Elizabeth Lesser Quotes

Quotes about:

• Every day we're given a choice: We can relax and float in the direction that the water flows, or we can swim hard against it. If we go with the river, the energy of a thousand mountain streams will be with us . . . if we resist the river, we will feel rankled and tired as we tread water, stuck in the same place.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Tired, Rivers, Water

  Elizabeth Lesser (2010). “Broken Open: How difficult times can help us grow”, p.270, Random House

  66 Copy quote

• The great loneliness- like the loneliness a caterpillar endures when she wraps herself in a silky shroud and begins the long transformation from chrysalis to butterfly. It seems we too must go through such a time, when life as we have known it is over- when being a caterpillar feels somehow false and yet we don’t know who we are supposed to become. All we know is that something bigger is calling us to change. And though we must make the journey alone, and even if suffering is our only companion, soon enough we will become a butterfly, soon enough we will taste the rapture of being alive.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Life, Change, Loneliness

  62 Copy quote

• How strange that the nature of life is change, yet the nature of human beings is to resist change. And how ironic that the difficult times we fear might ruin us are the very ones that can break us open and help us blossom into who we were meant to be.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Ironic, Might, Ruins

  60 Copy quote

• When we descend all the way down to the bottom of loss, and dwell patiently, with an open heart, in the darkness and pain, we can bring back up with us the sweetness of life and the exhilaration of inner growth. When there is nothing left to lose, we find the true self - the self that is whole, the self that is enough, the self that no longer looks to others for definition, or completion, or anything but companionship on the journey.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Pain, Heart, Loss

  Elizabeth Lesser (2010). “Broken Open: How difficult times can help us grow”, p.81, Random House

  31 Copy quote

• What will matter is the good we did, not the good we expected others to do.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Matter, Expected

  25 Copy quote

• Your path is your own, but you must walk side by side with others, with compassion and generosity as your beacons. If anything is required it is this: fearlessness in your examination of life and death; Willingness to continually grow; and openness to the possibility that the ordinary is extraordinary, and that your joys and your sorrows have meaning and mystery

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Compassion, Generosity, Life And Death

  Elizabeth Lesser (1999). “The New American Spirituality: A Seeker's Guide”, Random House Incorporated

  35 Copy quote

• Things do fall apart. It is in their nature to do so. When we try to protect ourselves from the inevitability of change, we are not listening to the soul. We are listening to our fear of life and death, our lack of faith, our smaller ego's will to prevail. To listen to the soul is to stop fighting with life-to stop fighting when things fall apart, when they don't go our way, when we get sick, when we are betrayed or mistreated or misunderstood. To listen to the soul is to slow down, to feel deeply, to see ourselves clearly, to surrender to discomfort and uncertainty, and to wait.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Fall, Fighting, Life And Death

  11 Copy quote

• I accept that life is uncertain--that the goal is not to become more certain about anything but to relax more into the mystery of not knowing what will come next. And then, miracle of miracles, out there in the deep and uncertain water, I come into a peaceful knowing--a faithful wisdom that surpasses control and certainty.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Life, Knowing, Water

  24 Copy quote

• Whatever is happening, whatever is changing, whatever is going or not going according to my plans - I release my hold on all of it. I leave behind who I think I am, who I want to be, what I want the world to be. I come home to the great peace of the present moment.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Home, Thinking, World

  24 Copy quote

• Grief is an expression that you loved well.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Grief, Expression, Wells

  25 Copy quote

• Look for a way to lift someone up. If that's all you do, it's enough.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Looks, Way, Enough

  12 Copy quote

• When you feel yourself breaking down, may you break open instead.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  May, Breaking Down, Break

  "Interview with Author & Visionary – Elizabeth Lesser". Interview with Kelly McNelis Senegor, womenforone.com. January 21, 2013.

