Wounds are the means through which we enter the hearts of other people. They are meant to teach us to become compassionate and wise.
Caroline MyssRead
When we harbor negative emotions toward others or toward ourselves, or when we intentionally create pain for others, we poison our own physical and spiritual systems. By far the strongest poison to the human spirit is the inability to forgive oneself or another person. It disables a person's emotional resources. The challenge...is to refine our capacity to love others as well as ourselves and to develop the power of forgiveness.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Harboring negativity can harm both ourselves and others, and forgiveness is essential for emotional health.
This quote emphasizes the detrimental effects of negative emotions, both towards ourselves and others. Caroline Myss highlights that harboring such feelings can poison our spiritual and physical well-being, suggesting that the inability to forgive is particularly damaging. It calls for a conscious effort to cultivate love and forgiveness, which are crucial for emotional resilience and overall health.
Themes
ForgivenessNegative EmotionsLoveSpiritual HealthEmotional Resilience
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational talk about emotional well-being, one could use this quote to stress the importance of forgiveness.
More from Caroline Myss
All quotes →I am convinced that the deepest desire within each of us is to be liberated from the controlling influences of our own psychic madness or patterns of fear. All other things—the disdain of ordinary life, the need to control others rather than be controlled, the craving for material goods as a means of security and protection against the winds of chaos—are external props that serve as substitutes for the real battle, which is the one waged within the individual soul.
Caroline MyssRead
Healing is a different type of pain. It’s the pain of becoming aware of the power of one’s strength and weakness, of one’s capacity to love or do damage to oneself and to others, and of how the most challenging person to control in life is ultimately yourself.
Caroline MyssRead
Being of service is not an option, it is a biological necessity. Every kind of action we do for someone is a reanimation of our own life force - and of the other person's.
Caroline MyssRead
Similar quotes
Gratefulness for what is there is one of the most powerful tools for creating what is not yet there. What does gratefulness mean? It means you appreciate what is. You value, you give attention to, you honor whatever is here at this moment.
Eckhart TolleRead
You can do one of two things; just shut up, which is something I don't find easy, or learn an awful lot very fast, which is what I tried to do.
Jane FondaRead
To my mind, it seems clear that those who have no memory have the much greater chance to lead happy lives. But it is something you cannot possibly escape: your psychological make-up is such that you are inclined to look back over your shoulder.
W. G. SebaldRead
Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowRead
An avowal of poverty is no disgrace to any man; to make no effort to escape it is indeed disgraceful.
ThucydidesRead
Most people die at 25 but are buried at 75.
Benjamin FranklinRead