Return to Love

by Marianne Williamson

We’re more afraid of life than we are of death.

And there’s only one despair worse than “God, I blew it.”—and that’s, “God, I blew it again.”

The moment of surrender is not when life is over. It’s when it begins.

“Love does not conquer all things, but it does set all things right.”

Love taken seriously is a radical outlook,

Thought is Cause; experience is Effect. If you don’t like the effects in your life, you have to change the nature of your thinking.

I’m willing to see this differently. Amen.”

It’s unbelievable how tenaciously we cling to what we’ve prayed to be released from.

To the extent that we abandon love, to that extent we will feel it has abandoned us.

The word sin means loveless perception. It is an archery term. It means “you missed the mark.”

Once we call on God, everything that could anger us is on the way. Why? Because the place where we go into anger instead of love, is our wall.

The Course tells us that it’s not up to us what we learn, but only whether we learn through joy or through pain.

Course in Miracles says that everyone we meet will either be our crucifier or our savior, depending on what we choose to be to them. Focusing on their guilt drives the nails of self-loathing more deeply into our own skin. Focusing on their innocence sets us free. Since ‘no thoughts are neutral,’ every relationship takes us deeper into Heaven or deeper into Hell.

The places in our personality where we tend to deviate from love are not our faults, but our wounds.

“He cannot shine away what you keep hidden, for you have not offered it to Him and he cannot take it from you.”

Our walls are our wounds—the places where we feel we can’t love any more, can’t connect any more deeply, can’t forgive past a certain point. We are in each other’s lives in order to help us see where we most need healing, and in order to help us heal.

Spiritual progress is like a detoxification. Things have to come up in order to be released. Once we have asked to be healed, then our unhealed places are forced to the surface.

‘darkness is to be brought to light, and not the other way around.’

Our neuroses in relationships usually stem from our having an agenda for another person,

if the train doesn’t stop at your station, it’s not your train.

A Course in Miracles says it is ‘not our job to seek for love, but to seek for all the barriers we hold against its coming.’

Thinking that one special person is going to save us tempts us to load an awful lot of emotional pressure on whoever comes along that we think might fit the bill.

There is whoever is in front of us, and the perfect lessons to be learned from that person.

our pain doesn’t come from the love we weren’t given in the past, but from the love we ourselves aren’t giving in the present.

We don’t get to the light through endless investigation of the darkness.

The choice to give what I haven’t received is always an available option.”

“only what you have not given can be lacking in any situation.”

Rage turned outward is called rage. Rage turned inward is called ulcers and cancer and things like that. The unhealthiest thing you can do with anger is to deny you have it.

The problem, in other words, is not that we attract a certain kind of person, but rather that we are attracted to a certain kind of person. Someone who is distant emotionally might remind us, for instance, of one or both of our parents. “His energy is distant and subtly disapproving—I must be home.” The problem, then, is not just that we are offered pain, but that we are comfortable with that pain. It’s what we have always known.

we create what we defend against.

we decide what we want to see before we see it.

If you don’t already believe it yourself, another person cannot convince you you’re okay.

your only real problem is that you have forgotten who you are.

You awaken to your own perfection through your desire to see the perfection in someone else.

I can choose to see this differently.

This is my wall. This is where we must be very conscious and call on God. Ask for a miracle: “Dear God, please help me. This is it. Right here. There is where the sword enters my heart. This is where I blow it every time.”

“your best thinking got you here.” You’re the problem but you’re not the answer.

We don’t reach the light through endless analysis of the dark. We reach the light by choosing the light. Light means understanding. Through understanding, we are healed.

We are not held back by the love we didn’t receive in the past, but by the love we’re not extending in the present.

As we love, we shall be released from pain, and as we deny love, we shall remain in pain.

Every moment, we’re either extending love or projecting fear, and every thought takes us nearer to Heaven or hell.

If something makes your heart sing, that’s God’s way of telling you it’s a contribution He wants you to make.

we sometimes lose our personal power by forgetting why we have it.