Alice Childress Quotes

The first step is learning to monitor your thoughts; to think about what you are thinking about.

Mindfulness has helped me succeed in almost every dimension of my life. By stopping regularly to look inward and become aware of my mental state, I stay connected to the source of my actions and thoughts and can guide them with considerably more intention.

To meditate is to observe yourself, for you are totally responsible for your body, mind, thought.

Mindfulness allows us to watch our thoughts, see how one thought leads to the next, decide if we're heading down an unhealthy path, and, if so, let go and change directions.

If you first gain power to check your words, you will then begin to have power to check your judgment, and at length actually gain power to check your thoughts and reflections.

Let the wise guard their thoughts, which are difficult to perceive, extremely subtle, and wander at will. Thought which is well guarded is the bearer of happiness.

Self-judgment continues to arise - it's a strong habit - but the fact that I made a conscious commitment to recognize it has helped me stop feeding the story of being unworthy.

. . . man is just what he thinks himself to be . . . He will attract to himself what the thinks most about. He can learn to govern his own destiny when he learns to control his thoughts.

Self-awareness is a key to self-mastery

When thou findest thyself scorning another, look then at thy own heart and laugh at thy folly.

Where we tended to be judgmental, we became more judgmental of ourselves in our spiritual practice.

When you believe yourself to be master of your thoughts, you become so.

However, while being able to think about two things at the same time is a terribly convenient, the training it takes to get there is frustrating at best, and at other times rather disturbing. I remember one time I looked for the stone for almost an hour before I consented to ask the other half of me where I'd hidden it, only to find I hadn't hidden the stone at all. I had merely been waiting to see how long I would look before giving up. Have you ever been annoyed and amused with yourself at the same time? It's an interesting feeling, to say the very least.

When someone new comes into your life and suddenly you feel more alive, more beautiful, more sexual, more creative, more desirable and more engaged; you feel that this new person is the key to those feelings. But actually, you have these qualities too. What you don't see and don't acknowledge in yourself, you project onto someone else. Carl Jung explored this very well. He called it projection.

One has to try to develop one's inner feelings, which can be done simply by training one's mind. This is a priceless human asset and one you don't have to pay income tax on!

I am burdened with what the Buddhists call the monkey mind. The thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping only to scratch themselves, spit and howl. My mind swings wildly through time, touching on dozens of ideas a minute, unharnessed and undisciplined. You are, after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.

Do not be thoughtless, always be mindful, watch your thoughts! Draw yourself out of the path of evil, like an elephant sunk in mud.

Self-knowledge is only from moment to moment, and therefore there is a creative happiness from moment to moment.

If you should escape the censure of others, hope not to escape your own.

I am pretty sick with myself! It seemed a pretty good idea at the time. Around the time I turned 30, I started to feel very creative, more creative than I had been before which is good and I like that.

We need to keep a constant watch over our mind and learn to distinguish between the beneficial and harmful thoughts that are arising moment by moment. Those who are able to do this are truly wise.

Happy are those who find fault with themselves instead of finding fault with others.

Our minds are forced to become fixed upon different things by an attraction in them which we cannot resist. To control the mind, to place it just where we want it, requires special training. It cannot be done in any other way. In the study of religion the control of the mind is absolutely necessary. We have to turn the mind back upon itself in this study.

Half the time you think your thinking you’re actually listening

There are a lot of black-hearted, mean-spirited bastards in the world. It's important that we hold them to acount. But always remember that you might be the most black-hearted and mean-spirited in the lot, so hold yourself the most accountable of all.