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Rachel Naomi Remen

Rachel Naomi Remen Quotes

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Famous Rachel Naomi Remen Quotes

“Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn’t you - all of the expectations, all of the beliefs - and becoming who you are.”

InspirationalMayMotivationalSpiritualBeliefHealingAwarenessBecomingLetting GoMindfulnessSelf ImprovementExpectationsYogaTransformationWho You AreImprovementHealGet BetterBeing YourselfFinding YourselfHealedEnergy HealingSpiritual HealingSelf TransformationSpiritual TransformationSelf HealingI Am Who I AmSoul HealingHealing The BodyInspirational HealingPersonal HealingBecoming Who You Are
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“Before every session, I take a moment to remember my humanity. There is no experience that this man has that I cannot share with him, no fear that I cannot understand, no suffering that I cannot care about, because I too am human. No matter how deep his wound, he does not need to be ashamed in front of me. I too am vulnerable. And because of this, I am enough. Whatever his story, he no longer needs to be alone with it. This is what will allow his healing to begin. (Carl Rogers)”

MenNeedsHumansDoeMatterEnoughMomentsStoriesCareRememberSufferingHumanityHealingShareFrontsWoundsVulnerableAshamedNo FearSessionRoger
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“Perhaps we can only truly serve those we are willing to touch, not only with our hands but with our hearts and even our souls. Professionalism has embedded in service a sense of difference, a certain distance. But on the deepest level, service is an experience of belonging, an experience of connection to others and to the word around us. It is this connection that gives us the power to bless the life in others. Without it, the life in them would not respond to us.”

GivingHeartSoulHandsCertainDifferencesLevelsCompassionWillingConnectionsDistanceBelongingBlessEmbeddedProfessionalism
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“Most people have come to prefer certain of lifes experiences and deny and reject others, unaware of the value of the hidden things that may come wrapped in plain and even ugly paper. In avoiding all pain and seeking comfort at all costs, we may be left without intimacy or compassion; in rejecting change and risk we often cheat ourselves of the quest; in denying our suffering we may never know our strength or our greatness”

PeopleKnowsMayPainCertainSufferingValuesLeftCompassionRiskGreatnessComfortCostPaperSeekingUglyDenyIntimacyRejectsQuestsCheatAvoidingRejectingHidden Things
Book:Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal, 10th Anniversary Edition
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“Perhaps losing integrity with yourself is the greatest stress of all, far more hurtful to us than competition, time pressure, or lack of respect. Our vitality is rooted in our integrity. When we do not live in one piece, our life force becomes divided. Becoming separated from our authentic values may weaken us.”

MayValuesForcePiecesOur LivesBecomingIntegrityLosingStressPressureCompetitionDividedRootedVitalityHurtfulOne PieceLack Of Respect
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“Those who wish to change things may face disappointment, loss, or even ridicule. If you are ahead of your time, people laugh as often as they applaud, and being there first is usually lonely. But our protection cannot come between us and our purpose. Right protection is something within us rather than something between us and the world, more about finding a place of refuge and strength than finding a hiding place.”

PeopleIfsWorldFirstsMayFacesSpiritualPurposeWishLossLaughingFindingsLonelyDisappointmentProtectionHidingRefugeRidiculeBeing ThereHiding Place
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“Listening is the oldest and perhaps the most powerful tool of healing. It is often through the quality of our listening and not the wisdom of our words that we are able to effect the most profound changes in the people around us. When we listen, we offer with our attention an opportunity for wholeness. Our listening creates sanctuary for the homeless parts within the other person. That which has been denied, unloved, devalued by themselves and others. That which is hidden.”

PeoplePersonsHas BeensAbleOpportunityPowerfulHealingAttentionQualityEffectsListeningOffersToolsProfoundMost PowerfulDeniedWholenessHomelessSanctuaryOur WordsUnloved
Book:Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal, 10th Anniversary Edition
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“In this culture the soul and the heart too often go homeless. Listening creates a holy silence. When you listen generously to people, they can hear the truth in themselves, often for the first time. And in the silence of listening, you can know yourself in everyone. Eventually you may be able to hear, in everyone and beyond everyone, the unseen singing softly to itself and to you.”

PeopleKnowsFirstsHeartMaySoulAbleCultureSilenceListeningHolySingingFirst TimeHomelessUnseenKnow Yourself
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“When we haven't the time to listen to each other's stories we seek out experts to tell us how to live. The less time we spend together at the kitchen table, the more how-to books appear in the stores and on our bookshelves. But reading such books is a very different thing than listening to someone' s lived experience. Because we have stopped listening to each other we may even have forgotten how to listen, stopped learning how to recognize meaning and fill ourselves from the ordinary events of our lives. We have become solitary; readers and watchers rather than sharers and participants.”

