L.M. Browning > Quotes

“I burned by bridges so the devil couldn't follow me.”
― L.M. Browning, Vagabonds and Sundries

“Who are we without our addictions; without our media-induced hungers? So often the voices we hear echoing in our mind are not our own but that of our influencers. Isolation, while arguably going against human nature, is essential for mental and emotional health. Solitude is a detoxification of all that distorts our personality and misguides our path in life. It allows us to filter out the foreign opinions and hear our own voice—reach our authentic character—and practice fidelity to self.”
― L.M. Browning, Seasons of Contemplation: A Book of Midnight Meditations

“The moments of silence are gone. We run from them into the rush of unimportant things, so filled is the quiet with the painful whispers of all that goes unspoken. Busy-ness is our drug of choice, numbing our minds just enough to keep us from dwelling on all that we fear we can’t change. A compilation of coping mechanisms, we have become our fatigue. Unwilling or unable to cut ourselves free of this modern machine we have built, we’re dragged in its wake all too quickly toward our end. The virtue of a society’s culture is reflected in the physical, mental, and emotional health of its people. The time has come to part ways with all that is toxic, and preserve our quality of life.”
― L.M. Browning, Seasons of Contemplation: A Book of Midnight Meditations

“In lieu of letting go of our trauma and rather than healing completely, in my experience, we learn how to carry it and there are some days when it is heavier than others. Some days, I hardly know it is there, distracted as I am by present joys and excitement; while other days, the burden is cripplingly-heavy and I can hardly breathe under the weight of grief.”
― L.M. Browning, To Lose the Madness: Field Notes on Trauma, Loss and Radical Authenticity

“The purpose of a pilgrimage is about setting aside a long period of time in which the only focus is to be the matters of the soul. Many believe a pilgrimage is about going away but it isn’t; it is about coming home. Those who choose to go on pilgrimage have already ventured away from themselves; and now set out in a longing to journey back to who they are.
Many a time we believe we must go away from all that is familiar if we are to focus on our inner well-being because we feel it is the only way to escape all that drains and distracts us, allowing us to turn inward and tend to what ails us. Yet we do not need to go to the edges of the earth to learn who we are, only the edges of ourself.”
― L.M. Browning, Seasons of Contemplation: A Book of Midnight Meditations

“In the beginning we seek truth.
In the middle we seek reason.
In the end we seek peace.”
― L.M. Browning, Seasons of Contemplation: A Book of Midnight Meditations

“Being connected to everything has disconnected us from ourselves and the preciousness of this present moment.”
― L.M. Browning, Vagabonds and Sundries

“We can’t deny our journey. We can’t pretend we’re fine when we’re not. All we can do is own it—own our suffering.”
― L.M. Browning, To Lose the Madness: Field Notes on Trauma, Loss and Radical Authenticity

“We must seek out that which invigorates us, and engage it at all fronts. Art, music, literature, conversation, travel, nature—whatever it is that keeps the fire of our spirit bright—we must build our life around it; for, without our passions, the years ahead become a burden rather than a gift.”
― L.M. Browning, Seasons of Contemplation: A Book of Midnight Meditations

“I’m broken. We’re all broken and right now we’re all isolated within that brokenness. The cure for the loneliness is connection—connection with that broken part of ourselves and with each other—and we can’t achieve that connection while pretending we are okay. We’re not okay.”
― L.M. Browning, To Lose the Madness: Field Notes on Trauma, Loss and Radical Authenticity

“Shall we not recover ourselves? Shall we not redeem ourselves to one another? Shall we not restore this world?
Could we not be the generation who did what always should have been done? Who took the hard path so that humanity could be returned to the right path? Shall we not reexamine all that we choose to pursue and reconsider what will actually fulfill us?
The past has been defined by what we have done; while the present and future are decided by what we choose to do.
Shall we believe in what should be and go in search of it? Shall we believe in what needs to be and build it together?
We become more by believing that we can be more. Life becomes better when we are willing to act on the belief that it can be better.
To believe is to reach and reach is what we all must do.”
― L.M. Browning, Seasons of Contemplation: A Book of Midnight Meditations

“I no longer seek those things that help me to heal but for those things that fortify me with the strength required to carry the load fate has set upon my shoulders. Instead of finding a way to forget, find a way to bear the constant remembering. The silence of the wild being one of those elements that reinforce the weathered walls of the soul and mind.”
― L.M. Browning, To Lose the Madness: Field Notes on Trauma, Loss and Radical Authenticity

“I wasn’t empty because others abandoned me, but because I had abandoned myself.”
― L.M. Browning, Drive Through the Night

“Not a road long enough
to outrun the dawn.

