“Getting our balance and keeping it once we have found it is what recovery is all about. If that sounds like a big order, don’t worry. We can do it. We can learn to live again. We can learn to love again. We can even learn to have fun at the same time.”
— Melody Beattie, Codependent Do More, p. 214
“It’s okay to be in a relationship, but it’s also okay to not be in a relationship. Find friends to love, be loved by, and who think we are worthwhile. Love ourselves and know we are worthwhile. Use our time alone as a breather. Let go. Learn the lessons we are to be learning. Grow. Develop. Work on ourselves, so when love comes along, it enhances a full and interesting life. Love shouldn’t be the concern of our whole life or an escape from an unpleasant life. Strive toward goals. Have fun. Trust God and His timing. He cares and knows about all our needs and wants.”
— Melody Beattie, Codependent No More, p. 213-214
“My definition of guilt is quite simple: when you try to force yourself to do something you don’t really want to do…. Anytime you hear yourself say, ‘I should, I’m supposed to, I have to,’ you have ignored your spirit to please your tribe.
“Coming into harmony with your soul releases the tension in your body and eliminates the mental Ping-Pong. When you hear your spirit, there is a huge surge of energy with a wonderful feeling of relief. Suddenly you are awake, alert, and fully alive and ready to live.”
— Christel Nani, Sacred Choices, p. 49
“Satan’s lie is that our temptation is unique to us.”
— Robert E. Steinkamp, The Prodigal’s Pen, p. 149
“You do not want ‘obedience’ in your home, you want cooperation. When people feel valued, they cooperate. When they don’t feel valued, they resist what feels to them like submission. The keys to resentment-free cooperation are making behavior requests, instead of demands and, above all, tolerance of differences.
When a partner gives in to a demand, he’ll be resentful.”
— Steven Stosny, Compassion Power Boot Camp
“Forgiveness is made easy when we can identify with others and admit to our own imperfections and an equal capacity for wrongdoing.”
— Leo Buscaglia, Born for Love, p. 133
“Jesus seems to me to say:…
If I held my face to my testimony only till danger came close, and then prayed for the Father to deliver me with twelve legions of angels, that would be to say that the Father would do anything for his children until it began to hurt him. I bear witness that my father is such as I. In the face of death I assert it, and dare death to disprove it. Kill me, do what you will and can against me, my father is true, and I am true in saying that he is true. Danger or hurt cannot turn me aside from this my witness. Death can only kill my body but cannot make me its captive.
Father, thy will be done! The pain will pass. It will be but for a time! Gladly will I suffer that men may know that I live, and that thou art my life.”
— George MacDonald, Your Life in Christ: The Nature of God and His Work in Human Hearts, p. 46-47
“God is all right. Therefore, why should we mind standing in the dark for a minute outside his window? Of course we miss the inness. But there is a bliss of its own in waiting. What if the rain be falling, and the wind blowing? What if we stand alone, or, more painful still, have some dear one beside us, sharing our outness? What even if the window be not shining because of the curtains of impenetrable good drawn across it? Let us think to ourselves, or say to our friend, ‘God is. Jesus is not dead. Nothing can be going wrong, however it may look to our hearts that are unfinished in childness.’
“Let us say to the Lord, ‘Jesus areyou loving the Father in there? Then we out here will do his will, patiently waiting till he open the door. We shall not mind the wind or the rain much’…
“In a word, let us be at peace, because peace is at the heart of things–peace and utter satisfaction between the Father and the Son — in which peace they call us to share, in which peace they promise that at length, when they have their good way with us, we shall share.”
— George MacDonald, Your Life in Christ, p. 51
“The good news about appreciation is that its positive effects spread and multiply. Appreciating a sunset will make you appreciate your family more, and vice versa.”
— Steven Stosny, You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 81
“Two of the hardest things to do in life happen to be crucial to success in relationships:
— Holding onto self-value when things go badly
— Holding onto your value of loved ones when you don’t like their behavior.”
— Steven Stosny, Manual of the Core Value Workshop, p. 28