We don’t feel natural or balanced. When we stop opposing reality, action becomes simple, fluid, kind, and fearless.

While reading, all my confusion and hurt dissolved, and when I reentered reality, I was a little bit better of a person, a little more capable of learning from my missteps.

You can’t change an unpleasant reality if you won’t acknowledge it, Mac. You can only control what you’re willing to face. Truth hurts. But lies can kill.

I’m not brave enough to love you The same way You’re not strong enough to take me on.

... knowing life is full of shit, and shitty people, but hoping if you keep that in mind, it doesn't hurt as bad when you're right about it all.

Life would be so much easier if, when we hit a snag in a relationship, any relationship, we would stop, address it, and move ahead smoothly. The truth is, in most cases, we could do just that. The reality is, we don’t do it! We keep moving. We allow little insults to become raging angers, little arguments to become festering feuds, little pains to become deep wounds, and we keep moving. In many cases, we keep hurting. When the relationship at issue is an intimate, loving one, the attempt to move forward without addressing the pain only complicates matters, further poisoning the relationship.

Men do oppress women. People are hurt by rigid sexist role patterns. These two realities coexist. Male oppression of women cannot be excused by the recognition that there are ways men are hurt by rigid sexist roles. Feminist activists should acknowledge that hurt, and work to change it—it exists. It does not erase or lessen male responsibility for supporting and perpetuating their power under patriarchy to exploit and oppress women in a manner far more grievous than the serious psychological stress and emotional pain caused by male conformity to rigid sexist role patterns.

Thus he spent his whole life searching for his own truth, but it remained hidden to him because he had learned at a very young age to hate himself for what his mother had done to him. (...) But not once did he allow himself to direct his endless, justified rage at the true culprit, the woman who had kept him locked up in her prison for as long as she could. All his life he attempted to free himself of that prison, with the help of drugs, travel, illusions, and above all poetry. But in all these desperate efforts to open the doors that would have led to liberation, one of them remained obstinently shut, the most important one: the door to the emotional reality of his childhood, to the feelings of the little child who was forced to grow up with a severely disturbed, malevolent woman, with no father to protect him from her.

When my husband had an affair with someone else I watched his eyes glaze over when we ate dinner together and I heard him singing to himself without me, and when he tended the garden it was not for me. He was courteous and polite; he enjoyed being at home, but in the fantasy of his home I was not the one who sat opposite him and laughed at his jokes. He didn't want to change anything; he liked his life. The only thing he wanted to change was me. It would have been better if he had hated me, or if he had abused me, or if he had packed his new suitcases and left. As it was he continued to put his arm round me and talk about being a new wall to replace the rotten fence that divided our garden from his vegetable patch. I knew he would never leave our house. He had worked for it. Day by day I felt myself disappearing. For my husband I was no longer a reality, I was one of the things around him. I was the fence which needed to be replaced. I watched myself in the mirror and saw that I was mo longer vivid and exciting. I was worn and gray like an old sweater you can't throw out but won't put on. He admitted he was in love with her, but he said he loved me. Translated, that means, I want everything. Translated, that means, I don't want to hurt you yet. Translated, that means, I don't know what to do, give me time. Why, why should I give you time? What time are you giving me? I am in a cell waiting to be called for execution. I loved him and I was in love with him. I didn't use language to make a war-zone of my heart. 'You're so simple and good,' he said, brushing the hair from my face. He meant, Your emotions are not complex like mine. My dilemma is poetic. But there was no dilemma. He no longer wanted me, but he wanted our life Eventually, when he had been away with her for a few days and returned restless and conciliatory, I decided not to wait in my cell any longer. I went to where he was sleeping in another room and I asked him to leave. Very patiently he asked me to remember that the house was his home, that he couldn't be expected to make himself homeless because he was in love. 'Medea did,' I said, 'and Romeo and Juliet and Cressida, and Ruth in the Bible.' He asked me to shut up. He wasn't a hero. 'Then why should I be a heroine?' He didn't answer, he plucked at the blanket. I considered my choices. I could stay and be unhappy and humiliated. I could leave and be unhappy and dignified. I could Beg him to touch me again. I could live in hope and die of bitterness. I took some things and left. It wasn't easy, it was my home too. I hear he's replaced the back fence.

