Browse 99 quotes about Christopher Dines.
“The reality is that there are plenty of trustworthy people in the world rebuilding their lives. It was a very gradual process for me to open up and talk about what was really going on in my recovery. The more I started to take risks by talking to others, however, the more I had an opportunity to exercise boundaries. As I asserted new boundaries, I started to gravitate towards people with integrity, warmheartedness and decency.”
Source: Drug Addiction Recovery: The Mindful Way
“Emotionally wounded addicts have an extremely difficult time with intimacy and with trusting themselves and others. They have a deep desire to trust, but their emotional scars and traumatic memories haunt them whenever an opportunity to trust another person arises. Naturally this can lead to a very lonely existence.”
Source: Drug Addiction Recovery: The Mindful Way
“To be gentle with ourselves requires a willingness to be exposed and perhaps be hurt. As I have already suggested, there is nothing weak or ‘cowardly’ about gentleness, especially when we are relearning to live in this world by minimizing our ‘numbing strategies’ so that we can practise super self-care. When we face our fears, we are acting courageously. Courage happens in the mundane. If we observe people in our local community, we can see courage being practised all around us. Just turning up for life every day requires courage, especially when we are prepared to be present.”
Source: Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles
“Guilt is imperative if we are to create and sustain a decent code of ethics and a sound moral compass. Guilt can help us to listen to our conscience, enhance empathy, and therefore have fulfilling relationships. Without guilt, we would live in an extremely dark world. However, misplaced guilt often triggers us to be over-apologetic and people-please. Many people repeat the word ‘sorry’ without needing to, while still others feel guilty for their very own existence. Emotionally wounded, shame-based people often feel that they are constantly ‘getting in the way’. This stems from a sense of feeling unlovable. To ask for one’s own needs to be met often results in a feeling of guilt. I call this misplaced guilt. Similarly, a person may feel guilty even if they have been abused or harmed by others. Misplaced guilt or excessive guilt stifles people’s chances to live happily and peacefully.”
Source: Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles
“Have you heard the saying by the actor Lily Tomlin, ‘The road to success is always under construction’? I like this concept. My spiritual journey has certainly been messy and uncomfortable at times. I had several emotional breakdowns before experiencing an emotional breakthrough. In essence, layers of deep denial and negative thought-patterns had to be unravelled and replaced with new and greater self-awareness.”
Source: Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles
“Two monks were once travelling together down a wet and muddy road. The rain was torrential, making it almost impossible to walk along the path. As the two men were trudging along, a beautiful girl dressed in silk appeared. She was unable to cross the path and looked distressed.
“Let me help you”, said the older monk. He picked her up and carried her over the mud. His younger male companion did not utter a word that night until they reached their lodging temple. Then after hours of restrained conversation, the younger monk exclaimed: “We monks do not touch females; it is too tempting for us and can create a bad outcome”. The older monk looked into the younger monks eyes and said, “I left the girl on the road. Are you still carrying her?”
This ancient Zen story illustrates beautifully how so many of us are trapped in the habit of constantly “re-living” the past in our minds, thus dishonouring the present moment. The young monk wasted hours distressing himself with judgment, speculation, anxiety, resentment and ultimately self-perpetuated unhappiness as a direct result of not being mindful.”
Source: Mindfulness Meditation: Bringing Mindfulness into Everyday Life
“In 2017, I was invited to lead a mindfulness workshop and guide a live meditation on Mingus Mountain, Arizona, to over 100 men and women at a recovery retreat. On the eve of my workshop, I had the opportunity to join in a men's twelve-step meeting, which took place by the campfire in Prescott National Park Forest, with at least 40 men recovering from childhood grief and trauma. The meeting grounded us in what was a large retreat with many unfamiliar faces. I was the only mixed-race Brit, surrounded by mostly white middle-class American men (baby boomers and Generation X), yet our common bond of validating each other's wounds in recovery utterly transcended any differences of nationality, race and heritage. We shared our pain and hope in a non-shaming environment, listening and allowing every man to have his say without interruption. At the end of the meeting we stood up in a large circle and recited the serenity prayer:
"God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know that one is me".
After the meeting closed, I felt that I belonged and I was enthusiastic about the retreat, even though I was thousands of miles away from England.”