Let the sun rise.
I am ready.”
― L.M. Browning, Drive Through the Night

“Now I know, you can’t change what’s happened to you or hide it, or spin it, or get over it. All you can do is hold it confidently knowing that the mistakes are yours but so too is the wisdom earned along the punishing passage. Suffering is the catalyst for transformation. The wounds don’t define us; how we went about surviving does. Oddity, in this sickened society of medicated despair, is a blessed state.”
― L.M. Browning, To Lose the Madness: Field Notes on Trauma, Loss and Radical Authenticity

“The cure for our modern maladies is dirt under the fingernails and the feel of thick grass between the toes. The cure for our listlessness is to be out within the invigorating wind. The cure for our uselessness is to take back up our stewardship; for it is not that there has been no work to be done, we simply have not been attending to it.”
― L.M. Browning, Ruminations at Twilight: Poetry Exploring the Sacred

“The divine is in the present and you must be present to experience it. When you vacate the present and recede into your mind, allowing worries or work to remove you from the moment, you leave the plain upon which the divine dwells.
When you are constantly under the anesthetic of digital distraction, you withdraw; you are no longer conscious, and therefore are in no fit state to commune with the sacred.
If you wish to hear the answers you seek, you must be present to hear them. If you wish to partake in the insights there to be known, you must be present to receive them. If you wish to know the divine, you must be present to meet it. …you must be present.”
― L.M. Browning, Seasons of Contemplation: A Book of Midnight Meditations

“There is no “letting go.” I would dare to take it further and say there is no healing from trauma. For nearly 25 years, I’ve waited to get over the traumas that have amassed across my life. The pursuit of this healing has felt a great deal like a search for God—for something elusive, divine, and that may or may not exist.”
― L.M. Browning, To Lose the Madness: Field Notes on Trauma, Loss and Radical Authenticity

“During the worst of it, onlookers who have learned my story often comment to me that, “All the hardships you suffered were part of a divine plan for your life because something good came from each bad thing.” As though a divine presence decided to teach me these great lessons through pain. I am affronted by such a suggestion because it robs me of my accomplishment by removing the element of transcendence.
I don’t believe we learn anything from suffering. If human beings inherently learned through suffering, we would be a population of enlightened beings and we’re not. We learn from suffering if and only if we manage to transcend our suffering to find meaning in what is otherwise senseless. This process of transcendence is a profoundly human one that imparts the deepest—most lasting—sense of achievement.”
― L.M. Browning, To Lose the Madness: Field Notes on Trauma, Loss and Radical Authenticity

“This is What You Shall Do and Not Do

Know your worth, know your limits, know your boundlessness, know your strengths, know your weaknesses, know your accomplishments, and know your dreams.

Be a mirror for all those who project their darkness onto you; do not internalize it. Don’t seek validation from those who will refuse to understand you. Don’t say yes, when you need to say no. Don’t stay when you know you should go. Don’t go when you know you should stay. Respond, don’t react. Behave in a manner aligning with your values.

Sleep. Seek out quiet. Don’t glorify busyness. Reignite your curiosity for the world. Explore new horizons. Be honest with yourself. Be gentle with yourself. Approach yourself as you would approach a child—with a kind tone and deep understanding. Love yourself or, at the very least, have mercy on yourself. Be your own parent, your own child, your own lover, your own partner.

Give less of your time to employment that drains you of your enthusiasm for life. Reclaim your freedom by redefining your necessities. Take that gathered energy; devote your precious life to your passions.