Going back” had two distinct meanings at the school, depending on how it was said. It was the best thing in the world. It was also the worst thing that could happen to anybody. It was returning to a place that understood you so well that it had reached across realities to find you, claiming you as its own and only; it was being sent to a family that wanted to love you, wanted to keep you safe and sound, but didn’t know you well enough to do anything but hurt you.

Sometimes, falling back on or using an old method or habit, is like sliding into a pair of worn running shoes and a corset. Doesn't make sense to others, but it's not for them. It's what keeps you together, what keeps you going.

The kiss happened because they couldn't help it, and it was so sweet and so right that Damen felt a kind of ache. He pulled back. The realities of the outside world seemed to press at him. "I"-he couldn't say it. "No. Listen to me." He felt Laurent's hand firm on the back of his neck. "I'm not going to let my uncle hurt you." Laurent's blue gaze was calm and steady, as if he had mad a decision and wanted Damen to know it. "It's what I came here last night to say. I'm going to take care of it." "Promise me," Damen heard himself say. "Promise me we won't let him-" "I promise.

Letting go is one of the major cornerstones of being set free make a decision to release whatever is holding you back. Don’t hang on to anything that is not empowering you to move forward. In reality you always have the option of choosing whether you will focus on a hurtful past or fill your mind with uplifting thoughts of the present and all its blessings. Your mind cannot focus on both negative and positive ideas at the same time.

I know that I go through life like a drunkard. I'm drunk on illusion. But no matter how drunk I am, there are things I can't help seeing, ferociously real things. I close my eyes, and I reel, I reel. I reel, I believe, I live in a fever and turmoil, I rise into ecstasy, but all the time there is the face of reality staring at me with ugly eyes. I know that if I open my eyes I will be intolerably hurt by the ugliness.

I find it hard to talk about myself. I'm always tripped up by the eternal who am I? paradox. Sure, no one knows as much pure data about me as me. But when I talk about myself, all sorts of other factors--values, standards, my own limitations as an observer--make me, the narrator, select and eliminate things about me, the narratee. I've always been disturbed by the thought that I'm not painting a very objective picture of myself. This kind of thing doesn't seem to bother most people. Given the chance, people are surprisingly frank when they talk about themselves. "I'm honest and open to a ridiculous degree," they'll say, or "I'm thin-skinned and not the type who gets along easily in the world." Or "I am very good at sensing others' true feelings." But any number of times I've seen people who say they've easily hurt other people for no apparent reason. Self-styled honest and open people, without realizing what they're doing, blithely use some self-serving excuse to get what they want. And those "good at sensing others' true feelings" are duped by the most transparent flattery. It's enough to make me ask the question: How well do we really know ourselves? The more I think about it, the more I'd like to take a rain check on the topic of me. What I'd like to know more about is the objective reality of things outside myself. How important the world outside is to me, how I maintain a sense of equilibrium by coming to terms with it. That's how I'd grasp a clearer sense of who I am.

I realized that every healthcare professional — every single doctor, nurse, midwife, pharmacist, physical therapist, and paramedic — need to shout out about the reality of their work so the next time the health secretary lies that doctors are in it for the money, the public will know just how ridiculous that is. Why would any sane person do that job for anything other than the right reasons, because I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I have so much respect for those who work on the front line because, when it came down to it, I certainly couldn’t.

Narcissists gaslight you so you begin to gaslight yourself into thinking what you are feeling, hearing, seeing and experiencing isn’t true. A narcissistic partner can manipulate you into thinking that perhaps that hurtful comment really was just a joke and that their infidelity was just a one-time thing. Many of these partners engage in pathological lying and rewrite reality on a daily basis to suit their needs and to conceal their manipulative agenda.

Actually, nothing hurts like hearing the word slut, unless it is hearing the word rape dropped about carelessly. Again, a word I wouldn't have thought much about, except that when I was in high school a girl gave her senior speech on her best friend's rape. She ended not with an appear for women's rights or self defense, but by begging us to consider our language. We use the word 'rape' so casually, for sports, for a failed test, to spice up jokes. 'The test raped me.' 'His smile went up to justifiable rape.' These references confer casualness upon the word, embedding it into our culture, stripping it of shock value, and ultimately numb us to the reality of rape.