Source: Drug Addiction Recovery: The Mindful Way
“Things sometimes go our way and sometimes they don’t. All we can do is apply ourselves to our profession, giving our very best effort but emotionally letting go of the outcome. Why? Because if we obsess about an outcome, we cannot possibly honour the present moment.”
Source: Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
“To be self-compassionate is not to be self-indulgent or self-centred. A major component of self-compassion is to be kind to yourself. Treat yourself with love, care, dignity and make your wellbeing a priority. With self-compassion, we still hold ourselves accountable professionally and personally, but there are no toxic emotions inflicted upon and towards ourselves.”
Source: Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
“First and foremost, if we maintain healthy emotional boundaries and direct love and kindness inwards, we are taking care of ourselves and secondly we are giving a subliminal message to others about how we wish to be treated. People tend to subconsciously treat us how we treat ourselves.”
Source: Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
“It is impossible to control outcomes or results, although most of us have been programmed from a very young age to believe otherwise. The idea that we can perform actual ‘magic’ causes tremendous dysfunction, unnecessary suffering and prevents the development of emotional resilience.”
Source: Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
“The human brain is incredible in its capacity to heal and rewire itself. The human brain can be shaped and trained to be more resilient, calm, compassionate and alert—we can condition ourselves to be successful. Through mindfulness meditation, we can literally re-wire our brains through new experiences, which modify our neural network and our neural chemistry. Mindfulness also enhances gamma synchrony and improves the function of the human brain.”
Source: Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
“Maybe (Taoist story)
A classic ancient story illustrates the importance of equanimity and emotional resilience beautifully. Once upon a time, there was a wise old farmer who had worked on the land for over 40 years. One morning, while walking to his stable, he noticed that his horse had run away. His neighbours came to visit and sympathetically said to the farmer, “Such bad luck”.
“Maybe,” the farmer replied. The following morning, however, the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “Such good luck,” the neighbours exclaimed.
“Maybe,” the farmer replied. The following afternoon, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses and was thrown off, causing him to break his leg. The neighbours came to visit and tried to show sympathy and said to the farmer, “how unfortunate”.
“Maybe,” answered the farmer. The following morning military officials came to the farmer’s village to draft young men into the army to fight in a new war. Observing that the farmer’s son’s leg was broken, they did not draft him into the war.
The neighbours congratulated him on his good luck and the farmer calmly replied, “Maybe”.”
Source: Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
“When the weeks have built up with frustration and immense stress and one of your co-workers, a manager or an employee triggers irritation or angers you, knowing how to respond in a mindful way can pay huge dividends. Knowing how to not take other people’s emotional baggage personally and intuitively sensing when to bring up concerns and when not to is an expression of emotional intelligence. This is all possible if we are being truly mindful.”
Source: Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
“Stress, burnout and strain on the human heart are all increasingly taking their toll for millions of hardworking people. However, even someone who is working in a job that simply ‘pays the bills’ can turn mundane and stressful tasks into pleasant activities with a slight adjustment in attitude and by adopting a daily mindful practice.”
Source: Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
“The incredible benefits of practising and applying mindfulness and self-compassion in the workplace are being increasingly recognised by human resource professionals as well as the medical profession, as the stresses of competing in today’s global economy take their toll on the mental health and emotional wellbeing of many otherwise talented and enthusiastic individuals in the workplace.”
Source: Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
“Mindfulness (present-moment awareness) is deliberately focusing our attention on our thoughts, emotions, feelings, sensations and mental activity without losing awareness of what is happening in the present moment. It is essentially being in a state of present-moment awareness and maintaining clarity without being swayed or distracted by mental commentary.”
Source: Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
“Conscious breathing anchors us into the nowness of life and gives us a fresh outlook, no different from how a baby observes reality without mental commentary. The baby enjoys watching the world and human activity without any limiting mental concepts spoiling his or her perception. Naturally, we all have to evolve from the helpless state of babyhood, but to be able to tap into that wonderful ability and truly BE in the moment is immensely liberating.”
Source: Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
“Like gratitude, authentic appreciation in the workplace is a realisation that can be nurtured and accessed with daily mindful practice.
By and large, people who are grateful, happy and enthusiastic are going to demonstrate better performance than those who are unhappy and unappreciative. There is increasing evidence that a grateful mindset amplifies happiness and mental and emotional wellbeing.”
