Surviving Storms Quotes

“Love and loss are inextricably linked, humbling and transforming, though we would rather have our loved one back. And no matter how much we resist rejoining life, the unseen teachers move through us, rearranging the chasm we are trying to climb out of as we feel ourselves being pulled between the plethora of life and the godforsaken emptiness. Out of unbearable grief, the heart like a phoenix mysteriously emerges in time from its own ash, one heart-giving at a time.”
― Mark Nepo, Surviving Storms: Finding the Strength to Meet Adversity

“One inescapable and humbling challenge of loss is that grief requires us to make new maps. For when we lose something dear—a person or a way of life—the geography as we have known it has changed. And so, our old maps, no matter how dear, are no longer accurate, no longer of use. We have to make new maps for how to move forward. In its paradoxical way, grief forces us back into the world where we have to keep learning.”
― Mark Nepo, Surviving Storms: Finding the Strength to Meet Adversity

“We have no choice but to accept the truth of what is and love our way forward, discovering the new life unlived ahead of us.”
― Mark Nepo, Surviving Storms: Finding the Strength to Meet Adversity

“And though we have crashed, the harsh beauty of waves is that they always reform, gathering all they’ve been through to rise and crest again. Likewise, we can learn from what we’ve been through. We can expand again and open our minds and hearts. We can find our way back to kindness, if we dare to see each other in ourselves and accept the truth of what we’ve broken. Then, we can see what needs repair.”
― Mark Nepo, Surviving Storms: Finding the Strength to Meet Adversity

“LOVING IS THE practice ground for everything. By loving, we awaken the heart, sending care into the world through our hands. At the same time, suffering keeps breaking what can be broken until we reach what is unbreakable. It keeps undoing what can’t last until we are standing on what will last.”
― Mark Nepo, Surviving Storms: Finding the Strength to Meet Adversity