Sarah Ban Breathnach Quotes

[I]t doesn’t matter whom you love or where you move from or to, you always take yourself with you. If you don’t know who you are, or if you’ve forgotten or misplaced her, then you’ll always feel as if you don’t belong. Anywhere. (xiii)

Faith is the very first thing you should pack in a hope chest.

The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers But above all The world needs dreamers who do.

Never forget that the most essential fashion accessories, the ones no woman can afford to do without, come from within. A generous heart, a spontaneous smile, and eyes that sparkle with delight can be part of any woman's signature look once she awakens to her authentic beauty.

Success in life is not how well we execute Plan A; it's how smoothly we cope with Plan B.

Always remember, it’s simply not an adventure worth telling if there aren’t any dragons.

Let passion be your muse. Let her guide and teach you to trust your instincts.

Celebrate the Sacred in the ordinary.

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.

Learning to live in the present moment is part of the path of joy.

Live for the event, not the outcome.

if you want your life to come together, you have to start treating yourself better.

Never forget that all you have is all you need.

Always remember that striving and struggling precede success, even in the dictionary.

Remember, no matter what life throws at us, we can always bake a cake!

Turn away from the world this year and begin to listen. Listen to the whispers of your heart. Look within. Your silent companion has lit lanterns of love to illuminate the path to Wholeness. At long last, the journey you were destined to take has begun.

You simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life.

Each day offers us the gift of being a special occasion if we can simply learn that as well as giving, it is blessed to receive with grace and a grateful heart.

Chronos is clocks, deadlines, watches, calendars, agendas, planners, schedules, beepers. Chronos is time at her worst. Chronos keeps track. ...Chronos is the world's time. Kairos is transcendence, infinity, reverence, joy, passion, love, the Sacred. Kairos is intimacy with the Real. Kairos is time at her best. ...Kairos is Spirit's time. We exist in chronos. We long for kairos. That's our duality. Chronos requires speed so that it won't be wasted. Kairos requires space so that it might be savored. We do in chronos. In kairos we're allowed to be ... It takes only a moment to cross over from chronos into kairos, but it does take a moment. All that kairos asks is our willingness to stop running long enough to hear the music of the spheres.

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. —MELODY BEATTIE

I’ve got a good feeling that this coming year is going to be your best yet. Heaven knows you deserve it.

Not every one of our desires can be immediately gratified. We’ve got to learn to wait patiently for our dreams to come true, especially on the path we’ve chosen.

The key to loving how you live is in knowing what it is you truly love.

Each life experience leaves a layer of memory like a deposit of sediment: things we’ve loved and moments of contentment we’ve cherished that when recalled, reveal glimmers of our true selves.

Your heart will always tell you what’s working and what’s not.

Sometimes a person has to go back, really back—to have a sense, an understanding of all that’s gone to make them—before they can go forward. —PAULE MARSHALL

Whether you realize it or not, you have lived many lives, and each one has left an indelible mark on your soul.

The revelation that we have everything we need in life to make us happy but simply lack the conscious awareness to appreciate it can be as refreshing as lemonade on a hot afternoon. Or it can be as startling as cold water being thrown in our face. How many of us go through our days parched and empty, thirsting after happiness, when we’re really standing knee-deep in the river of abundance?

When I looked at my life’s ledger I realized I was a very rich woman. What I was experiencing was merely a temporary cash-flow problem. Finally, I came to an inner awareness that my personal net worth couldn’t possibly be determined by the size of my checking account balance. Neither can yours.

Take another look at your life. Give thanks. Accept your circumstances. Give thanks. Count your blessings. Give thanks. Show up for each day’s meditation. Be willing to give the basic tools a fair chance. They can help you find your way.

When we realize gratefully that we can live by our own lights if we access the Power. Ask for it. Claim it. Today.

start thinking of yourself as an artist and your life as a work-in-progress.

If it’s not authentically you, live without it.

