Quotes for when you can’t find the words…
Sometimes words are hard, inquiries run deep, emotions feel big. In those moments, words from others via poetry, philosophy, novels, or even – dare I say – memes can help articulate what we’re processing but haven’t quite found the language for yet.
In proper yoga teacher fashion, I love a good, meaningful quote. A few words in particular stuck with me recently based on the stuff I’ve personally been chewing on, unraveling, grappling with, sorting out, pondering, etc…
Especially as we celebrate today’s Spring Equinox – what once was Ostara, representing renewal, rebirth, or the balance of light and dark – it’s natural to feel called to reassess, refresh, and realign.
One way to do this is by sifting out the thoughts and things that weigh us down and lightening our load – whether by working through long-held emotions, decluttering living spaces, or donating whatever old knick-knacks are collecting dust.
The first few months of this year haven’t exactly been a sweet spring picnic for many of us, so it’s all the more important to learn how to process and express. Maybe this happens through poetry, storytelling, nature, laughter, music, art, or movement – whatever helps us to unclog our equanimity pipe and let things flow with more ease.
By tending to and tidying up our internal and external spaces in whatever ways work for us, we can more naturally align with Ostara’s essence of renewal and balance.
As someone who deeply feels life’s ongoing waves, I’m so grateful for the people and practices that support my own mind-body equanimity.
For those of you who are also reflecting and refreshing your own life and self-inquiries, here are a few words that have resonated with me lately.
For what it’s worth 🙂
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I don’t want to hurry it. That itself is a poisonous twentieth-century attitude. When you want to hurry something, that means you no longer care about it and want to get on to other things.
-Robert M. Pirsig, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”
Simple steps to an instantly improved life: Turn off your phone. Drink some water. Close your eyes & shut the fuck up.
-From artwork by Real Fun, Wow!
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.
-Dalai Lama XIV via Daily Philosopher
There is no requirement that enlightenment be painful, unless you are trying to avoid pain. Then the universe has no choice but to teach you through pain. One of the universe’s strategies is to put directly before you the things you are trying to avoid. It is possible to grow and learn in a way that is loving to yourself and others. All you do is make a commitment that you want it that way. We have had many of our clients phrase it this way: “I’m willing to see and handle anything I need to be free, and I would like my lessons in a friendly, loving way for me and others around me.”
-Gay Hendricks and Kathlyn Hendricks, “Conscious Loving”
I’m just trying to have a nice time despite knowing facts and information.
-A favorite meme from @donni
Surrender is a repetitive action.
–Nikki Costello, my Iyengar yoga teacher
(Several months ago in class, she also said: There is a process in our maturing that has to find out what I let go of in order to find something new.)
Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.
–Jiddu Krishnamurti
I googled my symptoms and it turns out I just needed to wander through a mysterious forest.
-From another favorite meme; source unknown.
Phaedrus remembered a line from Thoreau: “You never gain something but that you lose something.” And now he began to see for the first time the unbelievable magnitude of what man, when he gained power to understand and rule the world in terms of dialectic truths, had lost. He had built empires of scientific capability to manipulate the phenomena of nature into enormous manifestations of his own dreams of power and wealth – but for this he had exchanged an empire of understanding of equal magnitude: an understanding of what it is to be a part of the world, and not an enemy of it.
-Robert M. Pirsig, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”
The news: everything is bad.
Poets: okay, but what if everything is bad and we still fall in love with the moon and learn something from the flowers.
-Source unknown.
No amount of anxiety makes any difference to anything that is going to happen.
-Source unknown, shared by yoga teacher Eddie Stern.
Practice the pause.
When in doubt, pause.
When angry, pause.
When tired, pause.
When stressed, pause.
And when you pause, pray.
-Toby Mac, shared by Anima Mundi
Which one lands with you right now?
How are you refreshing and rebalancing this season?
Reach out for personalized coaching sessions to reassess your own self-inquiries and fortify your mindset – 20-minute introduction calls are free.
Happy Spring Equinox / Ostara!
Take good care,
S
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