Source: Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
“Whether someone is a CEO of a major corporation or is serving meals in a diner, failure to adopt a mindful approach will mean that mental and emotional exhaustion could become a habitual condition. Whether someone is stressed about their stocks losing value or being able to pay their bills, the internal underlying conditions of stress and pressure are essentially the same.”
Source: Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
“Learning to practise mindfulness greatly enhances our ability to manifest emotional intelligence and equanimity under pressure and to display calmness, empathy and adaptability when communicating with others, whether it be with co-workers, clients or the board of directors. Learning to apply mindfulness on a daily basis will significantly encourage a positive, creative and enthusiastic attitude at all levels in companies large and small.”
Source: Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
“The process of applying Mindfulness Burnout Prevention (MBP) in the workplace or any environment has a much more far-reaching effect than simply accessing equanimity throughout the vicissitudes of life. Continuous learning helps us to stay youthful, sharpen our mental faculties and wire new neural connections in our brain (making us better equipped to accomplish); it is also a sign of humility.”
Source: Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
“We cannot control the mind by trying to force it to be peaceful or positive. Many have attempted this using a plethora of methods throughout the ages, but it simply does not work. Trying to fight the human mind is like walking into a lion’s den empty-handed and believing that you have a realistic chance of defending yourself.”
Source: Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
“When you can begin to see the similarities between you and your work colleagues in respect of ‘being human’ and the collective challenges we all face, it makes life much easier to deal with, especially when met with overbearing behaviour.”
Source: Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
“Many of us have been unconsciously programmed to treat walking as a means to an end, especially while in the workplace. Naturally, a lack of mindfulness while walking leaves one hostage to self-perpetuating stress and anxiety.
We rush (often while shouting into a mobile phone), completely missing the enjoyment of walking. Walking and breathing, if practised harmoniously, can be peaceful and thoroughly enjoyable. Even walking down a corridor or into an office or wherever we are working or being of service can be a harmonious action.”
Source: Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
“The word ‘pranayama’, often referred to as alternate breathing, comes from the Sanskrit meaning ‘extension of life force’ or ‘extension of breath’. At times, we are going to have days where we are bombarded with one task after another.
This simple yet effective meditation only takes a couple of minutes and its calming qualities can be felt almost immediately. It is one of the easiest meditation techniques to apply. This practice is well worth applying at least three or four times a day (somewhere private) to develop emotional balance and evenness of mind, especially in the working environment.”
Source: Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
“Through practising body scan awareness meditation, we can greatly reduce the detrimental effects of stress and make our working lives pleasant and enjoyable.”
Source: Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
“The Happiest Man in The World
The French interpreter for the 14th Dalai Lama, former academic and dedicated meditator Matthieu Ricard, came into the spotlight in the field of neural science after being named “the happiest man in the world”.
Naturally, there are many other men and women who demonstrate such equanimity, but the studies on his brain uncovered truly astonishing results. MRI scans showed that Matthieu Ricard and other serious long-term meditators (with more than 10,000 hours of practice each) were mentally, emotionally and spiritually fulfilled and displayed an abundance of positive emotions and equanimity in the left pre-frontal cortex of the brain.
When talking about his mindfulness training, Matthieu Ricard said with humility that: “Happiness is a skill. It requires effort and time”.”
Source: Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
“Feeling lost in life often occurs when we feel stuck and unable to progress. Feeling lost is often a symptom of isolation, unresolved grief and a lack of presence-awareness. Uncertainty, confusion, shame and excessive guilt often drive a sense of feeling lost.”
Source: Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles
“Compulsively saying "Sorry" is often a reflection of wanting to apologize for our very existence. I used to say the word 'sorry' when there was no need for me to do so. It became a habit and reflected my chronic toxic shame, low self-worth and low self-esteem.”
Source: Drug Addiction Recovery: The Mindful Way
“Jealousy and possessiveness in romantic relationships often destroy trust and mutual respect. Very often a jealous partner is re-enacting his pain from childhood. If he was emotionally and physically abandoned in childhood, he may be prone to jealousy in a romantic relationship. If a teenage girl was betrayed by her first love, and consequently was emotionally scarred, she may develop jealousy regarding future romantic relationships. Jealousy in a romantic relationship is based on control and possessiveness. A person suffering from jealousy unconsciously believes she is going to lose something or someone she does not own. The partner is afraid of losing her partner. She views him as an object, a possession. No one is a possession of another. The idea that we own or partly own our lovers, even if the sense of ‘ownership’ is purely emotional, is a delusion which brings suffering in its wake.”
