The Wisdom of Anxiety Quotes

“Anxiety asks you, dear reader, to embrace the gift of who you are. Maybe you’ve been told that you’re too much — too sensitive, too dramatic, too emotional, too analytical — and this message was translated inside your young self to mean that you were wrong or broken in some way. But you must begin to know now, as hopefully you will as you read through this book, that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you. You’re not broken. You’re not too much. You’re not wrong. In fact, it’s the very qualities that you’ve been shamed for that you now need to wrap up like a hurt animal and hug close to your heart. For it’s when you stop seeing your sensitivity as a burden and instead recognize it as the gift it is that you will begin to heal the hurt places inside you and bring your full presence into the world.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“Part of what trips us up is that we expect life and relationships to be easy. There is nothing easy about life, and relationships especially seem to stir up every hidden demon, every dusty complex, every latent unshed tear from our own life and our parents’ histories hidden away in the attics of their psyches. Relationships ask us to grow in ways that nothing else does or can.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“For it’s when you stop seeing your sensitivity as a burden and instead recognize it as the gift it is that you will begin to heal the hurt places inside you and bring your full presence into the world.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“Carl Jung said that if you find the psychic wound in an individual or a people, there you also find their path to consciousness. For it is in the healing of our psychic wounds that we come to know ourselves. . . . In the evolution of consciousness, our greatest problem is always our richest opportunity. ROBERT JOHNSON We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“Every moment you can meet your difficult feelings with kindness is a moment of peace.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“If we try to ignore the inner world, as most of us do, the unconscious will find its way into our lives through pathology: our psychosomatic symptoms, compulsions, depressions, and neuroses.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“Many people are so identified with their shame-and-pain stories that they’re scared to shift out of that identity; they would rather remain miserable than take the risk of stepping into a new story. Remember: resistance clings to the familiar at all costs, even if what’s familiar is making you miserable.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“Jungian psychology teaches us that resistance itself is part of the plan. It’s not just something to get over or hate, but our resistance, because it provides something to push up against, helps us grow. It’s not any more helpful to think of resistance as a bad part of our personality than it is to think of anxiety as the enemy. Rather, like anxiety, resistance is an essential aspect of self that, when attended to and worked with effectively, aids our healing process. In other words, by working with resistance, we strengthen our sense of self. It’s all exactly as it’s meant to be; none of it is an accident.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“We’re so deeply conditioned to believe that there’s a right or wrong choice that when it comes time to make even minor decisions in life, we’re scared of messing up.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“For anxiety is both the wound and the messenger, and at the core of the message is an invitation to wake up. In order to decipher the specifics of its messages, we have to shift from a mindset of shame, which sees anxiety as evidence of brokenness, to a mindset of curiosity, which recognizes that anxiety is evidence of our sensitive heart, our imaginative mind, and our soul’s desire to grow toward wholeness.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“There is no growth without real feeling. Children not loved for who they are do not learn how to love themselves. Their growth is an exercise in pleasing others, not in expanding through experience. As adults, they must learn to nurture their own lost child.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“Resistance, which is a cousin of fear, manifests as feeling too lazy, scared, or tired to engage in the practices or actions that you know will serve your higher self.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“Ego. The ego, which simply means “I” in Latin, is the part of ourselves that is conscious and of which we are aware. As Robert Johnson writes in Inner Work, When we say “I” we are referring to only that small sector of ourselves of which we are aware. We assume that “I” contains only this personality, these traits, these values and viewpoints that are up on the surface within the ego’s range of vision, accessible to consciousness. This is my limited, highly inaccurate version of who “I” am.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“we’re broken open, brought to our knees, dragged into the underworld not to be tortured or because there’s something wrong or disordered with us, but because there’s something right and beautiful inside that is longing to be seen and known.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“Letting Go. During which we separate from the old life, grieve the losses, express and explore fears and expectations about the new life. In-Between or Liminal. During which we’re in the liminal (limbo) zone of transition—detached from the old life but not yet established in the new one—a highly uncomfortable place, characterized by feeling numb, disoriented, depressed, and out of control. Rebirth. During which we embrace the new life and identity and feel confident, comfortable, and excited about the possibilities of growth that a new beginning holds.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How worry and intrusive thoughts are gifts to help you heal

