Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.
Psychology
Therapists, researchers, and writers on mind and emotion.
112 quotes
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.
Worrying is carrying tomorrow's load with today's strength.
The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.
When we believe what we think, when we take our thinking to be reality, we will suffer.
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.
Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.
Those who have a why to live can bear almost any how.
The meaning of life is to give life meaning.
In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.
Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.
Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart.
We cannot change anything until we accept it.
One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.
People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls.
Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking.
The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.
Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself.
The neurotic is unable to tolerate not only his own weaknesses, but also his own strengths.
If you want to be proud of yourself, then do things in which you can take pride.
Worry is the only emotion which does not lead to action.
Self-hate is the most insidious and the most difficult to discover of all the factors that go into the making of a neurosis.
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.
The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.
We don't laugh because we're happy — we're happy because we laugh.
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.
There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true self.
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.
The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.
What is most personal is most universal.
People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you can let them be.
The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination.
When someone really hears you without passing judgment on you, without trying to take responsibility for you, without trying to mold you, it feels damn good.
Growth occurs when individuals confront problems, struggle to master them, and through that struggle develop new aspects of their skills and capacities.
The sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.
I must learn to love the fool in me—the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too much pleasure, takes too much pain.
Though the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of death may save us.
The capacity to tolerate uncertainty is a prerequisite for the capacity to love.
If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.
To love means to open ourselves to grief, sorrow, and disappointment as well as to joy, fulfillment, and an intensity of consciousness we did not know was possible.
Intelligence is what you use when you don't know what to do.
What we see changes what we know. What we know changes what we see.
A failure is not always a mistake; it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.
Do not call a man a failure until he has stopped trying.
The beliefs that we hold about ourselves and the world form the core of our emotional reactions.
If our thinking is faulty, our emotions and actions will be faulty as well.
The way we perceive things is the way we react emotionally.
You feel the way you think.
Your thoughts create your emotions; therefore, if you want to change how you feel, you must change how you think.
A poor self-image is the magnifying glass that can transform a trivial mistake or an imperfection into an overwhelming symbol of personal defeat.
Perfectionism is the enemy of creativity and productivity.
Trauma is not what happens to you. Trauma is what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you.
The attempt to escape from pain is what creates more pain.
What we call the personality is often a patchwork quilt of compensations and cover-ups.
The question is not why the addiction, but why the pain.
Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it's having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome.
You are imperfect, you are wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.
Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as hard as spending our lives running from it.
Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love.
Shame is the most powerful, master emotion. It's the fear that we're not good enough.
What we don't need in the midst of struggle is shame for being human.
Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.
Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage.
Imperfections are not inadequacies; they are reminders that we're all in this together.
We cannot selectively numb emotions. When we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions.
Self-compassion is simply giving the same kindness to ourselves that we would give to others.
Unlike self-criticism, which asks if you're good enough, self-compassion asks what's good for you.
With self-compassion, we give ourselves the same kindness and care we'd give to a good friend.
Self-compassion involves treating yourself with the same kindness, concern, and support you'd show a good friend.
The more we resist our feelings, the more likely they are to persist.
What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.
One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.
If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.
The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.
It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not of words.
The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.
We are not determined by our experiences, but the meaning we give them shapes our future.
Life doesn't make any sense without interdependence. We need each other, and the sooner we learn that, the better for us all.
The more you know yourself, the more patience you have for what you see in others.
Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.
Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is.
The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.
Depression is the inability to construct a future.
It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way.
The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president.
You largely constructed your depression. It wasn't given to you. Therefore, you can deconstruct it.
There are three musts that hold us back: I must do well. You must treat me well. And the world must be easy.
You are doing the best you can, and you can do better.
Radical acceptance rests on letting go of the illusion of control and a willingness to notice and accept things as they are right now.
Life is not always going to go your way. You have to be able to deal with that.
Becoming is better than being.
Love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning.
The view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life.
Of all the virtues we can learn, no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge.
Happiness is not something that happens. It is not the result of good fortune or random chance.
Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health.
Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.
The paradox of trauma is that it has both the power to destroy and the power to transform and resurrect.
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.
You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish.
You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.
You did in your twenties what you knew how to do, and when you knew better you did better.
If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.
Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.