It was tempting to fall back on reliable tactics and pretend things were…perfect. To pretend he was only a boy and I was only a girl and we desired each other. I wanted him to hold and kiss me and pretend he would do anything to protect me. I wanted to pretend he felt a fraction of the things I couldn’t seem to stop myself from feeling for him. My heart hurt. As much as my shoulder and ribs screamed with pain, they were eclipsed by the sorrow in my heart. I couldn’t pretend anymore. The time for it had passed; there was only the reality of things left to deal with. 

We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield. —George Orwell, 1946

A question. So what are people supposed to do if they want to avoid a collision (thud!) but still lie in the field, enjoying the clouds drifting by, listening to the grass grow—not thinking, in other words? Sound hard? Not at all. Logically, it’s easy. C’est simple. The answer is dreams. Dreaming on and on. Entering the world of dreams, and never coming out. Living in dreams for the rest of time. In dreams you don’t need to make any distinctions between things. Not at all. Boundaries don’t exist. So in dreams there are hardly any collisions. Even if there are, they don’t hurt. Reality is different. Reality bites. Reality, reality.

Ultimately, the question was about the nature of the dunya as a place of fleeting moments and temporary attachments. As a place where people are with you today and leave or die tomorrow. But this reality hurts our very being because it goes against our nature. We, as humans, are made to seek, love, and strive for what is perfect and what is permanent. We are made to seek what’s eternal. We seek this because we were not made for this life. Our first and true home was Paradise: a land that is both perfect and eternal. So the yearning for that type of life is a part of our being. The problem is that we try to find that here. And so we create ageless creams and cosmetic surgery in a desperate attempt to hold on—in an attempt to mold this world into what it is not, and will never be.

What can the love in my soul be compared to another wonderful soul which is so far and yet so close of my self? What can this symbiosis between two souls can be? What can love be when you feel you cannot sleep at night, that every drop of dew becomes a crystal in your heart, when every breeze of wind has magical meanings? What can love be when you feel that you want nothing more in this world that to be with the soul you love? But what can love be in other transcendental realities? What about our souls? Are our souls a waterfall, a true Niagara or a smile, a flirt of an angel? Are our souls a mere mood of a fairy or a lightening in a summer rain? Our souls could be all of this and much more. But what really happens in that transcendental reality when we feel we are truly in love, that we love so much that it hurts? That the air in the room is unbreathable, that the sentimental, spiritual or physical distances kill us? What happens when dawn find us sadder than ever, looking for an excuse or an argument for the person we love so much, our Great Love? What are all thses? What are the looks lost in the desert horizons of unfulfilment or those in the eyes that deeply loose each other in the others inside the souls?

With time to think, the full reality of what had happened hit Thomas like a falling boulder. Ever since Thomas had entered the Maze, Newt had been there for him. Thomas hadn’t realized just how much of a friend he’d become until now. His heart hurt. He tried to remind himself that Newt wasn’t dead. But in some ways this was worse. In most ways. He’d fallen down the slope of insanity, and he was surrounded by bloodthirsty Cranks. And the prospect of never seeing him again was almost unbearable. [...] He pulled the envelope out of his pocket and ripped it open, then took out the slip of paper. The soft lights that ringed the mirror lit up the message in a warm glow. It was two short sentences: Kill me. If you’ve ever been my friend, kill me. Thomas read it over and over, wishing the words would change. To think that his friend had been so scared that he’d had the foresight to write those words made him sick to his stomach. And he remembered how angry Newt had been at Thomas specifically when they’d found him in the bowling alley. He’d just wanted to avoid the inevitable fate of becoming a Crank. And Thomas had failed him. [...] “Newt suddenly twisted around and grabbed Thomas by the hand holding the gun. He yanked it toward himself, forcing it up until the end of the pistol was pressed against his own forehead. “Now make amends! Kill me before I become one of those cannibal monsters! Kill me! I trusted you with the note! No one else. Now do it!” Thomas tried to pull his hand away, but Newt was too strong. “I can’t, Newt, I can’t.” “Make amends! Repent for what you did!” The words tore out of him, his whole body trembling. Then his voice dropped to an urgent, harsh whisper. “Kill me, you shuck coward. Prove you can do the right thing. Put me out of my misery.” The words horrified Thomas. “Newt, maybe we can—” “Shut up! Just shut up! I trusted you! Now do it!” “I can’t.” “Do it!” “I can’t!” How could Newt ask him to do something like this? How could he possibly kill one of his best friends? “Kill me or I’ll kill you. Kill me! Do it!” “Newt …” “Do it before I become one of them!” “I …” “KILL ME!” And then Newt’s eyes cleared, as if he’d gained one last trembling gasp of sanity, and his voice softened. “Please, Tommy. Please.” With his heart falling into a black abyss, Thomas pulled the trigger.

