Debbie Ford Quotes

What you don't want to know about yourself wants to be known, which is why it keeps 'showing up' at your door unannounced!

I think when I went to psychoanalysis, I actually believed that people said what they meant. This was my whole problem.

I don't really look at myself as the kind of person who craves attention, but I've never been to therapy so there's probably a lot of stuff about myself that I don't know.

I learned quite early on in life that we are all two people. And one of those people none of us will ever know.

Very unconscious people experience their own ego through its reflection in others. When you realize that what you react to in others is also in you (and sometimes only in you), you begin to become aware of your own ego.

Every autobiography is concerned with two characters, a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza, the Self.

Sometimes you have to confront your demons and sometimes even let them loose to genuinely find a place where you can gain some understanding.

In my early 30s, I started to realise I was avoiding something on a personal level, but also as a writer. I was in denial about who I was, and was trying to be someone who I was not.

Man's task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious.

I just want to live each moment, but it's kind of hard to do that when you are asked to analyze yourself constantly. But it's also good in that you are forced to think about things that you don't ordinarily think about. I think it's strange.

Being a parent has taught me a lot of things already, you know, though it's only been a year and half, and has made me address parts of myself that I would otherwise live in comfortable denial of, or you know and - you know, for instance, my self-loathing.

Resistance to revelation, resistance to becoming conscious of all that dwells within us - high and low, light and dark - is the anti-change factor. It is also the mainspring of all our psychological fears.

Sometimes it's hard to tell where your instincts start and your baggage stops.

How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.

Over time, it's occurred to me that my protagonists all originate in some aspect of myself that I find myself questioning or feeling uncomfortable about.

The center that I cannot find is known to my unconscious mind.

There's so much of our psychological makeup which is impermissible for us to explore because it's inappropriate or perverse or scary. I'm interested in exploring that in myself. I try to be honest with myself about everything that I feel. I'm not saying I'm able to do that all the time, but it's something I'm interested in.

Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.

I was raised in an atmosphere of 'everything's fine.' But as I got older, I was like, 'Well no, everything's not fine. There is stuff that's sad.' I am a really sensitive person. I think I am too sensitive sometimes.

I think shrinks are interesting to write about because you get to see what the character chooses to reveal, and what behaviors or stances the character tries out on the shrink that might not be part of the character's make-up outside of that room. It's an emotional test-kitchen.

I wrote an episode for 'thirtysomething,' and a producer said, 'That's really good, but what is it about? What does it say about you? What questions are you asking yourself?' I had never thought about that. This comment changed who I was, because it made me look at my own soul, the dark corners in my soul, and accept that dark side.

Those darker sides, the things that we don't want to admit about ourselves - that's what excites me.

'Orphans' reflects unconscious elements in myself that were, at the time, indigestible and butting up against each other in my psyche; issues I wasn't really in touch with but was trying to put into a dramatic framework.

I think therapy can be very revealing and useful for actors. You start to dig deep and understand certain mechanisms that you hadn't been aware of before and, you know, meanings behind things.

One of my worst fears is being a self-indulgent person.