“•​Offering gratitude •​Recording and tending to dreams •​Fresh air and sunshine •​Smiling at a stranger •​Gardening •​Beauty, flowers, color, trees •​Sitting near a body of water, or immersing yourself in one •​Walking and talking with a close friend •​Taking the long way home •​Meandering •​Encountering a wild animal •​Pets •​Reading a poem, and writing one •​Drawing, painting, writing, dancing, singing, chanting •​Being in nature •​Autumn colors, snowfall, spring buds •​Walking in the rain •​Talking to the moon •​Looking at the stars •​Listening to crickets •​Candlelight •​Baths •​Stillness, silence, and solitude •​Doing less and being more •​Being in silence •​Meaningful rituals”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“At the beginning or end of the day, after you step away from tablets and phones and people, spend at least five minutes in solitude. Let yourself dwell in the pause, between consciousness and unconsciousness, between masculine and feminine. If you notice longing or sadness travel up to consciousness through the fissure of the transition, consider moving toward it instead of brushing it aside. Notice what thoughts arise in response to the feeling, then gently bring your attention to it as if it were a fairy or a precious gem. Within this intentional liminal zone, trust where your body wants to lead you. You may want to do some gentle yoga; you may want to dance. You may feel called to sit near an open window and listen to the wind or watch the stars. You may gravitate toward the moon. If you find yourself face-to-face with the moon, listen to her wisdom. Watch for a poem or painting that may arrive. Trust the feelings that long to emerge. Pay attention to longing. Honor the images that float from unconsciousness to consciousness. Even if you’re tired and really “should” get to bed, find a way to express what comes through. Write, paint, dance, breathe, do nothing. Even your silhouette next to the window, drenched in moonlight, is an expression of the divine. Simply being you is enough.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“One of the blessings of the internet is that the contents of the collective unconscious, formerly only accessible via dreams and myths, are now more widely accessible. You are far from alone with your anxiety, no matter how it manifests.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“But when we accept the fact that anxiety, depression, loneliness, powerlessness, grief, joy, and exhilaration are all part of the design, we step out into the rain and perhaps even dance a little.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“The path to liberation lies in cultivating a more loving and realistic relationship with life, one that recognizes that there is no finish line, that we are all unformed.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“If you observe a baby, you’ll quickly see that we are born knowing what we like and don’t like, when we’re hungry, tired, or need connection. We know ourselves quite well at birth, and it’s only as a result of well-meaning parents, teachers, doctors, other adults, and caregivers that our innate self-trust is damaged.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“Deep belly breathing is one of the most commonly recommended on-the-spot practices to calm your nervous system and, thus, anxiety. The reason for this is that when you breathe deeply, pushing your belly out all the way like a balloon, your vagus nerve is activated in such a way that it calms your amygdala, the emotional response center deep within your brain.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“Religion, while often offering a sense of trust in something bigger than ourselves, can also transmit the message of basic wrongness, especially around thoughts, bodies, and sexuality. When children are raised with a belief system that tells them, “If you think certain thoughts (primarily around sexuality) you have sinned,” it’s a setup for anxiety.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“A library as big as the universe lives inside you, waiting for you to sit down in some dimly lit, quiet corner so that you can discover its contents.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“Maybe you’ve been told that you’re too much — too sensitive, too dramatic, too emotional, too analytical — and this message was translated inside your young self to mean that you were wrong or broken in some way. But you must begin to know now, as hopefully you will as you read through this book, that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you. You’re not broken. You’re not too much. You’re not wrong.”
― MA Paul, Sheryl, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“insight + action = change.”
― MA Paul, Sheryl, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“If young people were taught early in life how to orient not toward happiness but instead toward meaning and fulfillment, a significant amount of their anxiety would be reduced. Instead of transmitting the message of happiness, we need to send a message of wholeness.”
― MA Paul, Sheryl, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“You are far from alone with your anxiety, no matter how it manifests.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“we have to shift from a mindset of shame, which sees anxiety as evidence of brokenness, to a mindset of curiosity, which recognizes that anxiety is evidence of our sensitive heart, our imaginative mind,”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal

“Anxiety is a feeling of dread, agitation, or foreboding associated with a danger that does not exist in the present moment.”
― Sheryl Paul, The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal