How to Walk into a Room Quotes

“Maybe you need someone to tell you that no matter how much you wanted something, prayed for something, or worked hard to get it, if the room no longer seems to fit, it’s good to begin to explore why. You are allowed to ask questions. You are allowed to reconsider. You are allowed to look around and to look again.”
― Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

“Sharon McMahon (known online as America’s Government Teacher) says, “Anyone who changes their mind based on new and better information is criticized and denounced. So it disincentivizes people from using critical thought when in reality the ethical thing is to change your mind based on new and better information.”
― Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

“My hope for you is that this book will be the beginning of the end of your subconscious compulsion to trust everyone else more than you trust yourself, not as a replacement for God or community, but in loving partnership with them, as one who has voice, as one who belongs, as one who can be trusted.”
― Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

“Here’s to knowing you’re not the only one even if the people around you seem to have all found their place already. Here’s to being honest about what is true today. Here’s to not looking too far into the future or living too far in the past. Here’s to grieving and celebrating and grieving again. Here’s to experiencing the life of Christ in new and unexpected ways. Here’s to a longer table, even if, for now, it’s only in your heart.”
― Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

“the people of God is the with-ness of God who has not”
― Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

“Anyone who changes their mind based on new and better information is criticized and denounced. So it disincentivizes people from using critical thought when in reality the ethical thing is to change your mind based on new and better information.”2”
― Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

“As it is, I know a little bit about a lot of things (though I’m working to become a specialist in a few). But one little bit I know for sure is that my body is always speaking. And I also know that I’ve spent a lot of my life ignoring, discounting, and dismissing what she says.”
― Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

“Learning how to walk into a room like a leader means listening to my feelings, honoring when they show up, and leading myself through them first. It also means listening to my thoughts, not only the ones that seem acceptable and nice but also the ones that point out what I’ve lost, what I miss, and what I wish were true.”
― Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

“And here’s the secret about people-pleasing no one really tells us: it doesn’t actually please the people. When you’re trying to please the people rather than working to discern from a centered, wholehearted place, your work will never be enough. It will always exhaust you and never fully please those around you.”
― Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

“When things end, our heart might break, especially when the ending is unexpected, unfair, or unexplainable. The ending is a part, but it isn’t the whole. Don’t let the ending steal the narrative.”
― Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

“Just because you discern it’s time to leave something behind—a name, a box of memories, a title or position—doesn’t mean it was a bad thing to have.”
― Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

“closure isn’t about everything working out; it’s about acknowledging the ending. How can you bring closure to an ending? Put a period on the experience by naming what you’re bringing with you and what you’ll leave behind.”
― Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

“Now, instead of trying to find a place to call home forever, or a job or a church or a particular creative expression, I’m learning that even though the places and spaces that surround our lives may change over time, one place I want to be content to stay forever is with myself.”
― Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

“There is a solid, still place deep within us where we dwell as whole. And from that place we can discern if our fear is a healthy fear, a result of wisdom. Or if our fear is a dysfunctional fear, a result of avoidance.”
― Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

“To be ‘well,’” according to authors Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski in their book Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, “is not to live in a state of perpetual safety and calm, but to move fluidly from a state of adversity, risk, adventure, or excitement, back to safety and calm, and out again. Stress is not bad for you; being stuck is bad for you.”
― Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

“discernment is a practice that involves our whole self, including our imagination. Some of my most difficult, transformative decisions have been resolved in part due to a meaningful image, picture, or metaphor that has grounded me to a deeper, sometimes invisible reality. This, too, can be a presence that comforts and sustains.”
― Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

“What if changing our minds could be less like a house fire and more like a prescribed burn: healing and expected?”
― Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

“Sometimes the decision to leave leads to quick movement and instant change. Often, though, leaving well actually starts with a choice to stay for now so that you can leave when the time is right. This may be years in the making, requiring patience, persistence, and a lot of grace.”
― Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

“as Parker Palmer puts it in Let Your Life Speak: “Before I can tell my life what I intend to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.”
― Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

“It’s possible to become very successful in a life that doesn’t fit you. It happens all the time.”
― Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

“What if there are as many ways of connecting with and expressing love for God as there are humans?”
― Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

“But so many of the stay-at-any-cost standards we may hold ourselves to come from an ingrained belief that if we leave, quit, or change our mind, then that says something about our character. Maybe that means I’m flaky or unreliable. Maybe this is a verdict about not just my actions but also my identity: Not only did I quit; I am a “quitter.”
― Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away

“When something comes into our lives—a doubt, a restlessness, a sense that it’s time to make a change—and we find it difficult to put into words, or we try to express it and are dismissed or ignored, then it makes sense we would begin to outsource our confidence.”
― Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away