Source: Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles
“The only way to free ourselves from the grips of compulsive thinking is to completely transcend it. By this, I mean learning to observe our mental activity without being drawn into identifying with each and every thought.”
Source: Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
“Essentially, 'mindfulness' means having a deeper awareness of what is. Mindfulness entails being aware of our thoughts, feelings and body sensations as they arise in the present moment.”
Source: Drug Addiction Recovery: The Mindful Way
“There is a difference between following your instincts and listening to your intuition. Instincts are primitive modes of survival (fight, flight, freeze, sexual urges, hunting and so on), whereas intuition is a much higher manifestation of thought and emotions.”
Source: Drug Addiction Recovery: The Mindful Way
“The more we try to disassociate from our shame, relying solely on our own reasoning and will power in an attempt to get some emotional relief, the stronger the hold shame has over us. Our shame-based behaviour will find ways to reveal itself if we remain in denial about our pain. Shame can be very subtle and often operates at a subconscious level of awareness. However, when we accept we are carrying unresolved shame, we can heal and make peace with ourselves.”
Source: Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles
“For many emotionally wounded addicts, the idea of grieving is a daunting prospect. To regularly grieve does require courage and a desire to heal - but rest assured; the resulting gains from these efforts are profound.”
Source: Drug Addiction Recovery: The Mindful Way
“Drug addicts will likely suffer from other addictive or dysfunctional behaviours. Seldom will you meet a drug addict who does not exhibit multiple addictive behaviours. Because drug addiction and eating disorders are impossible to ignore so are often in the splotlight, often subtler addictive behaviours, such as love addiction, compulsive underearning and sex addictions, may be neglected.”
Source: Drug Addiction Recovery: The Mindful Way
“There are many people who are consciously aware of their inner rage although they might not know exactly what it is and why it erupts in them.”
Source: Manifest Your Bliss: A Spiritual Guide to Inner Peace
“Relatively speaking, the mind controls the body but who or what controls the mind?”
Source: Manifest Your Bliss: A Spiritual Guide to Inner Peace
“Human beings have always yearned for serenity and inner peace.”
Source: Manifest Your Bliss: A Spiritual Guide to Inner Peace
“The pathological needs of the ego can only survive by creating contradictions to every thought. As you find a solution to one problem another annoyance emerges.”
Source: Manifest Your Bliss: A Spiritual Guide to Inner Peace
“When a human being has been taken over by their inner rage it can be very distressing for those around them and unless they are able to remain calm, present and conscious, their inner rage will also be ignited with sometimes devastating results.”
Source: Manifest Your Bliss: A Spiritual Guide to Inner Peace
“Inner rage is a phenomenally dense frequency that lies dormant in the vast majority of the human species.”
Source: Manifest Your Bliss: A Spiritual Guide to Inner Peace
“A worthy prayer is a deliberate intention which has been guided by your heart.”
Source: Manifest Your Bliss: A Spiritual Guide to Inner Peace
“The idea of different countries and nationalities was purely an invention of the human mind handed down from one generation to the next, bringing war and division in its wake. This is what the Buddha meant by "In the sky there is no east or west but people create distinctions out of their minds and then believe them to be true".”
Source: Manifest Your Bliss: A Spiritual Guide to Inner Peace
“The borders between different countries are, in truth, not real. They are a by-product of the ego.”
Source: Manifest Your Bliss: A Spiritual Guide to Inner Peace
“The more you genuinely praise people in your consciousness, the easier it is to tune into your own inner joy.”
Source: Manifest Your Bliss: A Spiritual Guide to Inner Peace
“Your state of consciousness, right now, will determine what you manifest in the future.”
Source: Manifest Your Bliss: A Spiritual Guide to Inner Peace
“Compassion is a beautiful grace that releases hate and fearful emotions. Through the power of compassion, when put in delicate circumstances with dysfunctional human beings, rather than loathing their behaviour, you can be compassionate to their internal suffering and love them unconditionally.”
Source: Manifest Your Bliss: A Spiritual Guide to Inner Peace
“Needing nothing gives you everything.”
Source: Manifest Your Bliss: A Spiritual Guide to Inner Peace