There is no companion so companionable as Solitude,” Thoreau reminds me as I carry a hot cup of tea back to bed.

We should only strive to be first-rate versions of ourselves. And our best is always good enough.

I was learning to differentiate between my needs and my wants and this powerful lesson had to be mastered before I could move forward.

take a risk a day—one small or bold stroke that makes you feel great once you have done it.

St. Francis of Assisi explains the creative process this way: the woman who works with her hands only is a laborer; the woman who works with her hands and her head is a craftswoman; the woman who works with her hands, her head, and her heart is an artist.

Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend… when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present— love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure— the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience Heaven on earth.

We can stop waiting for life to become perfect and start working with what we’ve got to make it as satisfying as we can. We can accept, bless, give thanks, and get going. Today, we can begin to call forth the riches from our everyday life. Today we can move from lack to abundance.

simple abundance, 1: an inner journey; 2: a spiritual and practical course in creative living; 3: a tapestry of contentment

Realize the past no longer holds you captive. It can only continue to hurt you if you hold on to it. Let the past go. A simply abundant world awaits.

Let go of limiting illusions that have held you back from knowing that just to be alive is a grand thing.

One can never change the past, only the hold it has on you,” Merle Shain reassures us, “and while nothing in your life is reversible, you can reverse it nevertheless.

Trust that through the balm of simplicity your frazzled and weary soul can discover the place where you ought to be. Every day offers us simple gifts when we are willing to search our hearts for the place that’s right for each of us.

Your diamonds are not in far distant mountains or in yonder seas; they are in your own backyard, if you but dig for them. —RUSSELL H. CONWELL

Always remember that striving and struggle precede success, even in the dictionary.

Sidetracked women, who scatter their energies to the four winds, never achieve serenity. (Nervous breakdowns, to be sure, but not serenity.) It’s as simple as that.

So it is with the concerto of our lives. Individual notes must be learned and played and practiced before we achieve harmony. And above all, we must learn how to pause.

A sobering thought: what if, right at this very moment, I am living up to my full potential? —JANE WAGNER

Love yourself first and everything else falls into line,” Lucille Ball advised. “You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.

Today, be willing to believe that a companion Spirit is leading you every step of the way, and knows the next step.

Invite Divine Order into your life today and a more serene tomorrow will unfold.

Every day we’re given chances to embrace the new.

This I can report from the front lines: life never calms down long enough for us to wait until tomorrow to start living the lives we deserve.

Be grateful for the home you have, knowing that at this moment, all you have is all you need.” Sarah Ban Breathnach

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world. Sarah Ban Breathnach

February arrives cold, wet and gray, her gifts disguised for only the most discerning spirits to see. Gentle is our path. Gratitude is the thread we weave into the fabric of our daily lives this month, giving thanks for our simply abundant lives and asking for the gift of one thing more: grateful hearts.

Has this ever happened to you? You are washing your face, and suddenly you do not recognize the woman staring back at you. “Who is this?” you ask the mirror on the wall. No reply. She looks vaguely familiar but bears little resemblance to the woman you were expecting to see there. Psychologists call this phenomenon a “displacement of self,” and it usually occurs during times of great stress (which for many of us is an everyday occurrence).

For the wonderful thing about saints is that they were human,” Phyllis McGinley reassures us in Saint-Watching. “They lost their tempers, got hungry, scolded God, were egotistical, or testy or impatient in their turns, made mistakes and regretted them. Still they went on doggedly blundering toward heaven.

Here Is All I’ve Counted Splendid Write it down, when I have perished: Here is everything I’ve cherished; That these walls should glow with beauty Spurred my lagging soul to duty; That there should be gladness here Kept me toiling, year by year… Every thought and every act Were to keep this home intact. —EDGAR A. GUEST

You simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you will have set in motion an ancient spiritual law: the more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given you” ― Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it; Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. —JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born. —ANAÏS NIN

There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world. —ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

For, as Frances Hodgson Burnett discovered, and we can, too, “When you have a Garden, you have a Future and when you have a Future, you are Alive.