  24 Copy quote

• May you listen to the voice within the beat even when you are tired. When you feel yourself breaking down, may you break open instead. May every experience in life be a door that opens your heart, expands your understanding and leads you to freedom.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Tired, Heart, Doors

  8 Copy quote

• Agree to these ground rules: Be curious, conversational and real. Don't persuade or interrupt. Listen, listen, listen.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Real, Curious, Ground Rules

  9 Copy quote

• When you approach spirituality as an adventure of being alive, you start as you would any adventure--with a sense of mystery and not-knowing. Instead of searching for answers that make you feel safe, you set out into the vastness of life and death, with a willingness to continually grow. You open up to the possibility that your ordinary life is an extraordinary adventure, and that your joys and sorrows have meaning. Spiritual practice becomes your rudder, offering direction and insight and discretion as you venture into the unknown.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Spiritual, Adventure, Offering

  Elizabeth Lesser (2008). “The Seeker's Guide: Making Your Life a Spiritual Adventure”, p.16, Ballantine Books

  9 Copy quote

• It's not always about survival, this life we are given; it's usually so much easier than that. It's about trusting the eternal life force that is flowing within us-letting that force lead the way through all of the inevitable changes we will face across the span of our time here on Earth.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Inspirational, Survival, Inevitable Change

  Elizabeth Lesser (2010). “Broken Open: How difficult times can help us grow”, p.291, Random House

  27 Copy quote

• If you're interested in opening the doors to the heavens, start with the door to your own secret self. See what happens when you offer to another a glimpse of who you truly are. When your heart is undefended, you make it safe for whomever you meet to put down his burden of hiding, and then you both can walk through the open door.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Heart, Doors, Self

  7 Copy quote

• One of the reasons I love prayer is that it is an antidote to guilt and blame. If we are unhappy with the way we have acted or been treated, instead of stewing in self-recrimination on the one hand, or harboring ill will toward someone else on the other, prayer gives us a way out of the circle of guilt and blame. We bring our painful feelings into the open and say, "I have done wrong," or "I have been wronged." And then we ask for a vaster view--one that contains within it all the forgiveness we need in order to move forward.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Prayer, Moving, Ill Will

  25 Copy quote

• There is an art to grieving. To grieve well the loss of anyone or anything--a parent, a love, a child, an era, a home, a job--is a creative act. It takes attention and patience and courage. But many of us do not know how to grieve. We were never taught, and we don't see examples of full-bodied grieving around us. Our culture favors the fast-food model of mourning--get over it quick and get back to work; affix the bandage of "closure" and move on.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Art, Jobs, Children

  11 Copy quote

• Every day we have the opportunity to make our relationships be on the outside what they really are on a spiritual level.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Spiritual, Opportunity, Levels

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

  8 Copy quote

• I pray that each one of us stays awake as we fall. I pray that we choose to go into the abyss willingly and that our fall is cushioned by faith--faith that at the bottom we will be caught and taught and turned toward the light. I pray that we don't waste precious energy feeling ashamed of our mistakes, or embarrassed by our flaws. After years of teaching, I know only a few things for sure. One of them is this: We are chunks of dense matter that need to be cracked open. Our errors and failings are chinks in the heart's armor through which our true colors can shine.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Mistake, Teaching, Fall

  8 Copy quote

• If you're interested in the door to the heavens opening, start with the door to your own secret self.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Doors, Self, Heaven

  29 Copy quote

• How strange that the nature of life is change, yet the nature of human beings is to resist change

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Strange, Life Is, Humans

  Elizabeth Lesser (2010). “Broken Open: How difficult times can help us grow”, p.17, Random House

  10 Copy quote

• We can be the one to take the first courageous step toward the other and to do something or to try to do something other than rejection or attack. We can do this with our siblings and our mates and our friends and our colleagues. We can do this with the disconnection and the discord all around us.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Sibling, Rejection, Trying

  Source: www.npr.org

  13 Copy quote

• The person who takes the first step in a conflict toward the other, those are brave people.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  People, Brave, Firsts

  Source: www.npr.org

  6 Copy quote

Page 1 of 6

← Prev

1

2

3

4

5

6

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin