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Rachel Naomi Remen

Rachel Naomi Remen Quotes

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Famous Rachel Naomi Remen Quotes

“A human life has seasons much as the earth has seasons, each time with its own particular beauty and power. And gift. By focusing on springtime and summer, we have turned the natural process of life into a process of loss rather than a process of celebration and appreciation. Life is neither linear nor stagnant. It is movement from mystery to mystery. Just as a year includes autumn and winter, life includes death, not as an opposite but as an integral part of the way life is made.”

WayYearsHumansMadeEarthLife IsDeathProcessNaturalLossMysteryMovementParticularSummerOppositesSeasonsWinterAppreciationHuman LifeAutumnCelebrationSpringtimeLinearStagnantProcess Of LifeAutumn And Winter
Book:Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal, 10th Anniversary Edition
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“To seek approval is to have no resting place, no sanctuary. Like all judgement, approval encourages a constant striving. It makes us uncertain of who we are and of our true value. Approval cannot be trusted. It can be withdrawn at any time no matter what our track record has been. It is as nourishing of real growth as cotton candy. Yet many of us spend our lives pursuing it.”

Has BeensRealMatterValuesGrowthRecordsOur LivesNo Matter WhatConstantStriveTrackJudgementWho We AreApprovalTrustedUncertainCandySanctuaryCottonTrack RecordTrue ValueCotton Candy
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“We are all healers of each other. Look at David Spiegel's fascinating study of putting people together in a support group and seeking that some people in it live twice as long as other people who are not in a support group. I asked David what went on in those groups and he said that people just cared about each other. Nothing big, no deep psychological stuff-people just cared about each other. The reality is that healing happens between people.”

PeopleLooksLongSaidBigsRealityHappensTogetherStuffHealingSupportStudyGroupsSeekingPsychologicalFascinatingHealerSupport Groups
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“We usually look outside ourselves for heroes and teachers. It has not occurred to most people that they may already be the role model they seek. The wholeness they are looking for may be trapped within themselves by beliefs, attitudes, and self-doubt. But our wholeness exists in us now. Trapped though it may be, it can be called upon for guidance, direction, and most fundamentally, comfort. It can be remembered. Eventually we may come to live by it.”

PeopleLooksMaySelfBeliefAttitudeRolesDoubtTeacherHeroComfortModelsRememberedGuidanceLive ByRole ModelsTrappedWholenessSelf-doubt
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“It is said that the Christian mystic Theresa of Avila found difficulty at first in reconciling the vastness of the life of the spirit with the mundane tasks of her Carmelite convent: the washing of pots, the sweeping of floors, the folding of laundry. At some point of grace, the mundane became for her a sort of prayer, a way she could experience her ever-present connection to the divine pattern which is the source of life. She began then to see the face of God in the folded sheets.”

WayFirstsSaidChristianFacesSpiritFoundPrayerGraceAwarenessDivineSourceTasksConnectionsDifficultyPatternsPotSheetsMundaneWashingMysticLaundrySweepingVastnessSource Of LifeFoldingTheresa
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“Life offers its wisdom generously. Everything teaches. Not everyone learns. Life asks of us the same thing we have been asked in every class: "Stay awake." "Pay attention." But paying attention is no simple matter. It requires us not to be distracted by expectations, past experiences, labels, and masks. It asks that we not jump to early conclusions and that we remain open to surprise.”

Has BeensMatterPastAsksSimplePayAttentionClassTeachAwarenessOffersExpectationsSurpriseConclusionLabelsPay AttentionAwakeMaskDistractedPast Experiences
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“Chances are that any helpful two-year-old will break some eggs. We are often not very good at things when we are new. But there may be an important choice to make at such moments. Do we support and protect the innate wish to be of help to others in our children, or do we protect the eggs? Hard as it seems, the greater mother wisdom may lie in a willingness to clean up broken eggs or replace a mitten and a box of crayons.”

YearsMayChildrenTwoImportantHardMomentsHelpingSeemsLyingMotherChoicesWishChanceBreakSupportGreaterBrokenProtectOur ChildrenCleanVery GoodBoxesHelpfulTwo YearsEggsWillingnessInnateChances AreCrayonTwo Year OldsMittensImportant Choices
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“A woman once told me that she did not feel the need to reach out to those around her because she prayed every day. Surely, this was enough. But a prayer is about our relationship to God; a blessing is about our relationship to the spark of God in one another. God may not need our attention as badly as the person next to us on the bus or behind us in line in the supermarket. Everyone in the world matters, and so do their blessings. When we bless others, we offer them refuge from an indifferent world.”

WorldNeedsFeelsMayPersonsMatterEnoughNextCommunityLinesPrayerBehindsAttentionBlessingOffersBlessBusSparksReach OutOur RelationshipRefugeIndifferentSupermarkets
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“Many people do not know that they can strengthen or diminish the life around them. The way we live day to day simply may not reflect back to us our power to influence life or the web of relationships that connects us. Life responds to us anyway. We all have the power to affect others. We may affect those we know and those we do not even know at all. . . . Without our knowing, we may influence the lives of others in very simple ways.”

PeopleKnowsWayMayCommunitySimpleKnowingInfluenceDay To DayDiminishLives Of OthersSimple Ways
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“Befriending the life in others is sometimes a complex matter. There are times when we offer our strength and protection, but these are usually only temporary measures. The greatest blessing we offer others may be the belief we have in their struggle for freedom, the courage to support and accompany them as they determine for themselves the strength that will become their refuge and the foundation for their lives. I think it is especially important to believe in someone at a time when they cannot yet believe in themselves. Then your belief will become their lifeline.”

