Fall’s Heart Full Moments 2019

A monthly feature of “Listening with Heart” blog, sharing wise words, meaningful things read or good things found, to help warm your heart.

May you find beauty, kindness and giving as your autumn winds into winter.

These are the most impactful quotes I have read or heard this month that give me pause or uplift my heart. Wisdom spoken in just a few words. They reflect what I’ve been reading or learning, or values I share, or what’s been going on in our world.

It’s been another very challenging month, and I know we each need some insight and encouragement to keep carrying on. I am happy to share these quotes – that speak to rejection, paying attention, emancipation, aging, lessening suffering, kindness and feeling. Take a moment to go through them and maybe highlight a few that speak to you. Enjoy…

• As the great Maya Angelou said, “When you learn, teach; when you get, give.”
• Acknowledgements to My ancestors who made it through unimaginable hardship, who prayed hard for us next ones here now, doing our best to pray and work hard for those to come.” – Tommy Orange Acknowledgements in book ‘There There’
• “My conservative estimate is that I‘ve received over 5,000 rejections in my life. So, I’ve had a lot of practice at picking myself back up.I give myself a grieving schedule and by now, it’s quick: A day or two to just cry and moan and feel terrible. A day or two to move the sadness a little farther away from my heart. Then on the fifth day, I have to try to read something, and then on the sixth or seventh day, I try to make something. Write a little bit — even if it’s just a couple of sentences of something I dream of writing.For me, the process is about getting myself reconnected to my purpose. I feel like I came to create. So, I try to stay aligned with that even though there’s so much hard stuff coming at all of us in this world.” – Veronica Chambers, writer, editor, author
• “We chose to print Rosie in a range of skin tones to reimagine a new narrative, one where Rosie stands for the power and strength of women and non-binary makers of all identities.” – Jen Schachter
• “The ability to choose where and how to pay attention grounds our agency. Far from galvanizing mass action, distress in the digital age is more frequently manipulated by ‘attention merchants’ who sell us myriad ways to distract and numb ourselves. Developing a greater awareness of these patterns through mindfulness and strengthening the mental power to resist being pulled in all directions by corporations, isn’t just self-defence – it’s an act of emancipation. Thus liberated, more attention is available to analyse new or discordant information and stay alive to opportunities for more positive engagement.” – Jamie Bristow
• “To love someone is to learn the song in their heart and sing it back to them when they have forgotten.” – Arne Garborg
• “If you find out you have three days to live, who would you call and what would you say?… And why haven’t you already done that?” – Stephen Levine
• ‘My mission in life is not merely to survive but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.’ – Maya Angelo
• “There’s always time for 3 breaths.”- Gal Pal
• “All of Western medicine is built on getting rid of pain, which is not the same as healing. Healing is actually the capacity to hold pain.” – Gabor Maté
• “Aging with grace and dignity is no easy feat as our consumer culture consistently bombards us with messages glorifying eternal youth. Youth, however, is a state of mind and heart, grounded in happiness and gratitude and born out of a willingness to embrace our age and celebrate the privilege of growing older. Notice how much more experience you have today than yesterday, and how your changing face and body reflect your wisdom. Embrace all of who you are and let the lightness of your being radiate forth to all those you meet.” – Alexandra Katehakis
• “What if you didn’t think of the exposure that comes from sharing your true self (your desires, your longings, your imperfections, your quirks, your innermost quandaries) as a problem?
  What if that raw feeling was the perfectly correct feeling to have?
  What if you knew deeply it was just part of life?
  What if feeling it wasn’t a problem?
  Would that help you have the courage to feel it and say what you have to say anyway?” – Hannah Brooks
• “This work is something we all have to do. We all have to examine the shadow we all carry as part of this society before we can heal our unintended racism.” – Ralph M. Steele
• “For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson
• “Do not try to save the whole world or do anything grandiose. Instead, create a clearing in the dense forest of your life and wait there patiently, until the song that is your life falls into your own cupped hands.” – Martha Pusselway
• “Sending love to all beings. May we all continue reclaiming our power. May we all be happy and free.” – Yung Pueblo
