You know the old adage: Plant an expectation, reap a disappointment.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
This was my moment to look for the kind of healing and peace that can only come from solitude.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of solitude for personal healing and finding inner peace.
In this quote, Elizabeth Gilbert reflects on the transformative power of solitude, suggesting that true healing and inner peace can be attained when one embraces moments of stillness away from the chaos of life. Solitude allows individuals to connect with their inner selves, process their thoughts and emotions, and ultimately discover a deeper sense of tranquility.
In practice
During a mindfulness retreat, I shared this quote to highlight the value of quiet reflection.
You know the old adage: Plant an expectation, reap a disappointment.
Do not apologize for crying. Without this emotion, we are only robots.
I had always been taught that the pursuit of happiness was my natural (even national) birthright. It is the emotional trademark of my culture to seek happiness. Not just any kind of happiness, either, but profound happiness, even soaring happiness. And what could possibly bring a person more soaring happiness than romantic love.
When I tried this morning, after an hour or so of unhappy thinking, to dip back into my meditation, I took a new idea with me: compassion. I asked my heart if it could please infuse my soul with a more generous perspective on my mind's workings. Instead of thinking that I was a failure, could I perhaps accept that I am only a human being--and a normal one, at that?
And when you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt - this is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty to find something beautiful within life no matter how slight.
But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilling yearnings.
The more observing ones may have seen, but discerning people are usually discreet and often kind, for we usually bleed a little before we begin to discern.
Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion. God's love for you and his choice of you constitute your worth. Accept that, and let it become the most important thing in your life.
People say that practicing Zen is difficult, but there is a misunderstanding as to why. It is not difficult because it is hard to sit in the cross- legged position, or to attain enlightenment. It is difficult because it is hard to keep our mind pure and our practice pure in its fundamental sense.
I've learnt something from every failure. The products I helped design at the first two companies I worked for were utter failures. But now I know why.
Experience, the interpreter between creative nature and the human race, teaches the action of nature among mortals: how under the constraint of necessity she cannot act otherwise than as reason, who steers her helm, teaches her to act.
Grief's darkness fades in the sunlight of thanksgiving.
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