The single most important factor in deciding what you should have in your home is now clear: Does this item enhance and advance the vision I have for the life I want or does it impede that vision? This is the only question you should ask yourself when looking at the clutter that fills your home.
— Peter Walsh, It’s All Too Much, p. 52
What is already true is much better without any plan of mine. I’m so glad of that. My life is so simple, now that I no longer rule the world in my mind. And my children and friends are very grateful.
— Byron Katie, Loving What Is, p. 33
It’s admirable and healthy to go after our dreams, know what we want to accomplish, what we want to achieve, get, and gain. But whether it’s a person, place, attribute, value, or thing, after we identify what it is we want and are seeking, then we need to let it go and know, not in our minds although that’s a good place to start, but in our hearts and souls that we’re okay — whole, complete, and at peace — whether we ever get what we’re after or not.
Melody Beattie, Playing It By Heart, p. 175
The next time you’re feeling stress or discomfort, ask yourself whose business you’re in mentally, and you may burst out laughing! That question can bring you back to yourself. And you may come to see that you’ve never really been present, that you’ve been mentally living in other people’s business all your life. Just to notice that you’re in someone else’s business can bring you back to your own wonderful self.
— Byron Katie, Loving What Is, p. 3
Have you ever met a person who had hatred, bitterness, and unforgiveness who didn’t feel justified?
— Michelle Borquez, Connie Wetzell, Rosalind Spinks-Seay, and Carla Sue Nelson, Live, Laugh, Love Again, p. 118
Do not worry about how the good that has been planned for you will come.
It will come.
Do not worry, obsess, think you have to control it, go out hunting for it, or tangle your mind trying to figure out how and when it will find you.
It will find you.
Surrender to your Higher Power each day. Trust your Higher Power. Then, stay peaceful. Trust and listen to yourself. That is how the good you want will come to you.
Your healing. Your joy. Your relationships. Your solutions. That job. That desired change. That opportunity. It will come to you — naturally, with ease, and in a host of ways.
That answer will come. The direction will come. The money. The idea. The energy. The creativity. The path will open itself to you. Trust that, for it has already been planned.
It is futile, a waste and drain of energy, to worry about how it will come. It is already there. You have it already. It is in place. You just cannot see it!
You will be brought to it, or it will be brought to you.
— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 368
Control is an illusion. It doesn’t work. We cannot control alcoholism. We cannot control anyone’s compulsive behaviors — overeating, sexual, gambling — or any of their behaviors. We cannot (and have no business trying to) control anyone’s emotions, mind, or choices. We cannot control the outcome of events. We cannot control life. Some of us can barely control ourselves.
People ultimately do what they want to do. They feel how they want to feel (or how they are feeling); they think what they want to think; they do the things they believe they need to do; and they will change only when they are ready to change. It doesn’t matter if they’re wrong and we’re right. It doesn’t matter if they’re hurting themselves. It doesn’t matter that we could help them if they’d only listen to, and cooperate with, us. It doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter.
The problem was, I didn’t know that then. I thought controlling and taking care of other people was my duty, my God-given job. My motto from then on became “Do for others what they refuse to , but should, be doing for themselves.” If other people don’t want to be responsible I’ll pick up that slack.
— Melody Beattie, Playing It By Heart, p. 148
I am a lover of what is, not because I’m a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality. We can know that reality is good just as it is, because when we argue with it, we experience tension and frustration. We don’t feel natural or balanced. When we stop opposing reality, action becomes simple, fluid, kind, and fearless.
— Loving What Is, by Byron Katie, p. 2
Starting arguments, blaming others, or internalizing anger is not the way to go through life. Treat the problem knowing that you will get through it, and you will be a better person because of it. Remember, you can spend your life being angry or joyful. You control only one thing: your thoughts. So find the serenity within yourself. Or as my wife says, “Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight.” Keep your sense of humor, express your feelings, and recognize your power, and you will spend more time at peace than at war.
— Bernie Siegal, M.D., Love, Magic & Mudpies, p. 186
While waiting for direction, we do not have to put our life on hold. Let go of anxiety and enjoy life. Relax. Do something fun. Enjoy the love and beauty in your life. Accomplish small tasks. They may have nothing to do with solving the problem, or finding direction, but this is what we can do in the interim.
— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 355