Debra Landwehr Engle > Quotes

“Honest concern for others is the key factor in improving our day-to-day lives. When you are warm-hearted, there is no room for anger, jealousy, or insecurity. A calm mind and self-confidence are the basis for happy and peaceful relations with each other. Healthy, happy families and a healthy, peaceful nation are dependent on warm-heartedness. Some scientists have observed that constant anger and fear eat away at our immune system, whereas a calm mind strengthens it. We have to see how we can fundamentally change our education system so that we can train people to develop warm-heartedness early on in order to create a healthier society. I don't mean we need to change the whole system—just improve it. We need to encourage an understanding that inner peace comes from relying on human values like love, compassion, tolerance, and honesty, and that peace in the world relies on individuals finding inner peace. —HIS HOLINESS, THE DALAI LAMA”
― Debra Landwehr Engle, The Only Little Prayer You Need: The Shortest Route to a Life of Joy, Abundance, and Peace of Mind

“Sometimes we have what we need right in front of us, but we’re programmed not to let it in.”
― Debra Landwehr Engle, Twenty

“If your heart has a story to tell, there’s a heart that needs to hear it.”
― Debra Landwehr Engle

“Digging in the dirt and shoveling manure in the corral is not going to strip off the layers of armor the first day or the second day or even the twelfth. But over time, they're part of something that they start from scratch and see through to the end. How often have they had the chance to do that? To feel like they created something? Especially something that could help keep another human being alive?”
― Debra Landwehr Engle, Grace from the Garden: Changing the World One Garden at a Time

“It's hard to believe how life sneaks up on you and accumulates until you don't even know how buried you are in the past, how much it encroaches on the present, and squeezes all the energy out of it.”
― Debra Landwehr Engle, Twenty

“Make good decisions, but don’t let your fear stop you.”
― Debra Landwehr Engle, Twenty

“While the world piles fear on top of light, our job is to remember that light within. When we do, whatever seems to conceal it ceases to exist”
― Debra Landwehr Engle, The Only Little Prayer You Need: The Shortest Route to a Life of Joy, Abundance, and Peace of Mind

“I used to think that forgiveness meant letting someone off the hook, denying that their betrayal hurt my soul. But now I can see forgiveness in a whole new light. I need to forgive myself for expecting this world, my life, to be different from how it is, to arrange itself according to my expectations.”
― Debra Landwehr Engle, Twenty

“That was when I started seeing her as a human being as well as my mom, and it was the first time I realized that we live many lifetimes within one life. Sometimes we pack up events and relationships and put them on the shelf, pushing them toward the back and closing the door on them.”
― Debra Landwehr Engle, Twenty

“As long as I was rattled, I needed rattles in my dash to help me heal. But when my thoughts were healed, the rattles were no longer needed.”
― Debra Landwehr Engle, The Only Little Prayer You Need: The Shortest Route to a Life of Joy, Abundance, and Peace of Mind

“That was the moment. That was the moment when I started to bend his strength against him, to reshape his words and meaning to hurt me since I could never, ever hurt myself enough.”
― Debra Landwehr Engle, Twenty: A Novel

“First, there's surrender: “I have a desire and don't know how to fill it. But I know you do.” Second, there's a request: “Please bring what I'm looking for to me so I don't have to go looking, because I don't know what I'm looking for anyway, and I know what you bring to me will be a thousand times better than I could imagine.” And third, there's trust: “I know my job is to have patience and go on with my life, trusting that you will deliver when the timing is perfect.”
― Debra Landwehr Engle, Let Your Spirit Guides Speak: A Simple Guide for a Life of Purpose, Abundance, and Joy

“The only way to heal old wounds is to acknowledge them, not to lock them up.”
― Debra Landwehr Engle, The Only Little Prayer You Need: The Shortest Route to a Life of Joy, Abundance, and Peace of Mind

“This is why we’re in relationships. To remember who we are. To know the love within us rather than the bitterness.”
― Debra Landwehr Engle, Twenty

“Look at death not as an ending but as a sign of continuity... We are all connecting links. And sometimes when we step out of the chain, we allow new connections that could not have happened with us there.”
― Debra Landwehr Engle, Twenty