Dan Millman Quotes

The amount of stress in your life is determined by how much energy you expend resisting your life.

I like to live in the present. I struggle with that, though, because - even for all of this "letting your life flow" stuff - I also have anxieties.

In life, stress happens when you resist what arises.

The unawakened mind tends to make war against the way things are.

We deal with our mind from morning till evening, and it can be our best friend or our worst enemy.

So long as man resists a situation, he will have it with him.

Stop resisting your problems so furiously in your mind. Stop struggling to solve them. If you do that, a great sense of peace followed by a great sense of power will come to you.

Pain is a relatively objective, physical phenomenon; suffering is our psychological resistance to what happens. Events may create physical pain, but they do not in themselves create suffering. Resistance creates suffering. Stress happens when your mind resists what is... The only problem in your life is your mind's resistance to life as it unfolds.

The mind and heart is the field upon which war is waged within us. If we can stop that internal fear-based battle, then those outside of us will be affected as well.

I've had to find my sanity.

I found out that I couldn't have a nervous breakdown. I tried a couple of times, but it just didn't work out. My mind, my body wouldn't let me.

Most of one's life is one prolonged effort to prevent oneself thinking.

We all have times that we get off center.

I don't really feel any pressure. I can control only what I can control.

What the mind cannot accept, the heart can finally never adore.

I have no idea how people function without near-constant internal chaos. I'd lose my mind.

First you have to witness that you are stressing out: Oh, my trigger is here. The news is stressing me out or This line is so long. Let yourself feel it. You don't want to spiritually bypass these problems. Give yourself a couple of minutes to sit in the feeling. Acceptance sets you free from the stress of expectation.

Whatever you accept completely, you go beyond. If you fight it, you're stuck with it.

Keep violence in the mind Where it belongs (Barefoot in the Head)

...when you resist what happens, your mind begins to race; the same thoughts that impinge upon you are actually created by you.

It's not the situation that's causing your stress, it's your thoughts, and you can change that right here and now. You can choose to be peaceful right here and now. Peace is a choice, and it has nothing to do with what other people do or think.

Do not disturb yourself by picturing your life as a whole; do not assemble in your mind the many and varied troubles which have come to you in the past and will come again in the future, but ask yourself with regard to every present difficulty: 'What is there in this that is unbearable and beyond endurance?'

Do not let trifles disturb your tranquility of mind. The little pin-pricks of daily life when dwelt upon and magnified, may do great damage, but if ignored or dismissed from thought, will disappear from inanition.

If you think that happiness means total peace, you will never be happy. Peace comes from the acceptance of the part of you that can never be at peace. It will always be in conflict. If you accept that, everything gets a lot better.

If your beliefs are stressful and you question them, you come to see that they aren't true - whereas prior to questioning, you absolutely believe them. How can you live in joy when you're believing thoughts that bring on sadness, frustration, anger, alienation, and loneliness?