Quotes for Reflection
"The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change." — Carl Rogers
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response." — Viktor Frankl
"You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step." — Martin Luther King Jr.
“If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.”
—Shunryu Suzuki
Recommended Reading
The Gifts of Imperfection — Brené Brown
The Happiness Trap — Russ Harris
Man's Search for Meaning — Viktor Frankl
Atomic Habits — James Clear
The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel van der Kolk
Guided Meditation & Mindfulness
Poems of Resilience and Inner Strength
Still I Rise | The Poetry Foundation
By Maya Angelou
The Road Not Taken | The Poetry Foundation
By Robert Frost
Poems by Mary Oliver: The Chance To Love Everything | Bookmarin The Summer Day | Library of Congress
By Mary Oliver
A Psalm of Life
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,"Life is but an empty dream!"For the soul is dead that slumbers,And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!And the grave is not its goal;"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,Is our destined end or way;But to act, that each to-morrowFinds us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,And our hearts, though stout and brave,Still, like muffled drums, are beatingFuneral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,In the bivouac of Life,Be not like dumb, driven cattle!Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!Let the dead Past bury its dead!Act,—act in the living Present!Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind usWe can make our lives sublime,And, departing, leave behind usFootprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,Sailing o'er life's solemn main,A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,With a heart for any fate;Still achieving, still pursuing,Learn to labor and to wait.
Invictus
By William Ernest Henley
Out of the night that covers me,Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may beFor my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstanceI have not winced nor cried aloud.Under the bludgeonings of chanceMy head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tearsLooms but the Horror of the shade,And yet the menace of the yearsFinds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate:I am the captain of my soul.