You said to your mind, "I want everyone to like me. I don't want anyone to speak badly of me. I want everything I say and do to be acceptable and pleasing to everyone. I don't want anyone to hurt me. I don't want anything to happen that I don't like. And I want everything to happen that I do like." Then you said, "Now mind, figure out how to make every one of these things a reality, even if you have to think about it day and night." And of course your mind said, "I'm on the job, I will work on it constantly.

Most of us avoid telling the truth because it’s uncomfortable. We’re afraid of the consequences—making others feel uncomfortable, hurting their feelings, or risking their anger. And yet, when we don’t tell the truth, and others don’t tell us the truth, we can’t deal with matters from a basis in reality. We’ve all heard the phrase that “the truth will set you free.” And it will. The truth allows us to be free to deal with the way things are, not the way we imagine them to be or hope them to be or might manipulate them to be with our lies. The truth also frees up our energy. It takes energy to withhold the truth, keep a secret, or keep up an act.

child. This ability to grieve—that is, to give up the illusion of his “happy” childhood, to feel and recognize the full extent of the hurt he has endured—can restore the depressive’s vitality and creativity and free the grandiose person from the exertions of and dependence on his Sisyphean task. If a person is able, during this long process, to experience the reality that he was never loved as a child for what he was but was instead needed and exploited for his achievements, success, and good qualities—and that he sacrificed his childhood for this form of love—he will be very deeply shaken, but one day he will feel the desire to end these efforts. He will discover in himself a need to live according to his true self and no longer be forced to earn “love” that always leaves him empty-handed, since it is given to his false self—something he has begun to identify and relinquish.

I’M SORRY I am developing a new board game. It’s called “I’m Sorry.” It’s also a form of “Self-Help Psychological Therapy!” You take turns moving around the board like Monopoly. But if you land on a Yellow or Green “I’m Sorry Space”… you have to make a Phone call. Both green and yellow cards are labeled- the same with things like: Your Ex, Parental figure, friend, co-worker, boss, children, etc. You get the point… If you land on the yellow space, the game stops, everyone gets quiet and you have to call that person up – on speakerphone. You apologize for something you’ve done in your past. Come on you know you are not perfect and you probably screwed up, hurt or disappointed everyone in your past at one time or another. So you call and you apologize. You explain what you did to them wrong if they forgive you, you move forward 10 places and everyone cheers! No forgiveness back- you move back to the beginning. If you land on the green space- it’s similar. But you call the person up and you try to explain to them how, in someway, they hurt you in the past. If they apologize… cheers and you move forward 10 spaces. No apology… move backward ten spaces. They curse at you- game over. In the original packaging of the yellow and green cards, are mixed in a set of “I’m Sorry Cards.” If you are lucky enough to get to pick up an “I’m Sorry Card,” it’s like a Get Out of Jail Free Card, and you don’t have to make the call. The only catch is that the cards come hermetically sealed. After opening up the package, and the cards are exposed to air, all of the “I’m Sorry Cards,” magically turn into “Deal With it Cards!” And so, you really never get a free ride. In reality, every time you pick up a yellow or green card, you have to- Deal with It! Of course you can always order a new factory set of sealed of “I’m Sorry Cards.” But they only last about 30 minutes and are very expensive, so you’ll have to play fast. Cute Game? Hey, don’t steal my idea!!!

