Life offers its wisdom generously. Everything teaches. Not everyone learns. Life asks of us the same thing we have been asked in every class: "Stay awake." "Pay attention." But paying attention is no simple matter. It requires us not to be distracted by expectations, past experiences, labels, and masks. It asks that we not jump to early conclusions and that we remain open to surprise.
Rachel Naomi RemenChances are that any helpful two-year-old will break some eggs. We are often not very good at things when we are new. But there may be an important choice to make at such moments. Do we support and protect the innate wish to be of help to others in our children, or do we protect the eggs? Hard as it seems, the greater mother wisdom may lie in a willingness to clean up broken eggs or replace a mitten and a box of crayons.
Rachel Naomi RemenI don't think there's such a thing as a bad emotion. The only bad emotion is a stuck emotion.
Rachel Naomi RemenAn unanswered question is a fine traveling companion. It sharpens your eye for the road.
Rachel Naomi RemenHealing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isnโt you - all of the expectations, all of the beliefs - and becoming who you are.
Rachel Naomi RemenI spent the first forty years of my life making major interventions into other people's lives, and I have an idea of the limitations of that method. I see a major event as rather like major surgery. It is a moment, but whether people use it, whether people go with it, needs to be seen.
Rachel Naomi Remen