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Famous Rachel Naomi Remen Quotes

“Ours is not a culture that respects the sick, the old or the vulnerable. We strive for independence, competence, and mastery. In embracing such 'frontier' values, we may become intolerant of human wholeness, contemptuous of anything in ourselves, and in others, that has needs or is capable of suffering. The denial of a vulnerability is the ultimate barrier to compassion.”

NeedsHumansMaySufferingValuesCultureCompassionCapableUltimateSickIndependenceStriveVulnerableDenialVulnerabilityBarriersMasteryWholenessFrontiersCompetenceContemptuous
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
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“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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“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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“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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“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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“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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“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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“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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“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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“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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“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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“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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