Up: [[Accept Reality]] Created: 2022-06-14 Updated: 2026-02-06 > [!Orbit] [[Anne Lamott]] in *Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith* > I fit into me now. I have an organic life, finally, not necessarily the one people imagined for me, or tried to get me to have. I have the life I longed for. I have become the woman I hardly dared imagine I could be. There are parts I don’t love — until a few years ago, I had no idea that you could have cellulite on your stomach — but not only do I get along with me most of the time now, I am militantly and maternally on my own side. (p. 172) > [!Orbit] Veronique Vienne > You cannot live your life in anticipation of anyone’s approval — someone else’s or your own. > [!Orbit] Jordan Bach > Being yourself is hard. Living with the regret of having lived your life according to other people’s expectations is hard. Pick your hard. > [!Orbit] Sarah Ban Breatnach in *Romancing the Ordinary* > The secret is to learn to romance your flaws. Cultivate what you formerly censured. Don’t finish today what can be finished tomorrow. Do something that makes you shudder as much as it makes you smile. Don’t have the last word. Tell the persons least expecting it they’ve done something wonderful. Abandon the to-do list and see how much gets finished. Flaunt what you’re trying to forget. Realize that knowing your weaknesses is your biggest strength. If something’s perfect, it can never get better. (p. 244) See also: [[The Many Problems with Perfection]] > [!Orbit] [[Rumi]] > Listen. Make a way for yourself inside yourself. Stop looking in the other way of looking. You already have the precious mixture that will make you well. Use it. > [!Orbit] Anthony de Mello, Jesuit priest. Final recorded words before sudden death in 1987 > Don’t change. Change is impossible. And even if it were possible, it is undesirable. Stay as you are. Love yourself as you are. And change, if it is at all possible, will take place by itself when and if it wants. Leave yourselves alone. The only growth-promoting change is that which comes from self-acceptance. > [!Orbit] Tara Brach > When we put down ideas of what life should be like, we are free to wholeheartedly say yes to our life as it is. > [!Orbit] James Hollis > Whatever wishes to grow within you — a curiosity, a talent, an interest — is life seeking its expression through you. Our old desire for comfort, even happiness, may prove an impediment. We are here a very short time. Let us make it as luminous and as meaningful as we can. Time to stop being afraid, and time to show up as yourself. > [!Orbit] [[Anne Truitt]] in *Turn* > I am come to a mind at ease, as if by acceptance of my own nature I have come into tune with some intrinsic ordinance. Acceptance that bears no relation to resignation, the bitter lees of a failure to rise to challenge. For I have found that wholehearted acceptance comes in me an energy that rises spontaneously when I have carefully examined and come to understand the reality of my character, and have been able to align it with the world around me. As I did last summer when I accepted limitation in my work, and then to my surprise found in that limitation a new freedom. I am wanting that; wanting the acceptance of my limitations to afford me a new freedom, hopefully a creative freedom. > [!Orbit] A character named Ben in Elif Batuman’s *The Idiot* > Whenever I’m worried about anything, I like to think about China. China has a population of like two billion people, and not one of them even remotely cares about whatever you think is so important > [!Orbit] Georgia O'Keeffe > I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free. > [!Orbit] Debbie Rosas > Power is the ability to act, say, think, and express attitude, style, and belief without reserve, hesitation, or limitation. > [!Orbit] Mary O’Malley in *The Gift of Our Compulsions* > All the love we give to the world stems from the love and acceptance we have for ourselves. (Ch. 8) > [!Orbit] [[C. G. Jung]] > We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses. > [!Orbit] Brené Brown > The truth is: Belonging starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance, because believing that you’re enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable and imperfect. > [!Orbit] e.e. cummings > Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit. > [!Orbit] Genevieve Novak in *No Hard Feelings* > The worst thing we do is bravely step out of the mold but then stupidly use someone else’s rubric to judge our own lives everyday. If you’re going to forge your own path, then do so without judgment. It is a beautiful thing to want something for yourself that originates from you. > [!Orbit] Gloria Steinem in *Revolution from Within* > Sometimes when I enter a familiar room or street, I think I see a past self walking toward me… I used to feel impatient with her: Why was she wasting time? Why was she with this man? at that appointment? forgetting to say the most important thing? Why wasn’t she wiser, more productive, happier? But lately I’ve begun to feel a tenderness, a welling of tears in the back of my throat, when I see her. I think: She’s doing the best she can. She’s survived… Sometimes I wish I could go back and put my arms around her… > We are so many selves. It’s not just the long-ago child within us who needs tenderness and inclusion, but the person we were last year, wanted to be yesterday, tried to become in one job… in one love affair or in one house where even now, we can close our eyes and smell the rooms. > What brings together these ever-shifting selves of infinite reactions and returnings is this: There is always one true inner voice. Trust it. (pp. 322-323) > [!Orbit] [[Anne Lamott]] > You have to make mistakes to find out who you aren’t. You take the action, and the insight follows. You don’t think your way into becoming yourself. > [!Orbit] Mary O’Malley > As long as we are resisting what we are trying to change, we stay stuck to it like glue. > [!Orbit] From *No Hard Feelings* > The worst thing we do is bravely step out of the mold but then stupidly use someone else’s rubric to judge our own lives everyday. If you’re going to forge your own path, then do so without judgment. It is a beautiful thing to want something for yourself that originates from you.