Gardening is an instrument of grace. —May Sarton (1912–1995) American poet, novelist, and memoirist

It’s never too late to be what you might have been. —George Eliot (1819–1880) Pen name of celebrated Victorian writer Mary Ann Evans

You will express yourself in your house whether you want to or not,” said the mother of modern style, Elsie de Wolfe,

Be always ready for the gifts of God, and always for new ones” because “God is a thousand times more ready to give than you are to receive.

To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition. —SAMUEL JOHNSON

Our friends are the jewels in our crown of contentment.

Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got.

How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.

Seek not outside yourself, heaven is within. —MARY LOU COOK

Today you may not be familiar with the happiness habit. But like any new behavior, happiness can be learned.

It’s a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. —SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Turning away from the world and toward your own happiness is the path of authenticity.

Pocketful of Miracles: Prayers, Meditations, and Affirmations to Nurture Your Spirit Every Day of the Year.

Since you are like no other being ever created since the beginning of time, you are incomparable,

Today, take the negative of your Cosmic Plan and let Love develop it so that you can begin living the life for which you were created. It’s time to move forward.

To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to keep your soul alive,” Robert Louis Stevenson reminds us.

Turning fifty is an entirely different matter altogether. “At fifty, the madwoman in the attic breaks loose, stomps down the stairs, and sets fire to the house. She won’t be imprisoned anymore,

Alone, alone, Oh! We have been warned about solitary vices. Have solitary pleasures ever been adequately praised? Do many people know they exist? —Jessamyn West (1902–1984) American Quaker author

Cooking is one of the best ways for your Authentic Self to remind your conscious self that you are an artist. Like the union of canvas and pigment, cooking is alchemy, a work of Wholeness-in-progress.

The English writer Jeanette Winterson describes our dilemma beautifully: “I have a theory that every time you make an important choice, the part of you left behind continues the other life you could have had.

Repotting means accepting that the way is forward, not back. It means realizing that we won’t again fit into our old shells. But that’s not failure. That’s living. —Heather Cochran American novelist and television producer

Autumn to winter, winter to spring, Spring into summer, summer into fall— So rolls the changing year, and so we change; Motion so swift, we know not that we move. —Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826–1887) Victorian English novelist and poet

The outward and visible way in which we move through our daily round—the time, creative energy, emotion, attitude, and attention with which we endow our tasks—is how we elevate the mundane to the transcendent. Moments of illumination aren’t just experienced by saints, mystics, and poets.

When money is plenty this is a man’s world. When money is scarce it is a woman’s world. When all else seems to have failed, the woman’s instinct comes in. She gets the job. That is a reason why, in spite of all that happens, we continue to have a world. —LADIES’ HOME JOURNAL, October 1932

Offer grace for the bounty of goodness. Raise the song of harvest home, the glass of good cheer, the heart overflowing with joy. We have so much for which to be thankful. So much about which to smile, so much to share. So much, that in this season of plenty, we can embrace the season of relinquishment. All we have is all we need.

recognize that one of the reasons Christmases past probably didn’t live up to your expectations is that you’ve tried to do too much, too perfectly. Look at that list. Choose to let only what you love best about the holidays remain. Cross out two more “musts.” Now there’s time for gazing out the window at gently falling snow, delighting in the sounds of bells and joyful music, savoring the sweet aromas of hot cider, roast turkey, and gingerbread, sipping hot chocolate and homemade eggnog, reading a holiday story each night at dusk, basking in a fire crackling on the hearth, and re-creating cherished customs that care for your soul as well as the souls of those you love.

And what we can see if we look deep within is that the authentic self is the Soul made visible. Do not try to remake yourself into something you’re not. Just try making the best of what God made. The sacred art and craft of nurturing our souls and the souls of those we love is Simple Abundance soulcraft. Begin today by turning on the Light.

The way you reach that awareness is through an inner journey that brings about an emotional, psychological, and spiritual transformation. A deep inner shift in your reality occurs, aligning you with the creative energy of the Universe. Such change is possible when you invite Spirit to open up the eyes of your awareness to the abundance that is already yours.

Cultivate gratitude. Carve out an hour a day for solitude. Begin and end the day with prayer, meditation, reflection. Keep it simple. Keep your house picked up. Don’t overschedule. Strive for realistic deadlines. Never make a promise you can’t keep. Allow an extra half hour for everything you do. Create quiet surroundings at home and at work. Go to bed at nine o’clock twice a week. Always carry something interesting to read. Breathe—deeply and often. Move—walk, dance, run, find a sport you enjoy. Drink pure spring water. Lots of it. Eat only when hungry. If it’s not delicious, don’t eat it. Be instead of do. Set aside one day a week for rest and renewal. Laugh more often. Luxuriate in your senses. Always opt for comfort. If you don’t love it, live without it. Let Mother Nature nurture. Don’t answer the telephone during dinner. Stop trying to please everybody. Start pleasing yourself. Stay away from negative people. Don’t squander precious resources: time, creative energy, emotion. Nurture friendships. Don’t be afraid of your passion. Approach problems as challenges. Honor your aspirations. Set achievable goals. Surrender expectations.

The kitchen is about the re-creation of childhood the way you wanted it to be, keeping all that was wonderful in your own early years, while weeding out those things that caused pain. We remember the hubbub of women, the warm sweets and hovering smells, the unction of food and love, the wrapping hug of the wainscoting of counters and ovens around the walls, the inkling that one might always find a mother there,

The answers to your questions will come, but only after you know which ones are worth asking. Wait. Live your questions. Then ask. Become open to the changes that the answers will inevitably bring. This may take some time, but time is the New Year’s bountiful blessing: three hundred sixty-five bright mornings and starlit evenings; fifty-two promising weeks; twelve transformative months full of beautiful possibilities; and four splendid seasons. A simply abundant year to be savored.

No matter which route you take, within twenty-four hours the day will be over. Tomorrow should be better. But if it’s not, nor the next day, or the next, then know that it’s okay to ask for help from friends, a support group, a therapist, a doctor, or your Higher Power. Dark days come to all of us. Yet discouraging days bring with them golden opportunities when we can learn to be kind to ourselves. Believe it or not, today offers you a hidden gift, if you’re willing to search for it.

Make no mistake, when you start on the path to authenticity, Love will change you, transforming your life into countless ways. Your family and friends might not notice the changes in the beginning because they're so small. but you will, and you'll know that miracles are taking place. Love will dissolve your fears by creating opportunities you couldn't have imagined before you begin the search to discover and recover your authentic self. And when doubt, despair, and denial threaten to dismantle your dreams, love will rear up in your defense. The next time you feel frightened and fragile, stand very still. If you do, you might feel the tip of an angel's wing brush against your shoulder.

As Kathy sang of friends who had been taken for granted, sweethearts she had known, and a wonderful world full of strangers just waiting to make a connection with us (while we turn our eyes away), something deep within me stirred. There was so much I was taking for granted. I didn’t want to continue to live unconsciously. The revelation that we have everything we need in life to make us happy but simply lack the conscious awareness to appreciate it can be as refreshing as lemonade on a hot afternoon. Or it can be as startling as cold water being thrown in our face. How many of us go through our days parched and empty, thirsting after happiness, when we’re really standing knee-deep in the river of abundance? Yet make no mistake about it. The Universe will get our attention one way or another—with a sip or a splash. Let’s choose today to quench our thirst for “the good life” we think others lead by acknowledging the good that already exists in our own lives. We can then offer the Universe the gift of our grateful hearts.