Quotessence
Home / Authors / Rachel Naomi Remen
Rachel Naomi Remen

Rachel Naomi Remen Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllMayPeopleWayKnowsListeningNeedsAttentionHealingStoriesLife IsPersonsSilenceThinkingIfsImportantPainValuesBlessingHas BeensHeal

Famous Rachel Naomi Remen Quotes

“I suspect that the most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention And especially if it's given from the heart. When people are talking, there's no need to do anything but receive them. Just take them in. Listen to what they're saying. Care about it. Most times caring about it is even more important than understanding it. Most of us don't value ourselves or our love enough to know this.”

PeopleIfsKnowsWayNeedsGivingHeartPersonsImportantEnoughCareValuesGivenUnderstandingPowerfulAttentionTalkingCommunicationImportant ThingsCaringSuspectsOur LoveJust Listen
Book:Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal, 10th Anniversary Edition
Create image

“We have become terribly vulnerable, not because we suffer but because we have separated ourselves from each other. A patient once told me that he had tried to ignore his own suffering and the suffering of other people because he had wanted to be happy. Yet becoming numb to suffering will not make us happy. The part in us that feels suffering is the same as the part that feels joy.”

PeopleFeelsWantedJoySufferingBecomingPatientVulnerableNumbSuffering Of Others
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
Create image

“Wounding and healing are not opposites. They're part of the same thing. It is our wounds that enable us to be compassionate with the wounds of others. It is our limitations that make us kind to the limitations of other people. It is our loneliness that helps us to to find other people or to even know they're alone with an illness. I think I have served people perfectly with parts of myself I used to be ashamed of.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsKindHelpingUsedHealingLonelinessOppositesIllnessWoundsUsed To BeLimitationAshamedCompassionate
Author:Rachel Naomi Remen
Create image

“Everybody is a story. When I was a child, people sat around kitchen tables and told their stories. We don't do that so much anymore. Sitting around the table telling stories is not just a way of passing time. It is the way the wisdom gets passed along. The stuff that helps us to live a life worth remembering.”

PeopleWayChildrenHelpingStoriesRememberStuffCommunitySittingTablesPassingPassingsSatKitchenTelling StoriesSitting AroundKitchen Table
Book:Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal, 10th Anniversary Edition
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image