Need a Perspective Shift?

Simple and Uplifting Words to Improve Your Day

Here are some simple words I have come across lately that offer inspiration and hope, especially during monotonous or tedious times, when you may have been working hard on something and not seen a lot of progress. Or you are a little bored with the day in day out sameness of everything. Or you find yourself in a complaint mode a little more than you’d like.

I like to keep an ongoing list of best lines I’ve read or heard, and refer to them periodically, especially when I need a shift in perspective or some uplift in my heart.  I share a section of my long list with you, in case you are needing the same.

Look at your feet. You are standing in the sky. When we think of the sky, we tend to look up, but the sky actually begins at the earth.
DIANE ACKERMAN

Thousands of candles can be lit by one candle and it will never shorten the life of that candle.
Mindfulness app

Whoever believes in the good in people, draws forth the good in people.
JEAN PAUL

In the stillness of the quiet, if we listen, we can hear the whisper of the heart giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair.
HOWARD THURMAN

When before the beauty of a sunset or a mountain, you pause and exclaim, “Ah,” you are participating in divinity.
ANCIENT HINDU TEXT

For all that has been — thanks. For all that shall be — yes.
DAG HAMMARSKJÖLD.

Who you are in the valley of your life is who you really are. – Wanda Durant

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in the quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.
MARY JEAN IRION

Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.
A. A. MILNE

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
CAMUS

Gratefulness is that fullness of life for which we are all thirsting.
BR. DAVID STEINDL-RAST

Everything can be taken…but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
VIKTOR FRANKL

Hurt people hurt people. And free people, free people. – Sarah Jones
**Also see Sarah Jones’ TED talk ‘A One Woman Global Village’

You may not be able to control all the events that happen to you, but you can choose to not be reduced by them. – Maya Angelou

People often say that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves.
SALMA HAYEK

The function of freedom is to free someone else.
TONI MORRISON

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.
SOCRATES

If we begin to get in touch with whatever we feel with some kind of kindness, our protective shells will melt, and we’ll find that more areas of our lives are workable.
PEMA CHODRON

The movie ‘Lion’ with Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman and a beautiful young boy, Sunny Pawar – a very touching story about trauma and healing

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”- Maya Angelou

“In the end, just three things matter: How well we have lived. How well we have loved.  How well we have learned to let go”― Jack Kornfield

Silence, I discover is something you can actually hear.
Mindfulness reminder

Weigh the true advantages of forgiveness and resentment to the heart. Then choose.
JACK KORNFIELD

I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being!
HAFIZ

Don’t confuse social media with social justice – Leroy Morishita

The sacred is not in heaven or far away. It is all around us, and small human rituals can connect us to its presence.
ALMA LUZ VILLANUEVA

My life is perfect. Even when it’s not. – MFN reminder

I’d love to hear from you. What do you go to when you need a perspective shift or change of heart? What do you find yourself complaining about?

If you need help to get past your complaints and improve your satisfaction in life, please contact me for individual, couples or adolescent therapy.

For more ideas on how to bring more calm and less worry into your life, click here for a free email course on Mindfulness.

Listening with Heart
Cindi Rivera, MFT
Marriage, Family Therapist
www.cindiriveratherapy.com
[email protected]
(510) 482-4445