When I Ask People When They Really Grew Spiritually, They Never Describe An Easy Time. Never.

Carmen Martín Gaite / Lo raro es vivir

Las lágrimas fluyen aún en quien intenta detenerlas, y procuran alivio al espíritu. -Séneca

You can't measure the mutual affection of two human beings by the number of words they exchange.

Milan Kundera

A veces me siento como una idiota por confiar tan fácil en las personas, por creerles cuando me muestran un poco de afecto y comprensión, cuando solo quieren obtener algo de mi a cambio de esa segunda intención disfrazada de amabilidad. Luego recuerdo que es porque tengo un buen corazón y que no debo sentirme mal por dar lo que soy y que si ellos quieren seguir aparentando lo que no son solo para que alguien les dé atención o afecto, algún día verán que solo les dejará un vacío que nunca podrán llenar a menos que tengan a alguien ahí para llenarlo por ellos.

— A. (18.04.2025)

Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.

Tony Robbins

“You can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you cannot close your heart to the things you do not want to feel.”

— Tabitha Suzuma, Forbidden

A little while, and you will see me no longer. Again in a little while, and you will see me.

John 16:16

In the long and difficult effort of spiritual recovery, the Church does not separate the soul from the body. The whole man has fallen away from God; the whole man is to be restored, the whole man is to return. The catastrophe of sin lies precisely in the victory of the flesh -- the animal, the irrational, the lust in us -- over the spiritual and the divine. But the body is glorious, the body is holy, so holy that God Himself "became flesh." Salvation and repentance then are not contempt of the body or neglect of it, but restoration of the body to its real function as the expression and the life of the spirit, as the temple of the priceless human soul. Christian asceticism is a fight, not against the body but for the body. For this reason, the whole man -- body and soul -- repents. The body participates in the prayer of the soul just as the soul prays through and in the body.

--Rev Dr. Alexander Schmemann: Great Lent - Journey to Pascha

Resilience is very different than being numb. Resilience means you experience, you feel, you fail, you hurt. You fall. But, you keep going.

Yasmin Mogahed