Joan Z. Borysenko Quotes

Everyday brings a choice: to practice stress or to practice peace.

May I be at peace. May I awaken to the light of my own true nature. May I be healed and may I be the source of healing for others.

If you take a single step toward positive change, that divine energy will take a hundred steps toward you. New worlds and unbelievable possibilities will open up for you. The synchronicities that will begin appearing in your life will become a source of delight and amazement.

Healing is the rediscovery of who we are and who we have always been.

Growth of the soul is our goal, and there are many ways to encourage that growth, such as through love, nature, healing our wounds, forgiveness, and service. The soul grows well when giving and receiving love. I nourish my soul daily by loving others and being vulnerable to their love. Love is, after all, a verb, an action word, not a noun.

Learning to listen to ourselves is a way of learning to love ourselves.

Forgiveness is not the misguided act of condoning irresponsible, hurtful behavior. Nor is it a superficial turning of the other cheek that leaves us feeling victimized and martyred. Rather, it is the finishing of old business that allows us to experience the present, free of contamination from the past.

Every act of kindness and compassion toward others gets multiplied when they, in turn, pass it on. One by one the world becomes a better place. Service is indeed the gift that keeps on giving.

We drop like pebbles into the ponds of each other's souls, and the orbit of our ripples continues to expand, intersecting with countless others.

The question is not if we are going to die or not, but how are we going to live.

Perhaps the hardest lesson to learn is not to be attached to the results of your actions.

To nourish the soul means to become kinder, more compassionate, wiser, and more loving, often through the making of difficult choices that foster growth rather than safety. The nourishment and growth of the soul is the very reason for human life.

Because gratification of a desire leads to the temporary stilling of the mind and the experience of the peaceful, joyful Self, it's no wonder that we get hooked on thinking that happiness comes from the satisfaction of desires. This is the meaning of the

When we are capable of living in the moment free from the tyranny of "shoulds," free from the nagging sensation that this moment isn't right, we will have peaceful hearts.

A mystic sees beyond the illusion of separateness into the intricate web of life in which all things are expressions of a single Whole. You can call this web "God, the Tao, the Great Spirit, the Infinite Mystery, Mother or Father," but it can be known only as love.

Learning to be aware of feelings, how they arise and how to use them creatively so they guide us to happiness, is an essential lifetime skill.

Some tension is necessary for the soul to grow, and we can put that tension to good use. We can look for every opportunity to give and receive love, to appreciate nature, to heal our wounds and the wounds of others, to forgive, and to serve.

Forgiveness entails the authentic acceptance of our own worthiness as human beings, the understanding that mistakes are opportunities for growth, awareness and the cultivation of compassion, and the realization that the extension of love to ourselves and others is the glue that holds the universe together. Forgiveness...is not a set of behaviors, but an attitude.

If we don't forgive ourselves for our mistakes, and others for the wounds they have inflicted upon us, we end up crippled with guilt. And the soul cannot grow under a blanket of guilt, because guilt is isolating, while growth is a gradual process of reconnection to ourselves, to other people, and to a larger whole.

Guilt is the teacher, love is the lesson.

True peacefulness comes from abandoning the illustion that satisfying desires brings pleasure.

Throughout the life cycle we consciously and unconsciously edit the events of our life, trying to give them meaning.

Forgiveness ... is the finishing of old business that allows us to experience the present, free of contamination from the past.

Keep an open mind, but don't let your brain fall out.

The stereotype of aging as a progressive loss of function is generally true only for people who stop functioning.