I know people can change-right down to my bones, through every cell, in every fiber of my body-I now that people can change. It is just a question of when and in what context.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the potential for personal transformation and growth in individuals, suggesting that change is inherent in all of us.
Virginia Satir highlights the profound belief that human beings possess the capacity for change at the deepest levels. She suggests that change is a fundamental aspect of our being, occurring within every part of us, but the timing and circumstances of such transformations vary. This perspective encourages an optimistic view of human potential, recognizing that while change may be challenging, it is always possible.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal development.
Over the years I have developed a picture of what a human being living humanely is like. She is a person who understand, values and develops her body, finding it beautiful and useful; a person who is real and is willing to take risks, to be creative, to manifest competence, to change when the situation calls for it, and to find ways to accommodate to what is new and different, keeping that part of the old that is still useful and discarding what is not.
The message sent is not always the message received.
What lingers from the parent's individual past, unresolved or incomplete, often becomes part of her or his irrational parenting.
The recommended daily requirement for hugs is: four per day for survival, eight per day for maintenance, and twelve per day for growth.
Your responses to the events of life are more important than the events themselves.
Put together all the existing families and you have society. It is as simple as that. Whatever kind of training took place in the individual family will be reflected in the kind of society that these families create.
Well, I think by any expectation South Africa has come a tremendously long way. We've seen a society that many people thought couldn't withstand a peaceful transition to democracy without a great deal of violence, in fact, make that transition and do it in relative peace and security.
The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes: a counter pushed across a table, a pen stroke that alters the force of a phrase, a woman's sigh as she passes and leaves on the air a trail of orange flower or rose water; her hand pulling close the bed curtain, the discreet sigh of flesh against flesh.
If you want to change attitudes, start with a change in behavior.
When there's a disappointment, I don't know if it's the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure.
Certainly, by providing individuals coming out of institutions with ways to become productive citizens, we reduce recidivism. What that means is we reduce crime. There are fewer victims when individuals have options - when they have job skills, when they have life skills, we break the cycle of children following their parents into institutions.
The only thing we know about the future is that it will be different.
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