Reality is painful and imperfect ... That's just the way it is, that's how we distinguish it from dreams. When something seems absolutely lovely we think it can only be a dream, and we pinch ourselves just to be sure we're really not dreaming - if it hurts it's because we're not dreaming. Reality can hurt us, even those moments when it may seem to us to be a dream. You can find everything that exists in the world in books - sometimes truer in colors, and without the real pain of everything that really does exist. Given a choice between life and books, my son, you must choose books

Here you are. Still standing. Fierce with the reality of love and loss. Wearing the truth of our hearts on your tattered sleeves. And yes, this one very nearly took you out. And yes, there were days when the darkness was heavy and the climb out of that rabbit hole required you to mine your depths for strength you didn’t even know you had. But here you are. Broken open by hope. Cracked wide by loss. Full of longing and grief and the burn of that phoenix fire. Warrior painted with ashes. Embers from the blaze still clinging to your newborn skin, leaving you forever marked with scars of rebirth. And just look at you. Heart broken but still beating. Arms empty but still open. Face raised to the sky and giving thanks for the light, even when it hurts your eyes. My god, you are beautiful.

You reach a certain age when reality grabs you by the scruff of the neck and shouts in your face:"Hey, look, this is what life is." And you have to open your eyes and look at it, listen to it, smell it: people who don't like you, things you don't want to do, things that hurt, things that scare you, questions without answers, feelings you don't understand, feelings you don't want but have no control over. Reality. When you gradually come to realise that all that stuff in books, films, television, magazines, newspapers, comics - it's all rubbish. It's got nothing to do with anything. It's all made up. It doesn't happen like that. It's not real. It means nothing. Reality is what you see when you look out of the window of a bus: dour faces, sad and temporary lives, millions of cars, metal, bricks, glass, rain, cruel laughter, ugliness, dirt, bad teeth, crippled pigeons, little kids in pushchairs who've already forgotten how to smile ...

There’s so much wonder in the world, but instead of giving a damn, and taking the time to come to the realization that we are all very, very, small in a very, very miniature place, we like to pretend we are the alphas of the whole universe. We like to make ourselves feel big. And we each like to make our way seem like the best way, and our hurts seem like the biggest hurts, when really, we are nothing more than a tiny burning dot that makes up a part of the giant sky. A tiny dot that no one would even notice was missing. A tiny dot, that will soon enough be replaced by another speck which thinks it’s more important than it actually is. I just wish people would sometimes stop fighting about stupid mundane things like race, sexual orientation, and reality television. I wish they would remember how small they are and take five minutes a day to look up to the sky and breathe.” “Logan?

There are spiritual laws at work that most people know nothing about. So when others hurt us, our tendency is to strike back because we assume that we must defend ourselves, defend our name, our honor, our career, and so on. In reality we strike back at ourselves. ... What we consider as justifiable defense of our rights may in reality plunge us into a vicious cycle that can undermine our very spiritual foundation. By reacting to aggression with aggression we lose the opportunity to spiritually benefit from the experience. this law also explains why saints, when hit, often would literally turn the other cheek. (Fr. Maximos)

Nothing has changed, Claire. You're still as beautiful as you were when we met first and I am still in love with everything about you. We may be worlds apart but this doesn't keep our hearts at distance. I feel your breath in every breath of mine and I hear your heartbeat in every beat of my heart. I traveled to far away lands, rivers, forests, mountains, glaciers, deserts and skyscrapers but wherever I go I find you there. My dreams aren't illusions but visions of a beautiful yesterday; I play with your hair-locks, I kiss your eyes, I embrace your hands and you giggle in my arms blossoming like a flower. My love, you're my only reality, my only fantasy, my only celebration and my only refuge. I have waited a thousands suns and I can wait a thousand more to witness the moment you call out to me. That day you'll find me and even if I don't live up to see that day I will be with you forever, just remember me.

The victim of abuse is taught to believe that although she is hurting, she shouldn’t be, or that she is in some way responsible. From childhood, she is conditioned not to understand her feelings and so not to recognize the truth. This truth is that she is being abused and blamed for the abuse (as if it could be justified) and for feeling bad about it (as if her feelings were wrong). The typical partner believed the abuser’s denial and so became frustrated and confused even while she searched for answers. Unable to reach clarity and understanding, the partner was left with feelings of inadequacy and confusion. If her mate was not wrong, if he was not lying, if she did take things wrong, then she could believe only that “something must be wrong with the way she was — how she expressed herself, how she came across, or possibly with her feelings and experience of reality itself.” Thus the doubts of childhood rose up once more. She kept her mind open to what she might hear that would reveal what was wrong — why she suffered. She became, therefore, the perfect victim.

