We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.
Interpretation
True change in mindset comes from lived experiences rather than mere contemplation.
This quote emphasizes that transforming our thoughts and perspectives is achieved through the act of living and experiencing life rather than solely through intellectual reasoning or contemplation. It suggests that engagement with the world, and taking action, leads to a deeper understanding and reshaping of our beliefs, highlighting the importance of experiential learning in personal growth and change.
In practice
This quote can be shared at a personal development workshop to inspire participants.
My scientist friends have come up with things like 'principles of uncertainty' and dark holes. They're willing to live inside imagined hypotheses and theories. But many religious folks insist on answers that are always true. We love closure, resolution and clarity, while thinking that we are people of 'faith'! How strange that the very word 'faith' has come to mean its exact opposite.
The gift of darkness draws you to know God’s presence beyond what thought, imagination, or sensory feeling can comprehend.
I cannot illustrate huge differences between male and female spiritualities except in their starting points, style and fascinations along the way. This is significant, however, and has huge pastoral implications: men must be challenged in the world of doing; women must be challenged in the world of relating.
Much of the Christian religion has largely become “holding on” instead of letting go. But God, it seems to me, does the holding on (to us!), and we must learn the letting go (of everything else).
I've had the good fortune of teaching and preaching across much of the globe, while also struggling to make sense of my experience in my own tiny world.
Church practice has been more influenced by Plato than by Jesus. We invariably prefer the universal synthesis, the answer that settles all the dust and resolves every question even when it is not entirely true over the mercy and grace of God.
I am what I am. I love me! And I don't mean that egotistically - I love that God has allowed me to take whatever it was that I had and to make something out of it.
Know your worth! People always act like they're doing more for you than you're doing for them.
Make yourselves nests of pleasant thoughts. None of us knows what fairy palaces we may build of beautiful thought-proof against all adversity. Bright fancies, satisfied memories, noble histories, faithful sayings, treasure houses of precious and restful thoughts, which care cannot disturb, nor pain make gloomy, nor poverty take away from us.
There is nothing of which we are more ashamed than of not being ourselves. And there is nothing which brings us greater joy and happiness than to think, feel, and say what is ours.
Although I don't take myself very seriously, I do take my work extraordinarily seriously.
It helps to write down half a dozen things which are worrying me. Two of them, say, disappear; about two of them nothing can be done, so it's no use worrying; and two perhaps can be settled.
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