Agapi Stassinopoulos Quotes

Maybe your path is completely different from what you imagined.

My mother found a way out of a little one-bedroom apartment in Athens, Greece to bring Arianna to Cambridge to study economics and bring me to the Royal Academy in London with very few financial resources and no connections. She didn't know anybody in England, but she found a way. Her love for her daughters and seeing what they could be, motivated her and gave her the chutzpah, the courage, to break down barriers. When you have the motivation of love, you will find the way.

One of the most powerful sayings I have come across is by Imam ash-Shafi'I, "My heart is at ease knowing that what was meant for me will never miss me, and that what misses me was never meant for me."

We start to feel not good enough and we withdraw our hearts energy and sensor our authentic expression, and that hurts!

I'm not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.

When there is spirit and light, the dark forces of whatever is hidden and suppressed - like hatred and separation - become more powerful.

We worry so much in this culture about being happy. The pursuit of happiness is even written in our Constitution. It's an erroneous concept because we are emotional, thinking beings that are constantly affected by a hundred things around us and inside us.

I think I have an awareness inside of me that we are all the same, that basically we are all part of that one heart.

I feel there is a great spiritual awakening on the planet right now. More than any previous time, people are drawn to meditation, to mindfulness, to yoga. These have become mainstream in the West because there is a hunger.

A friend of mine helped me find my confidence by trusting the knowledge that I was not alone in writing my first book. She helped me wake up to the fact that I had a source of creativity that was my true creative nature and when I embraced it and asked for this presence in my life, I felt as if the dam of the Niagra Falls had burst and all sorts of wonderful things started to happen when I found my voice. It has been a process ever since and I am now a big advocate in the message that we are not alone and we all have ample creativity within us if we just trust it.

Be generous with your heart! The more we spontaneously give, the more connected and enriched we will feel. What if we use each other as our living temples, and put our best offering foot forward to see what direction life points us? I believe that if we live in a state of offering - even if we think we have nothing to offer - life blesses us and we feel more at peace with who we are and what we have.

You can feel small, insignificant and insubstantial, but knowing the universe is in your tiny body should be enough to make you happy.

When I'm in a state of goodness about the world, no matter what is happening, I see that goodness. But if I'm in an irritable, angry, separate state, I've shut down.

Some people are introverts and if they don't have enough time for themselves, they don't feel right. And extroverts don't feel right with too much alone time. There are those who need walks in nature or they feel depressed. Your linchpin is the pin that makes the wheel go. If you lose it, the wheel falls apart.

I also draw strength from so many people that I meet through my speaking engagements and my life and when I feel the joy that gets ignited when kindred spirits are together. It gives me such hope that each one of us can contribute to make this world a better place.

There is a spirit, an energy, that works with us. We've all felt it at some point in our lives.

Separation happens in so many different dimensions. We see it everywhere. I believe we are all part of the spiritual heart. We all come from that place of oneness, so that place in us that knows love, that knows connection, hurts. It's a challenge that we also feel more than any other time because it's in the news and social media. It's in our families. There is division with people in our lives, as well as political division and religious division.

I draw strength from spirit, from the divine light. I draw strength from the love my sister and I have for each other, from my nieces, Christina and Isabella, and the true friendships I have in my life that are based in being real with each other and mutual love and support.

How many times have you prayed or asked or said you needed help, when suddenly somebody showed up in your life? We are all connected through our thoughts.

I say to this generation: "We must encourage these kids." Tell them they are wonderful and capable. Be their cheerleader. And when they don't get what they want, say, "Okay, sweetheart, yours is coming. Let's help you get it." Be there 100% for them.

We forget that our bodies are the most valuable, precious thing we have and take that miracle of life for granted.

The key to success is radical generosity.

If you're going to live in the anxiety of the surface of this world, you're never going to find the depth, the source. If you want calmness, you've got to go deeper.

I think I have an awareness inside of me that we are all the same, that basically we are all part of that one heart. When I am with people, I feel there is a part of me that knows a part of them because we are beyond our personalities, our emotions, and our thoughts.

We are not just these three-dimensional bodies walking around. Our unconscious communicates and other people pick it up and they come to our rescue, or a spirit comes to our rescue.

