Where is salvation’s justice
if some errors are unforgivable,
and warrant vengeance in place of
healing and return of peace?
—A Course in Miracles
Posts in "Excerpts" Category
Responsibility
I must have the right to say “No.” Only I can give myself this right on a meaningful basis. My no is a function of some of the deepest compassionate feelings for myself. This no of mine represents whatever force I can bring against anything in me or outside of me which I recognize as being antithetical to my well-being. This no represents me at my most grown up. This no makes my yes meaningful. Without this no I am without healthy, self-preserving defenses against infantile aspects of myself … Without this no I am indefensible against the demands of other people and their desires.
―Compassion and Self-Hate, Theodore Isaac Rubin
Good Orderly Direction
When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at four a.m. and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for ten kilometers or swim for fifteen hundred meters (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at nine p.m. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind. But to hold to such repetition for so long — six months to a year — requires a good amount of mental and physical strength. In that sense, writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity. —Haruki Murakami
Take Heart
All you achieved was not by accident,
nor by pure luck, nor by a preordained destiny
but by your actions, intentions and aspirations.
You achieved all.
—Victory Over Verbal Abuse, Patricia Evans
Reframe
When we deeply grasp what has happened to us, it becomes clear that we’re doing great. One of the essential shifts in perspective that I’m hoping you’ll take from The Joyous Recovery is to drop the notion, “I need to change what’s wrong with me,” and replace it with, “It’s incredible that I’ve done as well as I have. Now it’s time to do even better.”
Think of healing not as a process of changing, but the opposite: of becoming more truly the person you’ve always been. It’s about going back along the road picking up all the pieces of yourself that were taken from you along the way. We’re not trying to fix what’s wrong with you; we’re trying to set what’s right with you free.
—The Joyous Recovery, Lundy Bancroft