Quotes about Personal Growth

Virginia State University gave me a chance to get out of my neighborhood and it showed me a different light for who I was in society.

I've virtually grown up in the television industry.

'In the Wake' was a very bleak book. This relationship was not too good, the father and son. This time around, I wanted a father and a son who really loved each other, which would be visible on the first page and would still be there on the last page.

For me, a happy ending is not everything works out just right and there is a big bow, it's more coming to a place where a person has a clear vision of his or her own life in a way that enables them to kind of throw down their crutches and walk.

When you have things that are very important to you in life, when there are things you want to do and be - that takes work. It takes work to show up for your own story and show up for the dream and vision you have for yourself.

The purpose of inquiring about people's parents isn't to join them in blaming, judging, or criticizing their parents. In fact, it's not about their parents at all. It's solely about understanding how their early experiences inform who they are as adults so that they can separate the past from the present (and not wear psychological clothing that no longer fits).

unfinished business. For the next decade, Rita steered

But sometimes—more often than we tend to realize—those difficult people are us.

take the most seriously—are those they come to, little by little, on their own.

Each time, Rita was shocked to find herself alone, but her history didn't surprise me. We marry our unfinished business.

That's why it's especially important to be the people we want to be now, to become more open and expansive while we're able to. A lot will be left dangling if we wait too long.

Insight is the booby prize of therapy" is my favorite maxim of the trade, meaning that you can have all the insight in the world, but if you don't change when you're out in the world, the insight—and the therapy—is worthless

What makes therapy challenging is that it requires people to see themselves in ways they normally choose not to.

early experiences inform who they are as adults so that they can separate the past from the present

That's right - sometimes hell is us. Sometimes we are the cause of our own difficulties. And if we can step out of our own way, something astonishing happens.

this midlife crisis may be more about opening up than shutting down, an expansion rather than a constriction, a rebirth rather than a death.

In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Most big transformations come about from the hundreds of tiny, almost imperceptible, steps we take along the way. A lot

But part of getting to know yourself is to unknow yourself—to let go of the limiting stories you've told yourself about who you are so that you aren't trapped by them, so you can live your life and not the story you've been telling yourself about your life. But

You are not the best person to talk to you about you right now. There is a difference, I point out to them, between self- blame and self-responsibility, which is a corollary to something Jack Kornfield said: 'A second quality of mature spirituality is kindness. It is based on a fundamental notion of self-acceptance.

They may not be able to imagine their depression lifting anytime soon, but they don't need to. Doing something prompts you to do something else, replacing a vicious cycle with a virtuous one. Most big transformations come about from the hundreds of tiny, almost imperceptible, steps we take along the way.

People want to be understood and to understand, but for most of us, our biggest problem is that we don't know what our problem is. We keep stepping in the same puddle.

It's not about lowering your standards—it's about maturing and having reasonable expectations.

transformations come about from the hundreds of tiny, almost imperceptible, steps we take along the way.