Our sadness is an energy we discharge in order to heal. …Sadness is painful. We try to avoid it. Actually discharging sadness releases the energy involved in our emotional pain. To hold it in is to freeze the pain within us. The therapeutic slogan is that grieving is the ‘healing feeling.

We cannot heal what we cannot feel.

Guilt says I’ve done something wrong; … shame says there is something wrong with me. Guilt says I’ve made a mistake; … shame says I am a mistake. Guilt says what did was not good; … shame says I am no good.

The foundation for our self-image is grounded in the first three years of life. It comes from our major caretaker’s mirroring.

Most, if not all, problems brought to therapists are issues of love. It makes sense that the cure is also love.

Writer’s block results from too much head. Cut off your head. Pegasus, poetry, was born of Medusa when her head was cut off. You have to be reckless when writing. Be as crazy as your conscience allows.

Where you stumble, there lies your treasure. The very cave you are afraid to enter turns out to be the source of what you are looking for.
The damned thing in the cave that was so dreaded has become the center.

I have found that you have only to take that one step toward the gods, and they will then take ten steps toward you.

You must have a place to which you can go in your heart, your mind, or your house, almost every day, where you do not owe anyone and where no one owes you – a place that simply allows for the blossoming of something new and promising.