Don’t try to hold on to this mountaintop experience. Indeed, never try to hold on to anything, but let go immediately and willingly in order to be ready to receive the new joys and riches which I am preparing for you.
— Hannah Hurnard, Winged Life
We are not here to wish to be somewhere or something we are not, but to do the thing that pleases Him exactly where we are, and as we are.
— Amy Carmichael, Thou Givest . . . They Gather
In every giving up, whether it be of those who are daily our delight, or of our own desires, for love of Him who died for us; in every little private resolve of the heart to do the thing that pleaseth Him, whatever the cost, and to do it not with a grudging spirit but with glad abandon; in every such experience, however small, we may have fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.
— Amy Carmichael, Thou Givest . . . They Gather
Ask yourself now: “Do I deserve to be happy?” Be careful how you answer this question, however, for there’s a catch. If you answer no, then no matter what you do, you will not accept much happiness. If you answer yes, then you’re subscribing to the idea that happiness must be deserved and you will, therefore, have to fulfill all sorts of criteria (set by you) before you can be happy. Both no and yes are dishonest answers. The point is . . .
you do not deserve happiness!
This is not a message of gloom; it is a message of hope! One of the greatest single steps you can take to happiness now is to let go of the belief that happiness has to be deserved. You do not deserve happiness, you choose happiness. Happiness is natural. It is freely available to all. It is unconditional. And when you’re unconditional about happiness, then happiness merely happens! Happiness happens, if you let it.
The belief that happiness has to be deserved has no power, other than the power you give to it. The problem is, you’ve learned to give it a lot of power. This single thought not only reinforces your belief in guilt and unworthiness, but it also contributes to almost every other major fearful belief about happiness. It contributes, in particular, to the work ethic, the suffering ethic, and the martyr ethic — three ethics heavily endorsed by our society.
— Robert Holden, PhD, Happiness Now! p. 100-101
Sometimes we have to give ourselves space to grieve what we have lost: a person, a way of life, a dream. But at some point we have to stand up and say, this is my new life and in this life I need a new job.
— Elizabeth Edwards, Resilience, p. 35
Our intimate partners are by and large our most important persons. Because we share responsibility for our lives with them, because they are magnets for our disappointments, it is all but written into our marriage contracts that we will blame them when things go wrong.
But what happens when we make a point of doing the opposite? What happens when we let go of our proclivity to blame and resent our lovers for our own disappointments? Every time we forgive and thank each other we teach each other critical, and generalizable, life lessons: There is no master plan. There is no life that we were supposed to lead. There is no good future in wishing for a different past. The assumption that things should always go our way, and that someone or something is to blame if they don’t, only leads us away from the path to our better selves.
— Mark O’Connell, PhD, The Marriage Benefit, p. 164-165
Much as we would like, we cannot bring everyone with us on this journey called recovery. We are not being disloyal by allowing ourselves to move forward. We don’t have to wait for those we love to decide to change as well.
Sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to grow, even though the people we love are not ready to change. We may even need to leave people behind in their dysfunction or suffering because we cannot recover for them. We don’t need to suffer with them.
It doesn’t help.
It doesn’t help for us to stay stuck just because someone we love is stuck. The potential for helping others is far greater when we detach, work on ourselves, and stop trying to force others to change with us.
— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 164
Take our eyes off the future and the enormity of the task. If we have envisioned the goal, it will be ours. We do not have to do everything today, or at once.
Focus on today. Focus on the belief that all is well. All we need to do to reach our goal is to focus on what presents itself naturally, and in an orderly way, to us today. We shall be empowered to accomplish, peacefully, what we need to get where we want to be tomorrow.
— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 162
It’s ironic that the only joy you ever experience while pursuing happiness is when you very occasionally allow yourself to rest, relax, and stop pursuing happiness. Think of what joy you’d experience if you dared to stop pursuing happiness completely. Think how fearless you would be, how creative and at peace you would be, and how free you would be to enjoy the world more fully if you were to stop pursuing happiness and simply start accepting and allowing happiness to happen.
— Robert Holden, PhD, Happiness Now!, p. 46
If grievance is the act of wishing for a different past, then mourning is the act of accepting that past in order to allow a different future.
— Mark O’Connell, PhD, The Marriage Benefit, p. 160