• “.@FLOTUS, girl, please start by helping your husband be a good person. If that’s too heavy a lift, then just being a normal human being will do. His #BeWorst attitude + language is influencing future generations.” – Ana Navarro-Cárdenas
• “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” – Maya Angelo
• “Stop ‘should-ing’ on yourself.” – Kelly Pratt’s mother
• “Tell me about a time when you spoke your truth, even though your voice shook.” – a Circle Keeper of a talking circle
• “There are people, no matter what ethnic group they belong to, whose way of thinking is full of understanding and humanity, whose way of speaking is full of hope and confidence, and whose way of acting is full of compassion…People can see the nobility in them.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
• “When I say be kind to one another, I don’t mean only the people that think the same way you do. I mean be kind to everyone.” – Ellen DeGeneres
• “When we create space to listen to our own feelings, we become the parents we needed, but didn’t have. When we give ourselves what we most want to give our children, we become the parents they need.” – Teresa Graham Brett @parentingforsocialchange
• “Suffering leads us to beauty the way thirst leads us to water.” – Jane Hirshfield, Soto Zen practitioner
• “To find freedom amid challenging times, we have to start where we are. If our limbic system is activated into fight, flight, or freeze mode, we lose our selves in survival consciousness. Instead, tune into your heart. That is where love, wisdom, grace, and compassion reside. With loving attention, feel into what matters most to you. Yes, there are anxious thoughts, grief and trauma, but don’t let your heart be colonized by fear. And then, with courage and calm, you can act, you can speak up, help those in need, care for the vulnerable, contribute to the whole.” – Jack Kornfield
• “How do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing, and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?” – Bell Hooks
• “Sleep is holy.” – Shira Erlichman’s mom used to always say
• “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.” – Dalai Lama
• “Return your shopping cart. Pick up a piece of trash. Hold the door for the person behind you. Let someone into your lane. Small acts can have a ripple effect. That’s how we change the world.” – Unknown
• “I want to help people understand that growing their happiness, building their inner peace, and reclaiming their power are all essential things that not only heal humanity as a whole but will ultimately help us establish a more peaceful and harmless world. Your inner peace will literally become the foundation for a future global peace. Healing ourselves will not only help us live with less misery, but it will give us a new clarity that we can use to transform the world.”- Yung Pueblo, author of Inward
• “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.” – Mindfulness App
• “Anything human is mentionable, and anything mentionable is manageable.” – Dr. Margaret McFarland to Mr. Rogers
• It’s great to be able to stop when you’ve planned a thing that’s wrong,
  and be able to do something else instead and think this song:
  I can stop when I want to, can stop when I wish.
  I can stop, stop, stop anytime.
  And what a good feeling to feel like this,
  and know that the feeling is really mine,
  know that there’s something deep inside
  that helps us become what we can.
  For a girl can be someday a woman,
  and a boy can be someday a man.” – Mr. Rogers on the coexistence of self- expression and respect for self and others especially around expressing strong emotions like anger
• “Ask Yourself Three Questions. Meditate on your relationships with parents, friends, siblings, work associates, children, and partners using these three questions: “What have I received from __?”, “What have I given to __?”, and “What troubles and difficulty have I caused?” – Robert Emmons in Mindful Magazine
• “Presidents are not kings.” – Federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson
• “Railing against the past will not heal us. History has happened. It’s over and done with. All we can do is to change its course by encouraging what we love instead of destroying what we don’t. – Arundhati Roy, Indian writer, civil rights activist
• “Your emotions make you human. Even the unpleasant ones have a purpose. Don’t lock them away. If you ignore them, they just get louder and angrier.” – Sana’a Tahir, A Torch Against the Night

So that’s this quarter’s shortlist of Heart-Full Moments that holds some meaning for me. I hope your Fall has been graced with self-compassion, kindness and autumn beauty. And that you might take a moment of pause to connect with what consoles you and replenishes your soul.

If you or someone you care about is struggling to find moments of full heartedness, please contact me for a therapy appointment.