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Suffering is universal. But victimhood is optional.
We’re going to be affected by environmental and genetic factors over which we have little or no control. But we each get to choose whether or not we stay a victim. We don’t get to choose what happens to us, but we do get to choose how we respond to our experience.
The only one you have is you. You’re born alone. You die alone. So start by getting up in the morning and going to the mirror. Look yourself in the eye and say, “I love you.” Say, “I’m never going to leave you.” Hug yourself. Kiss yourself. Try it!
Sometimes it just takes one sentence to point the way out of victimhood: Is it good for me?
We can all find strength and freedom, even within terrible circumstances.
we resist and rail against what we’re experiencing, we take away from our growth and healing. Instead, we can acknowledge the awful thing that is happening and find the best way to live with it.
“Tell me more.”
You can’t ever know how someone else feels. It’s not happening to you.
To be empathetic and supportive, don’t take on other people’s inner life as if it is your own. That’s just another way of robbing others of their experience—and of keeping them stuck.
To remember that a feeling is just a feeling—it’s not your identity.
“Guilt is in the past,” I told her. “Worry is in the future. The only thing you can change is right here in the present.
But generosity isn’t generous if we chronically give at the expense of ourselves, if our giving makes us a martyr or fuels our resentment. Love means that we practice self-love, that we strive to be generous and compassionate toward others—and to ourselves.
It’s true that generosity and compassion are vital to foster. But
selflessness doesn’t serve anyone—it leaves everyone deprived. And being self-reliant doesn’t mean you refuse care and love from others.
Remember, you’re the only one you’ll never lose. You can look outside yourself to feel cherished—or you can learn to cherish yourself.
Loving yourself is the only foundation for wholeness, health, and joy. So fall in love with yourself! It’s not narcissistic. Once you begin to heal, what you discover will not be the new you, but the real you. The you that was there all along, beautiful, born with love and joy.
But you can’t want something for another person. You can only discover what’s right for you.
This is one of the most important tools for managing conflict: stop denying someone else’s truth.
I’m very selective about who’s going to get my anger, because when I’m angry, I’m the one who suffers.
Tell yourself, “The more he talks, the more relaxed I become.”
The best way to let go of the need for control is to become powerful. Power has nothing to do with brawn or domination. It means you have the strength to respond instead of react, to take charge of your life, to have total ownership of your choices. You are powerful because you’re not giving your power away.
Only you can decide if a relationship depletes or empowers you. But it’s not a question to answer quickly. You can’t know the truth about your relationships until you deal with your own wounds, until you bury and leave behind all the things from the past you’re still dragging around.
The language of fear is the language of resistance. And if we’re resisting, we’re working very hard to ensure that we go nowhere. We deny growth and curiosity. We’re revolving, not evolving, shutting down opportunities for change.
To free yourself from the prison, pay attention to your language. Listen for the I can’t, the I’m trying, the I need to, and then see if you can replace these imprisoning phrases with something else: I can, I want, I’m willing, I choose. This is the language that empowers us to change.
It doesn’t take courage to strive for perfection. It takes courage to be average. To say, “I’m okay with me.” To say, “Good enough is good enough.”
But to stop bigotry means you start with yourself. You let go of judgment and choose compassion.
We never know what’s ahead. Hope isn’t the white paint we use to mask our suffering. It’s an investment in curiosity. A recognition that if we give up now, we’ll never get to see what happens next.
