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Rachel Naomi Remen

Rachel Naomi Remen Quotes

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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
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“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…. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words.”

WayLoveInspirationalGivingWellsPersonsImportantPowerfulAttentionSilenceAwarenessListeningImportant ThingsHealSilence IsJust ListenListening To OthersKitchen Table
Book:Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal, 10th Anniversary Edition
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“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
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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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“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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“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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“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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“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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“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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“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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