Unplug from the babble. Seek awe. It is the counterbalance to trauma. Do your psychological work, and don’t take any one else’s work upon yourself. Protect your peace. Listen to what your heart knows; fuck everything else.”
― L.M. Browning

“Do not hold a lazy faith. Miracles are not spontaneous events we must wait for helplessly. Miracles are an achievement—a breakthrough accomplished by those who pushed themselves beyond what was thought possible while holding a belief in a better life. Get up off your knees, and roll up your sleeves.”
― L.M. Browning

“We all have those things that help us carry on through life. It is important that these things upon which we depend for daily strength are healthy for our character rather than harmful. We must ask ourselves whether the comforts we reach for each day are vices or virtues? Do they feed the best parts of us or do they rob us of them? Even when we are at our most fatigued and are tempted to reach for self-destructive things, we must try to seek out and take solace in those things that will lead to our eventual renewal; rather than those things that will only serve to bring us lower.”
― L.M. Browning

“From time to time, we all must go unto a landscape—be it inner or outer landscape—where there are no hiding places. Allowing the stark awe and silence to aid us in both communing and confronting the depth of ourselves.
We fear emptiness because we know that within those places of nothingness we will come face-to-face with who we are and gaze into the internal mirror. But what is the alternative? Shall we go our entire life without hearing our own voice . . . without ever having met who we are when isolated from all?”
― L.M. Browning, Seasons of Contemplation: A Book of Midnight Meditations

“Be gentle, Long Night
I don’t belong here.
Thrown to the wolves,
I shifted nocturnal.

Arced up,
surrendered to
the glowing drum
of the full moon,
hear my cry.”
― L.M. Browning, Drive Through the Night

“To say I woke up one day and reached a point where I no longer cared about the pains to befall me would be a lie. Nor can I say that I have ever fully forgiven those who willfully did me harm. On a deep, internal battlefield, I wrestle with the thought that I have been robbed of any chance of normalcy by the losses suffered. Therapists and gurus alike tell us to, “Let go or be dragged,” as Zen proverb urges—to forgive for our own sake. But, in my experience, there is no letting go and forgiveness is transient. My inability to be free of it all isn’t for lack of an evolved consciousness on my part. I’ve “done the work” to process it all; rather, it is my irreconcilable, inescapable humanity that causes to clutch the pain close to me.”
― L.M. Browning, To Lose the Madness: Field Notes on Trauma, Loss and Radical Authenticity

“I wasn’t empty because I was abandoned by others, but because I had abandoned myself. Who I am was repressed—collateral damage in a longterm coping mechanism gone unchecked. My subconscious had put up partitions to contain the flood of emotion in the wake of trauma but in doing so my identity was trapped and locked away as well. Everything that is repressed would one day come forward­—without warning, without control, and without a shutoff valve.”
― L.M. Browning, Drive Through the Night

“I cannot help but come to believe, there should be a disclaimer for the soul upon entering this life stating: This will destroy you but it is not the end. Every immortal thing must die once to learn that it is immortal. One life ends but another begins.”
― L.M. Browning

“The pace of this modern age is not conducive to maintaining one’s consciousness. Glued to our electronics, we are blind and deaf to the world around us. Run down by our long work days, we are too exhausted to think and too hurried to feel. The day ends in a haze of strained thoughts, numbness, and fatigue. And we rise the next morning only to start the cycle again.
In this age of distraction, if you desire to fritter away your life with empty diversions, there is an abundance of gadgets available to aid you. Quietness is a characteristic of ages gone by. Our generation is the one it died with. Connected to the virtual world, we ignore the presence of those in our home. One can only hope we will awaken to the need for balance before we look up from the screen to find our loved ones have gone, and our life has passed us by.”
― L.M. Browning

“Take all those things that would propose to be important, and weigh them upon the scale of your soul. Asking how much each thing actually impacts, not just the moment, but the years ahead. Discard all that is trivial masquerading as significant, and reserve your days for those things that truly matter.”
― L.M. Browning, Seasons of Contemplation: A Book of Midnight Meditations

“Beware the God who seeks praise. Beware the guru who presumes to teach that which is unfixed and boundless. Beware the healer who sets a price on aid. Beware the lover who would make you a lesser version of yourself. Beware the doctrines that discourage independent thought. Beware any person of faith who doesn’t understand doubt. Filter all things through yourself. Accept only that which sits right with your soul.”
― L.M. Browning, Seasons of Contemplation: A Book of Midnight Meditations