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Marianne Williamson

Marianne Williamson Books

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A Woman's Worth

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“A spiritual relationship is not necessarily one in which two people are smiling all the time.  Spiritual means to be above all else, authentic.  Real work can only occur in the presence of rigorous honesty  We all long for that, but we're afraid of communicating honestly with another person because we think they'll leave us if they see who we really are.”

“The most powerful thought is a prayerful thought. When I'm praying for you, I am praying for my own peace of mind. I can only have for myself what I am willing to wish for you.”

“How odd that we spend so much time treating the darkness, and so little time seeking the light. The ego loves to glorify itself by self-analysis, yet we do not get rid of darkness by hitting it with a baseball bat. We only get rid of darkness by turning on the light.”

“Spirituality isn't some quaint stepchild of an intelligent worldview, or the only option for those of us not smart enough to understand the facts of the real world. Spirituality reflects the most sophisticated mindset, and the most powerful force available for the transformation of human suffering.”

“But today, people are oddly cocooned in their misery. Many fail to realize either the collective reasons for our problems, or the collective changes necessary in order to solve them. Yet within the awareness of our oneness lie both our power to rise up and the ladder on which to climb. A belief in separation is always at the root of a problem, and a realization of our oneness is always at the root of its solution.”

“More women cry, loudly or silently, every fraction of every moment, in every town of every country, than anyone - man or woman - realizes. We cry for our children, our lovers, our parents, and ourselves. We cry in shame because we feel no right to cry, and we cry in peace because we feel it's time we did cry. We cry in moans and we cry in great yelps. We cry for the world. Yet we think we cry alone.”

“The difference between a friendship and a romance is illustrated in the image of a long-stemmed rose.  The stem is the friendship, the blossom is the romance.  Because the ego is sensation-oriented, our focus automatically goes to the blossom, but all the nourishment which the blossom needs in order to live reaches it through the stem.  The stem might look boring in comparison, but if you take the blossom off the stem, it will not last for long.”

“By midlife, we're usually aware enough to understand which of our issues most need attention. We've learned where we're strong, but also where we're weak. We know what parts of ourselves to be proud of and what parts of ourselves should change. We know what our issues are. It might not be a time when we're learning new things about ourselves so much as understanding more deeply what we already know. This is not the time to stop working on ourselves; it's the time when we've finally accumulated enough clues to help crack the case and solve the myself why and how we've kept ourselves bound for so long. Its not the time to give up and say, 'this is who I am, its too late to change.' Quite the opposite- its time to take a stand, once and for all, for your own potential. Don't worry that it took you so long to get to this point. It takes everyone this long. We know nothing until we know all the ways that we're not who we should be. Only then do we have a chance at becoming the people we've wanted to be, and God intended us to be, from the day we were born. And for that reason alone, these are sacred years.”

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?”

“A spiritual reinterpretation of events gives us miraculous authority to command the winds, to part the waters, and to break all chains that bind us.”

“Children are not children. They are just younger people. We have the same soul at sixty that we had at forty, and the same soul at twenty-five that we had when we were five. If anything, children are wiser. They know more than we do, and have at least as much to teach us as we have to teach them. How dare we try to fit them into our boxes and make them play by our rules, which are so very, very stupid? How dare we tell them anything when we live in a world so obviously backward? And how ungrateful and irreverent we are to listen so little and watch so casually when angels themselves have moved into the house.”

“In the Christic tradition, this is the meaning of  'becoming as a little child.'  Little children don't think they know what things mean, in fact, they know they don't know.  They ask someone older and wiser to explain things to them.  We're like children who don't know but think we do.  We're meant to shine.  Look at small children.  They're all so unique before they start trying to be, because they demonstrate the power of genuine humility.  This is also the explanation of 'beginner's luck.' When we go into a situation not knowing the rules, we don't pretend to know how to figure anything out, and we don't know yet what there is to be afraid of.  This releases the mind to create from its own higher power."”

“Something very beautiful happens to people when their world has fallen apart: a humility, a nobility, a higher intelligence emerges at just the point when our knees hit the floor. Perhaps, in a way, that's where humanity is now: about to discover we're not as smart as we thought we were, will be forced by life to surrender our attacks and defenses which avail us of nothing, and finally break through into the collective beauty of who we really are." [Facebook post, August 31, 2013]”

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.”

“A tulip doesn’t strive to impress anyone. It doesn’t struggle to be different than a rose. It doesn’t have to. It is different. And there’s room in the garden for every flower. You didn’t have to struggle to make your face different than anyone else’s on earth. It just is. You are unique because you were created that way. Look at little children in kindergarten. They’re all different without trying to be. As long as they’re unselfconsciously being themselves, they can’t help but shine. It’s only later, when children are taught to compete, to strive to be better than others, that their natural light becomes distorted.”

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

“I give this day to you, the fruit of my labor and the desires of my heart. In your hands I place all questions, on your shoulders I place all burdens. I pray for my brothers and for myself. May we return to love. May our minds be healed. May we all be blessed. May we find our way home from pain to peace, from fear to love, from hell to heaven. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and forever. Amen.”

“In the eyes of God, we're all perfect and we all have unlimited capacity to express brilliantly. I say unlimited capacity rather than unlimited potential because potential can be a dangerous concept. We can use it to tyrannize ourselves, to live in the future instead of the present, to set ourselves up for despair. We're constantly measuring ourselves against what we think we could be, rather than what we are. Potential is a concept which can bind us to personal powerlessness Focus on human potential becomes impotent without a focus on human capacity. Capacity is expressed in the present, it is immediate, the key to it lies not in what we have inside of us, but rather in what we are willing to own that we have inside of us. There's no point in waiting until we're perfect at what we do, or enlightened masters, or PhDs in life, before opening ourselves to what we're capable of doing now. Of course we're not as good today as we'll be tomorrow, but how will we ever get tomorrow's promise without making some sort of move today?”

“Something very beautiful happens to people when their world has fallen apart: a humility, a nobility, a higher intelligence emerges at just the point when our knees hit the floor. Perhaps, in a way, that's where humanity is now: about to discover we're not as smart as we thought we were, will be forced by life to surrender our attacks and defenses which avail us of nothing, and finally break through into the collective beauty of who we really are.”

“While overeating would be seen by some as an indulgence of self, it is in fact a profound rejection of self. It is a moment of self-betrayal and self-punishment, and anything but a commitment to one's own well-being.”

“I write and speak about personal and spiritual growth. One week I write about illness and another week I speak about relationships and another week I write about work and money and another week I speak to people with obesity issues. I write about whatever wounds seem to cry out for more enlightened solutions, and the love that heals them all.”

“When it comes to politics, we have an internal glass ceiling. We stand as good a chance as a man to win a political race, but women don't want to run at the same rate as men do. People point to the work-family balance issue, but I think it's much more than that. Many women don't have children, or have children who are no longer at home. There are some deeper psychological and emotional issues in play, like the fact that many of us feel like the embarrassment, humiliation and personal demonization in politics are simply more than our hearts can take. What stops us is fear.”