MayBookDifferentStoriesTogetherReadingOur LivesEventsHavensListeningReaderOrdinaryTablesForgottenStoresExpertsKitchenDifferent ThingsSolitaryParticipantsWatchersBookshelvesKitchen Table
Book:Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal, 10th Anniversary Edition
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“One of my patients told me that when she tried to tell her story people often interrupted her to tell her that they once had something just like that happen to them. Subtly her pain became a story about themselves. Eventually she stopped talking to most people. It was just too lonely. We connect through listening. When we interrupt what someone is saying to let them know that we understand, we move the focus of attention to ourselves. When we listen, they know we care. Many people with cancer talk about the relief of having someone just listen.”

PeopleKnowsStoriesHappensCarePainMovingAttentionTalkingFocusListeningLonelyPatientCancerReliefInterruptedJust ListenStory PeoplePeople With Cancer
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“I have even learned to respond to someone crying by just listening. In the old days I used to reach for the tissues, until I realized that passing a person a tissue may be just another way to shut them down, to take them out of their experience of sadness and grief. Now I just listen. When they have cried all they need to cry, they find me there with them.”

WayNeedsMayPersonsUsedGriefSadnessCryListeningI RealizedPassingPassingsCriedAnother WayFind MeOld DaysJust ListenTissues
Book:Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal, 10th Anniversary Edition
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“There are few master teachers in life. ... But there are many who can listen to life so well that they can hear the vastness in everything and in you. A teacher is someone who has learned to listen to life. Someone who has found a way to listen well. Any real teacher is only a finger pointing. In the end, we may find out more by not following our teachers but by following what our teachers follow for themselves. From a good teacher you may learn the secret of listening. You will never learn the secrets of life. You will have to listen for yourself.”

WayWellsMayRealEndsFoundSecretTeacherMastersListeningFingersFollowingPointingGood TeacherVastnessSecret LifePointing Fingers
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“I had thought joy to be rather synonymous with happiness, but it seems now to be far less vulnerable than happiness. Joy seems to be a part of an unconditional wish to live, not holding back because life may not meet our preferences and expectations. Joy seems to be a function of the willingness to accept the whole, and to show up to meet with whatever is there. It has a kind of invincibility that attachment to any particular outcome would deny us.”

KindMayWholeShowsSeemsJoyWishAcceptingParticularMindfulnessExpectationsFunctionDenyVulnerableOutcomesAttachmentWillingnessPreferenceUnconditionalHolding BackInvincibility
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“We bless the life around us far more than we realize. Many simple, ordinary things that we do can affect those around us in profound ways: the unexpected phone call, the brief touch, the willingness to listen generously, the warm smile or wink of recognition. All it may take to restore someone's trust in life may be returning a lost earring or a dropped glove.”

WayMayLostRealizingSimpleOrdinaryProfoundPhonesWarmRecognitionUnexpectedWillingnessBlessGlovesPhone CallsOrdinary ThingsEarrings
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“Most of us lead far more meaningful lives than we know. Often finding meaning is not about doing things differently; it is about seeing familiar things in new ways. When we find new eyes, the unsuspected blessing in work we have done for many years may take us completely by surprise. We can see life in many ways: with the eye, with the mind, with the intuition. But perhaps it is only those who speak the language of meaning, who have remembered how to see with the heart, that life is ever deeply known or served.”

KnowsWayYearsMindHeartMayDoneEyeLife IsSpeakLanguageKnownSeeingPerspectiveBlessingFindingsSurpriseIntuitionMeaningfulFamiliarRememberedNew WaysMeaningful LifeNew EyesFamiliar Things
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“For many years now I have listened to the stories of people with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses as their counselor. From them I have learned how to enjoy the minute particulars of life once again, the grace of a hot cup of coffee, the presence of a friend, the blessing of having a new cake of soap or an hour without pain. Such humble experience is the stuff that many of the very best stories are made of. If we think we have no stories it is because we have not paid enough attention to our lives. Most of us live lives that are far richer and more meaningful than we appreciate.”

PeopleIfsThinkingYearsMadeEnoughStoriesPainStuffEnjoyHoursAttentionGraceOur LivesMinutesPerspectiveBlessingAppreciatePaidHotCancerIllnessHumbleCoffeeMeaningfulCupsLive LifeCakeI Have LearnedThreateningSoapCoffee CupCounselorWithout PainPeople With Cancer
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“In our instinctive attachments, our fear of change, and our wish for certainty and permanence, we may undercut the impermanence which is our greatest strength, our most fundamental identity. Without impermanence, there is no process. The nature of life is change. All hope is based on process.”

MayLife IsWishProcessChangeIdentityFundamentalsCertaintyAttachmentImpermanencePermanenceFear Of ChangeUndercut
Book:Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal, 10th Anniversary Edition
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“God's presence. . . is an inner experience that never changes. It's a relationship that's there all the time, even when we're not paying attention to it. Perhaps the Infinite holds us to Itself in the same way the earth does. Like gravity, if it ever stopped we would know it instantly. But it never does.”

IfsKnowsWayDoeGodEarthAttentionInfinitePay AttentionGravityNever ChangeGod's Presence
Book:Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal, 10th Anniversary Edition
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