If someone is badly hurt at some point in life—traumatized—the dominance counter can transform in a manner that makes additional hurt more rather than less likely. This often happens in the case of people, now adults, who were viciously bullied during childhood or adolescence. They become anxious and easily upset. They shield themselves with a defensive crouch, and avoid the direct eye contact interpretable as a dominance challenge. This means that the damage caused by the bullying (the lowering of status and confidence) can continue, even after the bullying has ended.25 In the simplest of cases, the formerly lowly persons have matured and moved to new and more successful places in their lives. But they don’t fully notice. Their now-counterproductive physiological adaptations to earlier reality remain, and they are more stressed and uncertain than is necessary. In more complex cases, a habitual assumption of subordination renders the person more stressed and uncertain than necessary, and their habitually submissive posturing continues to attract genuine negative attention from one or more of the fewer and generally less successful bullies still extant in the adult world. In such situations, the psychological consequence of the previous bullying increases the likelihood of continued bullying in the present (even though, strictly speaking, it wouldn’t have to, because of maturation, or geographical relocation, or continued education, or improvement in objective status).

Inferiority is not banal or incidental even when it happens to women. It is not a petty affliction like bad skin or circles under the eyes. It is not a superficial flaw in an otherwise perfect picture. It is not a minor irritation, nor is it a trivial inconvenience, an occasional aggravation, or a regrettable but (frankly) harmless lapse in manners. It is not a “point of view” that some people with soft skins find “ offensive. ” It is the deep and destructive devaluing of a person in life, a shredding of dignity and self-respect, an imposed exile from human worth and human recognition, the forced alienation of a person from even the possibility of wholeness or internal integrity. Inferiority puts rightful self-love beyond reach, a dream fragmented by insult into a perpetually recurring nightmare; inferiority creates a person broken and humiliated inside. The fragments— scattered pieces and sharp slivers of someone who can never be made whole—are then taken to be the standard of what is normal in her kind: women are like that. The insult that hurt her—inferiority as an assault, ongoing since birth—is seen as a consequence, not a cause, of her so-called nature, an inferior nature. In English, a graceful language, she is even called a piece. It is likely to be her personal experience that she is insufficiently loved. Her subjectivity itself is second-class, her experiences and perceptions inferior in the world as she is inferior in the world. Her experience is recast into a psychologically pejorative judgment: she is never loved enough because she is needy, neurotic, the insufficiency of love she feels being in and of itself evidence of a deep-seated and natural dependency. Her personal experiences or perceptions are never credited as having a hard core of reality to them. She is, however, never loved enough. In truth; in point of fact; objectively: she is never loved enough. As Konrad Lorenz wrote: “ I doubt if it is possible to feel real affection for anybody who is in every respect one’s inferior. ” 1 There are so many dirty names for her that one rarely learns them all, even in one’s native language.

What can you say about pain? Words can trace only the shadow of the thing itself. The reality of hard, sharp physical pain is like nothing else, and it is beyond language. The world is too much with us, day and night, but when we hurt, when we really hurt, the world melts and fades and becomes a ghost, a dim memory, a silly unimportant thing. Whatever ideals, dreams, loves, fears, and thoughts we might have had become ultimately unimportant. We are alone with our pain, it is the only force in the cosmos, the only thing of substance, the only thing that matters, and if the pain is bad enough and lasts long enough, if it is the sort of agony that goes on and on, then all the things that are our humanity melt before it and the proud sophisticated computer that is the human brain becomes capable of but a single thought: Make it stop, make it STOP! (from The Glass Flower)

I believe in women uplifting other women. The only thing that makes our gender weaker, is the fact that we are the gender less likely to stand up for the other. We are the gender more likely to try and make another look bad, and when one of us is already bad, instead of being kind, we pound them into the ditches. And that's what makes us weak, nothing else. If we can change this, we can change the whole structure of our being female, I truly believe this. Personally, I grew up admiring other women and wanting to be friends with them, but unfortunately, I learned the hard way that they were the ones who would hurt me. Women hurt other women all too often, and that's a fact. I'd like to see not just us not hurting one another; but us actually making a conscious effort to be happy for another when she is happy, to hope the best for another when she has better, and to lift another up when she is down. We know that so many of us are harsh, cold and selfish, and we try to protect ourselves from one another, that's the reality. But it's also a reality that what is real can change. So that means we can change it.

