Clarissa Pinkola Estes Quotes

Man's great misfortune is that he has no organ, no kind of eyelid or brake, to mask or block a thought, or all thought, when he wants to.

Not the power to remember, but its very opposite, the power to forget, is a necessary condition of our existence. If the lore of the transmigration of souls is a true one, then these, between their exchange of bodies, must pass through the sea of forgetfulness.

The answer is that we are not helpless in the face of our first impressions. They may bubble up from the unconscious - from behind a locked door inside of our brain - but just because something is outside of awareness doesn't mean it's outside of control.

I have a very busy head. I have inside voices that I have learned to contain.

This kind of forgetting does not erase memory, it lays the emotion surrounding the memory to rest.

The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.

It is pretty clear that they are ineffective in stopping the course of thought at present, but they have not always been so in the past and we cannot be sure that they will not be so in the future.

The problem with emotion was that it was clearly something important, but-at least according to the old philosophy-it was something to overcome.

To teach virtue we must educate the emotions, and this means learning "what to feel" in the various circumstances that prompt them.

Make a decision that from now on, your thoughts do not run you, you run your thoughts. From now on, your mind is not the captain of your ship, you are the captain of the ship, and your mind works for you.

The irony of the process of thought control: the more energy you put into trying to control your ideas and what you think about, the more your ideas end up controlling you.

You have two choices: to control your mind or to let your mind control you.

For I regard memory not as a phenomenon preserving one thing and losing another merely by chance, but as a power that deliberately places events in order or wisely omits them. Everything we forget about our own lives was really condemned to oblivion by an inner instinct long ago.

I'm now much more aware of my mental state. I have a lot more control over it and can choose how I feel.

Studies by Andrew Newberg and others have shown that long-term practice of meditation produces significant alterations in cerebral blood flow in parts of the brain related to attention, emotion, and some autonomic functions.

The brain controls pain. It controls fear. Sleep. Empathy. Hunger. Everything we associate with the heart or the soul or the nervous system is actually controlled by the brain. Everything. What if you could control it?

Cognition reigns but does not rule.

When you are relaxed, you can focus a lot more easily than when you are hyper and over-energetic. It's important to be "up" for a competition, but you shouldn't have too much energy, because you might not be able to control it. In competitions, it is important to be able to bring the power and energy you are feeling down to a level that you can control. This comes with practice and experience.

You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day. This is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That's the only thing you should be trying to control.

The mind has greater power over the emotions, and is less subject thereto, insofar as it understands all things to be necessary.

Learn to use your emotions to think, not think with your emotions

The loss of memory isn't always the problem; sometimes--maybe even often--it's the solution.

Positive and negative emotions cannot occupy the mind at the same time.

You either control your mind or it controls you.

If you want to get over a problem, stop talking about it. Your mind affects your mouth and your mouth affects your mind. It's difficult to stop talking about a situation until you stop thinking about it.