No matter who you are, you have a giant self.

What inspires me is helping others to become more of who they are and to learn to become radically generous with each other.

Separation can make us feel helpless and powerless, like we have no control. To withstand this negative force, we must return to our inner core, and that takes work. That takes time and patience.

It gives me such hope that each one of us can contribute to make this world a better place.

You wake in the morning and proclaim yourself to be the bearer of goodness. "I will bring good. I will attract good. I will create good. Good things happen to me, and my life is good." You start to move into the track of goodness, and that becomes a place of abundance, a place of rest, a place of relaxation, and a place of trust.

People who say, "I don't believe in God," I want to say to them, "Forget the G O D word. But can you believe that there is something larger than yourself that is working for you and around you in a brilliant cosmic intelligence?" To me, daily practice of meditation is accessing that reverence and awe and really tapping into it. Do whatever it takes to move with it, to partner with it, and live your life with that in mind. Imagine what would happen if enough of us did that? We would open to such amazing energy, creativity, and power.

My greatest life lesson has been to not wait for the opportunities to come to me. I realize how important it is to be proactive and to create the opportunities myself.

Because of social media, we have access to amazing spiritual teachers. You can watch the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Eckhart Tolle or any number of other masters. Their teachings are available and we must celebrate that.

Seeing how many people in our world today are focused on doing good in this world for others, especially in the younger generation and how passionate they feel about making a difference. What inspires me is helping others to become more of who they are and to learn to become radically generous with each other.

If your own strong ego clashes with other strong egos, you not going to get anywhere. I studied psychology and learned about the many parts of us that we need to integrate so we don't walk around feeling disconnected: personality, soul, ego. If you do feel disconnected, you need to ask which part is feeling that way. Your ego is there to boost you up, if recognized and used correctly.

Unbinding the Heart means to really look at the areas in our lives where we withhold our own love from our self and others.

What I learned from comparisons and jealousies is that they point to where you haven't filled your cup or owned your gifts. They point to where you are not yet 100% you. We know that when you are fully engaged in doing what you're doing and your heart and creative spirit are involved, you couldn't care less what anybody else is doing.

In my own life, there were many things that didn't happen for me in the outside world, but that gave me an opportunity to look inside to find my spirit, my courage, my confidence and ultimately, to find my heart. When I found those things, I felt liberated. I found resilience of spirit, realized I had much to offer and gained abundance.

In our heart, we are all the same and I think that belief makes me open up, reach out to others, and bring my own warmth and loving to them. I am very grateful that I have found a way to express what means so much to me, which is that caring for one another.

I still work that expectation/disappointment cycle all the time. I think it is part of the human nature and I think the most important thing is not to judge it. We are human and we do have expectations and a lot of our expectations are often not met. It is a process of learning how to be kind and compassionate and loving to ourselves when we don't get the things we want when people, circumstances, and opportunities don't match our expectations.

We are not alone and we all have ample creativity within us if we just trust it.

We are living in an inspiring and unimaginably large universe. Contemplating the immensity of our cosmos can make you feel very small and insignificant. But think about it. You have 37.2 trillion cells in your body. There is vastness outside you and vastness inside you. You are connected to this mystery, you are a microcosm of the universe, and every aspect of your life benefits from the universe's provision.

One of the things I tell young people - and older people too - is that when things don't happen that you want, don't drown in discouragement. We say, "Oh, this didn't happen, so nothing good will happen." Don't barricade yourself.

Into your darkest corner, you are safe in my love, you are protected. I am the openess you seek, I am your doorway. Come sit in the circular temple of my heart, & let yourself be calm.

I see parents who bring their kids down because their parents did that to them, instead of reinforcing their gifts, and instilling a sense of what they came to this earth to do.

Let's say you're auditioning for a part or you're going for a job you really want. You have to go in with a sense of self or you're not going to get the job. You need your ego to get what it is that you want to make things happen in your life.

Treat yourself as if you were someone inexpressibly dear to you.

We are all born with an open heart, but at some point as we are growing up, things happen in our lives where we start to shut down, like rejection, not fitting in, wanting approval, judgments, comparisons, and criticism of others.