I’m a Christian,” I said, “because Christianity names and addresses sin. It acknowledges the reality that the evil we observe in the world is also present within ourselves. It tells the truth about the human condition—that we’re not okay.” “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed,” instructed James, the brother of Jesus (James 5:16). At its best, the church functions much like a recovery group, a safe place where a bunch of struggling, imperfect people come together to speak difficult truths to one another. Sometimes the truth is we have sinned as individuals. Sometimes the truth is we have sinned corporately, as a people. Sometimes the truth is we’re hurting because of another person’s sin or as a result of forces beyond our control. Sometimes the truth is we’re just hurting, and we’re not even sure why.

Perfect You’re a beautiful kind of madness a misunderstood truth O, the things they could learn from the darkness that is hidden behind your eyes So gifted, yet your talents are wasted you gave up chasing dreams Reality hit and you got a taste of failure Cautious now about bearing your soul For if others saw you fully exposed they may not love you like they claim to Time and experience have taught you to trust no one Friends, lovers, and even family have forsaken you You keep the shattered pieces of your heart in a box Stitching, gluing, and staying up all night trying to put it back together Attempting to fill the void that was left Moving from one man to the next It seems no one can satisfy the appetite for affection that you seek Continually picking at old wounds they never heal properly You have no real home, too restless to stay in one place You are reckless, selfish, stubborn, sometimes rude You’ve bottled up the pain of so much that has been done When you’re hurt You close into yourself, shut down You love attention and yet love being by yourself more May God have mercy on your soul For you are truly lost Daily you fight your demons Yet no one knows of that which you endure You bear it alone, never speaking of it You can blame the broken home from which you came Or the environment that you grew up in The people who tore you down so young You can point the finger at those who have whispered behind your back They all have played a role in your development But looking so deep into the past will keep you from moving forward You must love yourself more than these people claim they do Look at where you stand now No one can know the things you have endured like you You’ve never claimed to be perfect Your flaws tell your story There is no need to hide them

It's not that your mother didn't love you,' the boy named Crow says from behind me. 'She loved you very deeply. The first thing you have to do is believe that. That's your starting point.' 'But she abandoned me. She disappeared, leaving me alone where I shouldn't be. I'm finally beginning to understand how much that hurt. How could she do it if she really loved me?' 'That's the reality of it. It did happen,'the boy named Crow says. 'You were hurt badly, and those scars will be with you forever. I feel sorry for you, I really do. But think of it like this: It's not too late to recover. You're young, you're tough. You're adaptable. You can patch up your wounds, lift your head, and move on. But for her that's not an option. The only thing she'll ever be is lost. It doesn't matter whether somebody judges this as good or bad- that's not the point. You're the one who has the advantage. You ought to consider that.' I don't respond. 'It all really happened, you can't undo it,' Crow tells me. 'She shouldn't have abandoned you then, and you shouldn't have been abandoned. But things in the past are like a plate that's shattered to pieces. You can never put it back together like it was, right?' I nod. You can never put it back together like it was. He's hit the nail on the head. The boy named Crow continues. 'Your mother felt a gut-wrenching kind of fear and anger inside her, okay? Just like you do now. Which is why she had to abandon you.' 'Even though she loved me?' 'Even though she loved you, she had to abandon you. You need to understand how she felt then, and learn to accept it. Understand the overpowering fear and anger she experienced, and feel it as your own- so you won't inherit it and repeat it. The main thing is this: You have to forgive her. That's not going to be easy, I know, but you have to do it. That's the only way you can be saved. There's no other way!' - pg 398-99

