Harry Hay Quotes

You can be heartbroken about a relationship but also, from it, realize you are you, and you're okay with who you are or where you came from.

Today I will tell myself that I'm lovable. Just because some people haven't been able to love me in ways that worked doesn't mean that I'm unlovable. I've had lessons to learn, and some of them have hurt deeply, but I can still love, and I still am loved.

There are days I drop words of comfort on myself like falling leaves and remember that it is enough to be taken care of by myself.

One must cast off old agonies as a snake casts off its skin--only to grow a new set and accept all of their limitations.

Women shouldn't be burdened by what existed in their past, we should all learn how to turn pain into strength.

People change when they hurt enough that they have to change, learn enough that they want to change, receive enough that they are able to change.

I am slowly, painfully discovering that my refuge is not found in my mother, my grandmother, of even the birds of Bear River. My refuge exists in my capacity to love. If I can learn to love death then I can begin to find refuge in change.

The wounded heart learns self-love by first overcoming low self-esteem.

Love After Love all your life, whom you have ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.

I overcame myself, the sufferer; I carried my own ashes to the mountains; I invented a brighter flame for myself.

The more you get past pain, the more it goes from coal to diamond.

Your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel.

The first and the best victory is to conquer self.

Even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength.

....he said it was interesting. He used the word 'textured'. He said 'smooth' is boring but 'textured' was interesting, and the scar meant that I was stronger than whatever had tried to hurt me.

To increase your level of self acceptance, think of your unique talents and abilities.

As long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than there is wrong, no matter how ill or how hopeless you may feel. But if you hope to mobilize your inner capacities for growth and for healing and to take charge in your life on a new level, a certain kind of effort and energy on your part will be required.... It will take conscious effort on your part to move in a direction of healing and inner peace. This means learning to work with the very stress and pain that is causing you to suffer.

To heal our wounds, we need courage to face them.

Through spiritual maturity you will see new ways to avoid unnecessary suffering; wiser ways to endure unavoidable hardships with grace, and opportunities to turn your pain into lessons of service and healing for others. Your hard journey has had a great purpose! Your pain was always a part of a plan to open your heart to love. Have faith. A miracle is happening in your life; the miracle of pain is transforming you to your highest self.

When we come into the present, we begin to feel the life around us again, but we also encounter whatever we have been avoiding. We must have the courage to face whatever is present - our pain, our desires, our grief, our loss, our secret hopes our love - everything that moves us most deeply.

Your pain is an opportunity for you to learn about yourself.

Dare to love yourself

You’ve learned a new rule and it’s simple: don’t put yourself in situations you’d like to run away from. But when you run, run back to yourself, like that bunny in Runaway Bunny runs to its mother, but you are the mother and you’ll see that later and be very, very proud.

Overcome any bitterness that may have come because you were not up to the magnitude of the pain entrusted to you. Like the mother of the world who carries the pain of the world in her heart, you are sharing in a certain measure of that cosmic pain, and are called upon to meet it in joy instead of self pity.

Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.