“Do not be hardened by the pain and cruelty of this world. Be strong enough to be gentle, to be soft and supple like running water, gracefully bending around sudden turns, lithely waving in strong winds, freely flowing over sharp rocks, all the while quietly sculpting this hard world into ever deeper beauty, gently eroding rigid rock into silken sand, tenderly transforming human cruelty into humankindness. Remember, true strength is not found in the stone, but in the water that shapes the stone.” KindPainHumanityWaterBeautyStrengthHumanInhumanitySoftnessCruel Author:L.R. Knost
“I rise. Again. And again. Not as the morning bird whose song springs to sudden glorious life at the dawning of the light, but as the sun who touches the horizon with tender fingertips before reaching open arms across the sky to embrace another day to weather the storms to stand tall and breathe fire and then to descend into rest until it's time to rise again. And again I rise.” LifePainSunFireStrengthFeministBreatheWomanRiseSuffer Author:L.R. Knost
“The world told you that you had to hide your pain, to be small and quiet, so you wouldn't rock the boat. And you believed. Then one day you saw the silent pain in the eyes of a small and quiet girl in a boat bound for nowhere. And a warrior awoke. You freed the girl from the silent shackles and told her that her story mattered, to tell it deep and wide and loud, to set the boat ablaze with every fierce and fiery word so all the world could hear and heal. And you believed.” WorldPainSufferingGirlSilenceStrengthFeministFeminine Author:L.R. Knost
“Music speaks the language of the soul, penetrating into the past and resonating into the future, unearthing pain and tenderness and sorrow and joy, reminding us of our infinite fragility and extraordinary strength, reigniting our dreams and passions once again to remind us of who we are meant to be.” LifePainJoyPassionMusicDreamsPotentialTenderness Author:L.R. Knost
“When you feel small and invisible or stretched-too-thin-and-all-used up, when life feels too hard to live and pain feels too much to bear, when guilt and shame and self-condemnation feel too heavy to carry, go outside and stand barefoot in the stardust-speckled dirt with your face tilted up to the universe and whisper to your wounded heart, 'This is not how my story ends. There is so much more to life than this moment, these hours, this day, this season of my life. It's my story. I get to choose. It doesn't end here;' And then take your pen in hand and write the rest of your gorgeous, shredded, pasted-back-together story however you choose to write it. And remember, you're not alone. We're all writing our own jacked up stories our own way, too. Welcome to our tribe of misfits and outcasts and rebels and dreamers. We are the story-weavers. And we're all on this ride through the galaxy together.” LifePainHumanShameTiredGuiltSmallStretched Author:L.R. Knost
“Pain patterns are vicious cycles, unconsciously passed from generation to generation in deeply entrenched behavioral and relational paradigms. They cannot be changed from the outside, only from within. Fear gives way to comfort, pain to healing, anger to peace, despair to hope, only when the heart of a person or the soul of a people feel safe enough to emerge from the hardened shell of self-preservation and become open to new possibilities. A hurting humanity cannot be healed by force, by arguing, shaming, threatening, manipulating. Those merely feed the pain patterns and harden their protective shells. Love, acceptance, empathy, compassion, those are the gentle rain that blossoms hurt into healing, transforming pain patterns into the peaceful flowering of a healthy, heart-whole humanity.” LoveLifePainSufferingHumanityHealingCompassionEmpathyInhumanity Author:L.R. Knost
“Forget that old adage 'forgive and forget.' It's an impossible standard. The human heart never forgets its pain. We can and often do choose to forgive and heal and move on. But the scars remain. Like words pounded out on an old typewriter leave impressions that can never truly be erased, the heart remembers.” LifeHeartPainForgivenessHealStoryScarsTypewriter Author:L.R. Knost
“Life doesn't always get better. But you do. You get stronger. You get wiser. You get softer. With tattered wings you rise. And the world watches in wonder at the breathless beauty of a human who survived life.” LifePainSufferingHurtBeautyHumanWingsSurvive Author:L.R. Knost
“Pieces of who I was shattered reassembled into who I am; Shards shaping into prisms casting arcs of soul-fire into who I will be; I am a kaleidoscope of all the versions of myself I was and am and will become.” LifePainSufferingHurtPiecesHumanBecome Author:L.R. Knost
“The only way to heal from the pain of the past is to walk through that pain in the present. It's terrifying, I know. It feels safer to just let the pain continue to smolder in the darkest parts of yourself. But the dark parts need tending, too, my friend. Don't be afraid to breathe life back into those embers of old pain, to rekindle the fires of unhealed hurts. The flames aren't there to burn you. They are there to light your way through pain to healing. You can walk through courageous and confident or shaking in your boots. It doesn't matter. Just walk through it. Hurt will transform into hope, wounds into wisdom, suffering into scars that tell of battles won and lost and of a human who survived it all.” LifePainInspirational QuotesSufferingHopeHurtLivingHumanForgiveSurvive Author:L.R. Knost
“Forgiveness isn't telling someone it was okay to hurt you. It's telling yourself it’s okay to stop hurting. It doesn’t mean you have to trust them again. It means you can learn to trust yourself again. It doesn’t mean you have to give them a free pass back into your life. It means you are free to take your life back again. Forgiveness is simply emptying your past of its power to empty your present of its peace.” LifePainInspirational QuotesSufferingHopePeaceHurtHealingForgiveness Author:L.R. Knost
“Sometimes life hurts. We suffer. We heal. We move on. But sometimes life hits back. Harder. Lethal in its cruelty. Shattering us into a million glittering shards of pain and loss and anguish. And we suffer, too broken to heal, to become what we once were. So we learn to live with the shards of pain and loss and anguish forever embedded in our souls, and with shaking fingers we piece together the bloody fragments of who we were into a mosaic grotesque in its stark reality, exquisite in its sharp-edged story of the tragic, breathless beauty of a human who survived life. And we move on, often unaware of the light glittering behind us showing others the way through the darkness.” LifeLightPainSufferingHumanityHealingDarkness Author:L.R. Knost