ThinkingBelieveMayImportantSometimesMatterBeliefFriendshipSupportStruggleBlessingOffersFoundationComplexesDetermineProtectionTemporaryRefugeAccompanyGreatest BlessingsLifelinesStruggle For FreedomBefriending
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“Freedom is as frightening now as it was thousands of years ago. It will always require a willingness to sacrifice what is most familiar for what is most true. To be free we may need to act from integrity, on trust, sometimes for a very long time. Few of us will reach our promised land in a day. But perhaps the most important part of the story is that God does not delegate this task. Whenever anyone moves toward freedom, God Himself is there.”

NeedsYearsMayLongDoeImportantSometimesStoriesMovingFreedomSacrificeLandIntegrityLong TimeYears AgoTasksFamiliarWillingnessFrighteningDelegatesPromised LandWillingness To Sacrifice
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“Everyone alive has suffered. It is the wisdom gained from our wounds and from our own experiences of suffering that makes us able to heal. Becoming expert has turned out to be less important than remembering and trusting the wholeness in myself and everyone else. Expertise cures, but wounded people can best be healed by other wounded people. Only other wounded people can understand what is needed, for the healing of suffering is compassion, not expertise.”

PeopleImportantAbleRememberSufferingHealingCompassionAliveBecomingNeededWoundsHealCuresExpertsWoundedWholenessHealedExpertise
Book:Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal, 10th Anniversary Edition
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“Most of us encounter a great deal more Mystery than we are willing to experience. Sometimes knowing life requires us to suspend disbelief, to recognize that all our hard-won knowledge may only be provisional and the world may be quite different than we believe it to be. This can be very stressful, even frightening. But if we are not willing to wonder, we may have to hang up the phone on life.”

IfsWorldBelieveMayDifferentSometimesHardDealsWonderKnowingMysteryWillingPhonesEncountersFrighteningDisbeliefStressfulHang Ups
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“Mystery has great power. In the many years I have worked with people with cancer, I have seen Mystery comfort people when nothing else can comfort them and offer hope when nothing else offers hope. I have seen Mystery heal fear that is otherwise unhealable. For years I have watched people in their confrontation with the unknown recover awe, wonder, joy, and aliveness. They have remembered that life is holy, and they have reminded me as well. In losing our sense of Mystery, we have become a nation of burned-out people. People who wonder do not burn out.”

PeopleYearsWellsLife IsJoyNationsWonderMysteryHolyComfortOffersLosingCancerHealRememberedAweBurnedConfrontationGreat PowerBurn OutBurned OutPeople With Cancer
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“Unexplained pain may sometimes direct our attention to something unacknowledged, something we are afraid to know or feel. Then it holds us to our integrity, claiming the attention we withhold. The thing which calls our attention may be a repressed experience or some unexpressed and important part of who we are. Whatever we have denied may stop us and dam the creative flow of our lives. Avoiding pain, we may linger in the vicinity of our wounds, sometime for many years, gathering the courage to experience them.”

KnowsFeelsYearsMayImportantSometimesPainAttentionCreativeOur LivesIntegrityFlowDirectWoundsWho We AreDeniedAvoidingGatheringRepressedDamsUnexplainedVicinityAvoiding Pain
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“We are, in a certain way, defined as much by our potential as by its expression. There is a great difference between an acorn and a little bit of wood carved into an acorn shape, a difference not always readily apparent to the naked eye. The difference is there even if the acorn never has the opportunity to plant itself and become an oak. Remembering its potential changes the way in which we think of the acorn and react to it. How we value it. If an acorn were conscious, knowing its potential would change the way that it might think and feel about itself.”

IfsThinkingWayFeelsLittlesMightEyeRememberCertainValuesOpportunityBitsDifferencesKnowingExpressionShapesLittle BitConsciousPlantWoodsNakedDefinedOaksAcornsNaked Eyes
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“Prayer is not a way to get what we want to happen, like the remote control that comes with the television set. I think that prayer may be less about asking for the things we are attached to than it is about relinquishing our attachments in some way. It can take us beyond fear, which is an attachment, and beyond hope, which is another form of attachment. It can help us remember the nature of the world and the nature of life, not on an intellectual level but in a deep and experiential way. When we pray, we don't change the world, we change ourselves. We change our consciousness.”

ThinkingWorldWayWantMayHelpingHappensRememberFormPrayerLevelsConsciousnessTelevisionPrayingIntellectualAskingChanging The WorldAttachmentDon't ChangeRemote ControlRelinquishingRelinquishing Control
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“Until we stop ourselves or, more often, have been stopped, we hope to put certain of life's events "behind us" and get on with our living. After we stop we see that certain of life's issues will be with us for as long as we live. We will pass through them again and again, each time with a new story, each time with a greater understanding, until they become indistinguishable from our blessings and our wisdom. It's the way life teaches us to live.”

WayLongHas BeensStoriesWisdomCertainUnderstandingBehindsTeachIssuesGreaterEventsBlessingAgain And AgainLife Teaches
Book:Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal, 10th Anniversary Edition
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“Wisdom comes most easily to those who have the courage to embrace life without judgment and are willing to not know, sometimes for a long time. It requires us to be more fully and simply alive than we have been taught to be. It may require us to suffer. But ultimately we will be more than we were when we began. There is the seed of a greater wholeness in everyone.”

KnowsMayLongHas BeensSometimesWisdomSufferingGreaterAliveTaughtWillingJudgmentLong TimeEmbraceSeedsWholenessEmbrace Life
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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