Outside of your relationship with God, the most important relationship you can have is with yourself. I don’t mean that we are to spend all our time focused on me, me, me to the exclusion of others. Instead, I mean that we must be healthy internally—emotionally and spiritually—in order to create healthy relationships with others. Motivational pep talks and techniques for achieving success are useless if a person is weighed down by guilt, shame, depression, rejection, bitterness, or crushed self-esteem. Countless marriages land on the rocks of divorce because unhealthy people marry thinking that marriage, or their spouse, will make them whole. Wrong. If you’re not a healthy single person you won’t be a healthy married person. Part of God’s purpose for every human life is wholeness and health. I love the words of Jesus in John 10:10: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” God knows we are the walking wounded in this world and He wants the opportunity to remove everything that limits us and heal every wound from which we suffer. Some wonder why God doesn’t just “fix” us automatically so we can get on with life. It’s because He wants our wounds to be our tutors to lead us to Him. Pain is a wonderful motivator and teacher! When the great Russian intellectual Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was released from the horrible Siberian work camp to which he was sent by Joseph Stalin, he said, “Thank you, prison!” It was the pain and suffering he endured that caused his eyes to be opened to the reality of the God of his childhood, to embrace his God anew in a personal way. When we are able to say thank you to the pain we have endured, we know we are ready to fulfill our purpose in life. When we resist the pain life brings us, all of our energy goes into resistance and we have none left for the pursuit of our purpose. It is the better part of wisdom to let pain do its work and shape us as it will. We will be wiser, deeper, and more productive in the long run. There is a great promise in the New Testament that says God comes to us to comfort us so we can turn around and comfort those who are hurting with the comfort we have received from Him (see 2 Corinthians 1:3–4). Make yourself available to God and to those who suffer. A large part of our own healing comes when we reach out with compassion to others.

Leaders instill courage in the hearts of those who follow. This rarely happens through words alone. It generally requires action. It goes back to what we said earlier: Somebody has to go first. By going first, the leader furnishes confidence to those who follow. As a next generation leader, you will be called upon to go first. That will require courage. But in stepping out you will give the gift of courage to those who are watching. What do I believe is impossible to do in my field, but if it could be done would fundamentally change my business? What has been done is safe. But to attempt a solution to a problem that plagues an entire industry - in my case, the local church - requires courage. Unsolved problems are gateways to the future. To those who have the courage to ask the question and the tenacity to hang on until they discover or create an answer belongs the future. Don’t allow the many good opportunities to divert your attention from the one opportunity that has the greatest potential. Learn to say no. There will always be more opportunities than there is time to pursue them. Leaders worth following are willing to face and embrace current reality regardless of how discouraging or embarrassing it might be. It is impossible to generate sustained growth or progress if your plan for the future is not rooted in reality. Be willing to face the truth regardless of how painful it might be. If fear causes you to retreat from your dreams, you will never give the world anything new. it is impossible to lead without a dream. When leaders are no longer willing to dream, it is only a short time before followers are unwilling to follow. Will I allow my fear to bind me to mediocrity? Uncertainty is a permanent part of the leadership landscape. It never goes away. Where there is no uncertainty, there is no longer the need for leadership. The greater the uncertainty, the greater the need for leadership. Your capacity as a leader will be determined by how well you learn to deal with uncertainty. My enemy is not uncertainty. It is not even my responsibility to remove the uncertainty. It is my responsibility to bring clarity into the midst of the uncertainty. As leaders we can afford to be uncertain, but we cannot afford to be unclear. People will follow you in spite of a few bad decisions. People will not follow you if you are unclear in your instruction. As a leader you must develop the elusive skill of leading confidently and purposefully onto uncertain terrain. Next generation leaders must fear a lack of clarity more than a lack of accuracy. The individual in your organization who communicates the clearest vision will often be perceived as the leader. Clarity is perceived as leadership. Uncertainty exposes a lack of knowledge. Pretending exposes a lack of character. Express your uncertainty with confidence. You will never maximize your potential in any area without coaching. It is impossible. Self-evaluation is helpful, but evaluation from someone else is essential. You need a leadership coach. Great leaders are great learners. God, in His wisdom, has placed men and women around us with the experience and discernment we often lack. Experience alone doesn’t make you better at anything. Evaluated experience is what enables you to improve your performance. As a leader, what you don’t know can hurt you. What you don’t know about yourself can put a lid on your leadership. You owe it to yourself and to those who have chosen to follow you to open the doors to evaluation. Engage a coach. Success doesn’t make anything of consequence easier. Success just raises the stakes. Success brings with it the unanticipated pressure of maintaining success. The more successful you are as a leader, the more difficult this becomes. There is far more pressure at the top of an organization than you might imagine.