Quotes About Empowerment

If men wish to control their women, they must find a way to control midwives.

You get stronger by strengthing your mind, not your body.

When we are free, we can look in the face of our cravings and desires and say "I don't have to satisfy you.

No. You can't. And I can't do anything either, about my life, to change it, make it better, make me feel better about it. Like it better, make it work. But I can stop it. Shut it down, turn it off like the radio when there's nothing on I want to listen to. It's all I really have that belongs to me and I'm going to say what happens to it. And it's going to stop. And I'm going to stop it. So. Let's just have a good time.

Near the top of any girl's list of dumb things to do would be, 'Take a walk by yourself late at night.

In no case should we abandon responsibility for our own choice-making or give someone else's conception of what we are more weight than our own sense of self.

Why should you feel guilty if you refuse to be intimidated by [someone] who persists in standing in the way of your being that best self or who is "hurt" when you finally manage it? . . . The highest love a person can have for you is to wish for you to evolve into the best person you can be. No one owns you, no matter what your relationship.

You may feel like dwelling on your limits or your fears. Don't do it. A perfect prescription for a squandered, unfulfilled life is to accommodate self-defeating feelings while undercutting your finest, most productive ones.

The practice of assuming authority figures know best what one needs, for example, is a mark of someone whose self-esteem is vulnerable.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

I define judgments—both positive and negative—as life-alienating communication.

Participant: Hopeful and relieved.

A menos que "nos tornemos a mudança que desejamos ver acontecer no mundo" (como diria meu avô), nenhuma mudança jamais acontecerá. Infelizmente, estamos todos esperando que os outros mudem primeiro.

the dangers of a language that implies absence of choice

Nonviolent Communication can change the world. More importantly, it can change your life. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

We were not meant to succumb to the dictates of should and have to, whether they come from outside or inside of ourselves. And if we do yield and submit to these demands, our actions arise from an energy that is devoid of life-giving joy.

When we use language which denies choice (for example, words such as should, have to, ought, must, can't, supposed to, etc.), our behaviors arise out of a vague sense of guilt, duty, or obligation.

We only feel dehumanized when we get trapped in the derogatory images of other people or thoughts of wrongness about ourselves. As author and mythologist Joseph Campbell suggested, "'What will they think of me?' must be put aside for bliss." We begin to feel this bliss when messages previously experienced as critical or blaming begin to be seen for the gifts they are: opportunities to give to people who are in pain.

To practice the process of conflict resolution, we must completely abandon the goal of getting people to do what we want.

When we are in contact with our feelings and needs, we humans no longer make good slaves and underlings.

It works because helping people be "right" is more productive than proving them "wrong.

Successful people, however, believe there is always a link between what they have done and how far they have come—even when no link exists. It's delusional, but it is also empowering.

When we regret our own decisions—and do nothing about it—we are no better than a whining employee complaining about his superiors. We are yelling at an empty boat, except it's our boat.

Leadership is not about me. It is all about them.