Ayelet > Ayelet's Quotes

“The person who hurt you--who raped you or killed your family--is also here. If you are still angry at that person, if you haven't been able to forgive, you are chained to him. Everyone could feel the emotional truth of that: When someone offends you and you haven't let go, every time you see him, you grow breathless or your heart skips a beat. If the trauma was really severe, you dream of revenge. Above you, is the Mountain of Peace and Prosperity where we all want to go. But when you try to climb that hill, the person you haven't forgiven weighs you down. It's a personal choice whether or not to let go. No one can tell you how long to mourn a death or rage over a rape. But you can't move forward until you break that chain.”
― Leymah Gbowee, Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War

“You can tell people of the need to struggle, but when the powerless start to see that they really can make a difference, nothing can quench the fire.”
― Leymah Gbowee, Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War

“Organizations like the UN do a lot of good, but there are certain basic realities they never seem to grasp ...Maybe the most important truth that eludes these organizations is that it's insulting when outsiders come in and tell a traumatized people what it will take for them to heal.
You cannot go to another country and make a plan for it. The cultural context is so different from what you know that you will not understand much of what you see. I would never come to the US and claim to understand what's going on, even in the African American culture. People who have lived through a terrible conflict may be hungry and desperate, but they are not stupid. They often have very good ideas about how peace can evolve, and they need to be asked.
That includes women. Most especially women ...
To outsiders like the UN, these soldiers were a problem to be managed. But they were our children.”
― Leymah Gbowee, Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War

“have to open the gate to our heart. Opening the heart unlocks the heart of the universe, and we see what is always before us.”
― Jeff Brown, Soulshaping: A Journey of Self-Creation

“It’s something how our fool mind tries to build the future on worry. Why should something terrible happen? I remembered Jenny saying how thoughts make our lives, and decided to remove that fearful thinking, allowing my heart and its love to saturate the moment instead. I figured if we want the best in life, we shouldn’t expect the worst from it. “Awwwww,”
― Lynnda Pollio, Trusting the Currents

“I will, from today, cease trying to impress others as being someone other than who I am or what I am. I will, from today try to express myself as I really am; no pretensions, no misrepresentations and no real concerns for what I think others expect of me. I’m just going to be me! I am going to forgive myself for all my human foibles and frailties, to date, and accept my many past indiscretions as natural and normal in a personal growth process. Oh what a relief - I’ll just be the best me I can be and do the best I can. If I do the best I can - what more can any one want of me.”
― Melvin Hassan, A Guaranteed Formula For Happiness

“Until you truly value and love yourself to the core, the rest is simply noise. It is easy to fall into the trap of trying to please all the people all the time and end up losing sight of yourself”
― Ayelet Baron, F*ck The Bucket List for the Health Conscious

“We have been conditioned to think that someone outside ourselves has our answers or holds our power.”
― Ayelet Baron, F*ck The Bucket List for the Health Conscious

“Shifting your focus to dream about the impact you want to have requires letting go of the need to prove yourself and bringing forth your talents to make it happen.”
― Ayelet Baron, F*ck The Bucket List for the Health Conscious